What We’re Reading, Week of 10/19

From Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog…
You! Up Against the Wall!
A great post from Kivi’s blog about how to improve your photo taking skills of volunteers and other events for use across multiple areas of your organization.

From Panopea Consulting…
Configuring the SMTP server
An interesting technical entry with helpful instructions on settings for the SMTP server used to send emails from iMIS.

From AFP Blog…
Facebook’s Gift Shop Sings A New Tune – washingtonpost.com
AFP blog posts about a new opportunity to donate via Facebook’s gift shop.

What We’re Reading, Week of 10/12

From Acronym…
What have your members taught you?
A great way to wind down week! This post from Acronym reminds us that we should not only look at what we can DO for association members, but what we can LEARN from them.

From AFP Blog…
New Video Series Helps Exempt Organizations Understand Redesigned Form 990 Requirements
AFP posted a link to a helpful video for exempt organizations that explains recent changes to the Form 990.

From NTEN…
Blog Action Day 2009 Climate Change: Technology in the Climate Movement
NTEN and 9,427 other blogs from 150 countries with 12,896,974 readers are smashing the debate  about what impact the online world has on offline action with these numbers and think about the over 12 million people around the world who are raising their consciousness about climate change. NTEN posts some highlights.

What We’re Reading, Week of 9/28

From Beth’s Blog…
How LIVESTRONG Uses Social Media To Animate Its Community
Guest blogger Brooke McMillan contributes this insightful post to Beth’s Blog, taking a look at a few tips utilized by LIVESTRONG to ensure success in the use of social media.

From Acronym…
Purpose-driven membership
What is membership? This lengthy blog post at Acronym takes a look at this somewhat existential and lofty question with some interesting thoughts.

From A Small Change…
Results Oriented Fundraising
Jason at A small Change discusses a comment left by one of his readers to an earlier post about quantifying donations and support.

What We’re Reading, Week of 8/3 part 2

From AFP: Nonprofit Technology Blog…
Nonprofits use pilot site to post events, causes
Linking to an article from Democrat and Chronicle.com, the AFP blog calls attention to the use of pilot sites by nonprofits. According to the article, over 100 nonprofits are using the “Do Good” pilot site that connects readers with information about a variety of charitable causes. It allows users to post information about events, causes, and nonprofit jobs. Tools like “Do Good” can help drum up support and interest in nonprofit activities in an easy, cost-effective way.

From Beth’s Nonprofit Blog…
Crowded Roads Ahead for Charity 2.0: How to address scaling and cause fatigue?
As the use of the internet and social media continue to expand, it’s important to address the inevitable issue of media clutter. Beth’s Nonprofit Blog discusses the recent coverage given to nonprofit clutter, and offers some insights on how organizations can continue to raise funds and promote their causes in a crowded field.According to Beth, building a movement around a cause rather than a brand, and ensuring that social media initiatives are properly scaled, will allow nonprofits to succeed amidst competition.

From Frogloop…
Is Your Nonprofit Complying with State Charity Regulations?
This week, Allyson Kapinat Frogloop blogs about the regulations that accompany online nonprofit fundraising. If a nonprofit raises money on the internet, than it needs to ensure that it is in compliance with state laws. These regulations can be complicated: for example, as Allyson points out, a charity based in one state may have to register itself in other states if the residents there make donations. Nonprofits should be aware of these rules, and should stay up-to-date on compliance.

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 6/1

From FrogLoop…
Why Nonprofits Need to Grow their Online Lists
Allyson Kapin provides some insight on why organizations ought to grow its online lists, and provides tips for non profits on how to do just so.

From A Small Change…
Fact or Stories?
“Information is always more powerful when it is connected to real people,” Jason Dick states. Nonprofits should be more personal when sharing information/news.

From Beth’s Blog…
8 Nonprofit CEOs Who Tweet
Beth lists 8 CEOs from nonprofit organizations who use twitter. She also lists the benefits of having your CEO tweeting.

“Sound Off” in Fundraising Success

An open question to our readers, via Fundraising Success…

How has the economic downturn affected your fundraising, in terms of both strategies and results?

To send responses/comments, e-mail: mbattistelli@napco.com. Responses should not exceed 100 words. Your ideas, insights and opinions could be published in an upcoming issue of FundRaising Success magazine.

We’re curious, too, particularly on the “strategies” part. Are you changing the tone of your appeals, or implementing a much larger-scale organizational change that affects fundraising? How are donors responding? Has there been any internal controversy about how best to address the economic climate? Any additional insights are encouraged in the comments section.

News about the ASI/GoLightly partnership

Earlier this week, ASI officially announced a partnership with GoLightly, a Web 2.0 leader whose technology will power a brand new iMIS module: Social Networking for iMIS. Using “SNfi,” organizations can build online communities to support activities and relationships between members, donors, and other constituents. This type of platform was discussed at length in the Chronicle of Philanthropy article we linked to last week. Needless to say, it is very exciting to be making these capabilities a reality.

David Sims has profiled the partnership in TMCnet’s Contact Center:
GoLightly, ASI Combine for Non-Profit Social Networking

Here at iOn, we’re looking forward to the ongoing contributions and commentary from our new partners at GoLightly!

Philip King featured on Frogloop

Frogloop recently published an interview with Artez’s Philip King – someone we’re quite big fans of:
Nonprofit CRM Trends Plus How to Choose an eCRM

On choosing an eCRM, Philip’s advice is to make the following considerations:

• “Ask about [the vendor's] client retention rate: I think this is key.”
• “Understand what their total cost/dollar will be this year, and for the next few years. When I say ‘total cost’ be sure you’re getting not just the prices of the technology, but also any consulting or professional services you’ll need to include.”
• “Make sure you are talking not just to references who are using their solution, but also references who have left their solution.” [Ed. note: This is a good one! -- i On Nonprofits] 
• “Understand what happens if for any reason the nonprofit wants to switch vendors in the future.”
• “Understand who owns the data. Make your potential vendor prove they are open to data imports and exports without having to purchase expensive additional APIs.”
• “Ask about their throughput: how many transactions per second can they handle.”
• “Ask about security: are they PCI Compliant (you can look this up on Wikipedia), and if so what level?”

The rest of the interview is also a great read, in which Philip discusses how to measure the effectiveness of online fundraising, which are the biggest tech trends he’s seeing on the horizon, and more.

ASI Acquires Fisk Brett

ASI Acquires Fisk Brett, Creating the UK’s No. 1 Specialist Software Provider for the Not-for-Profit Sector

This is incredibly exciting news for ASI, as the company will now step into the position of leading nonprofit software vendor in the UK – serving organizations that now include Amnesty International, Sight Savers International, The British Heart Foundation and The Alzheimer’s Society.

The executive management team for ASI in Europe will be led by managing director Niroo Rad, with Fisk Brett co-founder and managing director Robin Fisk taking on responsibility for business development and Fisk Brett co-founder and technical director Ben Brett taking on a role in product development. For more details on the acquisition, see:

Computer Business Review
UK Fundraising
Texas Tech Pulse