What We’re Reading, Week of 10/26

From A Small Change…
Drowning in Agendas
A great post from Jason at A Small Change that we can all relate to. He discusses the need to balance the time that we spend meeting about a topic and actually acting on it.

From AFP Blog…
Churches connect with parishioners online
AFP posts this quick but interesting tidbit about how churches are vying for younger parishioners online.

From NTEN…
Measuring Organizational Influence In Social Media
A must-read article from NTEN about quantifying the time, effort, and resources your organization is putting into its social media program.

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 10/5

From TechSoup…
Happy Birthday, TechSoup New Zealand!
TechSoup celebrates the anniversary of their New Zealand partners and their rapid growth.

From Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog…
What Nonprofits Can Learn from Politico’s Success
Kivi takes an interesting look at the success of the Politico website and draws some interesting comparison.

From Acronym…
My Top 5 Things to Remember in 2010 as an Association Professional
Acronym takes a look to a new year and what it will take to be successful in 2010.

From A Small Change…
Eating Excellent Fundraising For Breakfast
Jason at A Small Change has some interesting and inspirational musings about the important of breakfast and successful fundraising.

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 8/17

From AFP Blog…
Super Bowl of Conventions Under Way in Toronto
This post from AFP Blog talks about the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership’s annual meeting and exposition. Dubbed the “Super Bowl of conventions”.

From Acronym…
Living through short-term pain
A fantastic article looking at the speech made by Fareed Zakaria at the ASAE closing general session and one of his final points; that “we have got to learn to impose short-term pain for long-term gain.”

From Frogloop…
Online Video: Why I’m a Believer
Changing gears, this post from Frogloop is written by a video convert. Shirley Sexton discusses her initial hesitance at jumping on the video bandwagon and what changed her mind!

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 11/10

From the AFP Blog…
FT.com / Home UK / UK – Charity begins in the office
The AFP points us to this FT article concerning corporate giving – especially appropriate as we head into the holidays, and many organizations will be leveraging workplace giving programs. In fact, we had the pleasure of sitting with Sarah Hoddinott on an interview about this very topic earlier today – stay tuned for more on that!

From TechSoup…
Nonprofit Technology and Total Cost of Ownership
TechSoup gives a great breakdown of factors to consider when determining the total cost of ownership for nonprofit technology. A must-read guide for any organization making year-end budget decisions.

From Give & Take…
Are Volunteers Useless?
Caroline Preston points us to Holden Karnofsky’s GiveWell blog, where Holden discusses the net impact of volunteers on a charity’s bottom line. Karnofsky’s somewhat controversial position is that volunteers generally cost more than they are worth to an organization. What do you think?

What we’re reading, week of 10/5

From Beth’s Blog…
Social Media In An Economic Downtown
Beth Kanter rounds up some discussion on the web of what the recession means for social media – and perhaps, how social media can help nonprofits get through it.

From Give & Take…
Donor Questions Fund-Raising Pitch
Ian Wilhelm writes about the difficulty of fundraising campaigns that promise “$X causes ______.” Certainly this positioning of a fundraising appeal captures the attention of donors… but is it realistic or honest?

From Idealware…
Build vs. Buy
Michelle Murrain discusses the old technological dilemma: build or buy? Her stance is that this dichotomy should be retired – with the state of available off-the-shelf, SaaS and open source software, “building” is for very unique cases only.

What we’re reading, week of 7/21

From Don’t Tell the Donor…
What if it doesn’t get better in 2009?
DTTD quotes a majority of economists who predict that the recession isn’t letting up any time soon, and asks readers: “How would your fundraising plans change if you knew for a fact that there would be no recovery until 2010?”

Meanwhile, over at The Fundraising Coach…
Americans continue generous giving
Marc Pitman examines results from Giving USA, which show that American charitable contributions grew 3.9 percent in 2007, despite the tough economic climate. Perhaps DTTD would explain this by saying the recession just hasn’t caught up to donors yet, and the nonprofit sector will begin to really suffer this year. What do you think?

From Micheal Stein’s Non-profit Technology Blog…
The Summertime Blues
Michael offers practical advice for nonprofit and association techies taking a summer vacation. A good read for people working in organizations with very small tech staffs.

And don’t forget to check out Frogloop…
Bring Your Idea to Life at Social Actions Wiki
They’re launching a wiki at Social Actions Labs, where readers can contribute ideas for weba pplications and mashups that would help nonprofits to perform “social actions” online.