What We’re Reading, Week of 7/27

From Frogloop…
Taking Advantage of Wikipedia
Millions of people look to www.wikipedia.org as a starting point when they are searching for information about specific topics. Allyson Kapin of Frogloop encourages nonprofits to bear this in mind, and to create or update their organizations’ Wikipedia entries. She writes that Wikipedia can be a powerful promotional and educational outlet. As Wikipedia becomes ever more fixed in the internet culture, nonprofits should be aware of its potential uses.

From the Nonprofit Communications Blog…
The First 100 Hours: Turning Media Spikes Into Fundraising Leads
Kivi Leroux Miller’s post discusses the importance of turning media coverage into fundraising leads. According to Kivi, media coverage of an organization will lead to a window of roughly 100 hours of increased traffic and search engine hits. This time frame represents an opportunity to raise funds and increase interest. Kivi recommends using customized search ads, a strong landing page devoted to the issue that brought media attention in the first place, and social media. It is important for nonprofits to strike while the iron is hot, and media attention represents a prime opportunity to generate awareness and bring in revenue.

From AFP: Nonprofit Technology Blog…
Twittering for a cause: Web 2.0 and its philanthropic impact
Linking to a post from The Daily Tell, the AFP Blog discusses the impact that Web 2.0 has had on philanthropy. In particular, the post discusses how Twitter has become a fundraising avenue. Through campaigns such as “Tweetsgiving” and “tweet4good”, Twitter users have proven that they are generous to charitable causes. As the use of social media for charitable causes spreads, nonprofits that are not currently taking advantage of social media ought to find ways to get into the game soon.

What We’re Reading, Week of 6/15

From AFP Blog: Nonprofit Technology…
Micropayments: Where Charity and Social Networks Meet – BusinessWeek
Linking to an article in BusinessWeek, the AFP Blog discusses a new form of philanthropy—Micropayments. Despite some of its hurdles, it will be interesting to see how its connection between charities and social networks will shape philanthropy.

From TechSoup…
Tips for Designing (or Redesigning) a Nonprofit Web Site
Designing a visually thought-out, informational website can be difficult. Chris Murphy offers tips to polish off your website—most important (and our favorite) no.1, Preliminary conversations. It’s important making sure all stakeholders are involved in the process.

From NTEN…
Cloud Computing 101: What You Need to Know
Not sure what exactly the cloud is? Rem Hoffmann and Rob Jordan provide organizations a quick 101 on cloud computing, and offer case studies of organizations that are using the cloud successfully.

Has Philanthropy Seen Better Days?

A recent BusinessWeek article tells the tale of nonprofits in distress – charitable contributions shrinking, food bank inventories dwindling, and a nation of donors whose own economic prospects are looking too grim to allow them to support social service organizations. The idea for this article was suggested by ASI’s Sarah Hoddinott, and it speaks to what seems to be a growing concern in the nonprofit sector: What does the recession mean for us?

But did BusinessWeek get their story straight? I recall a conversation with Philip King on this topic that raises some doubts. Philip suggests that while the fear of a recession-spurred nonprofit crisis is a reasonable one, history doesn’t bear it out in reality. During the leanest economic times, the recorded rates of charitable giving have not suffered in the way one might expect. Philip says that there are two possible reasons for this:

1. Charitable giving is essentially different than consumer spending. Donors are not as motivated to give due to their own prosperity as they are due to empathy, agency, and a sense of community. Along with a harsh economic climate often comes an acute community awareness of local and distant suffering, and with that, an increased motivation to give.
2. At this moment, online and social philanthropy is still growing at a rate fast enough to outpace any slow-down in traditional giving… and this may well continue to be the case throughout the current recession.

Did BusinessWeek get it wrong? Is Philip out of his mind? Do you think the recession will hurt certain parts of the nonprofit arena more than others? And is charitable giving really another animal altogether, or just “one more type of spending”?