At a conference where I spoke recently, someone mentioned an organization who decided to drop their enewsletter in favor of RSS. I was really surprised by this and am not sure I understand (or would recommend) this strategy.

From my point of view, marketing in nonprofits (and business in general) today is about managing multiple platforms. I think that matching your message and its delivery to various channels is one of the most important skills for nonprofits to have. Using the same message across all media is not as effective as matching it to the audience. Your youth program participants may be on MySpace and your donors on Facebook, so modifying your message to these different audiences and the medium they prefer is essential. Although much of my work is around online fundraising and communications, I still believe in print. I think there is something about a print piece that people can pick up and peruse. If I am visiting someone's office I can't peruse the enewsletter you send them unless I snoop in their email. 

I appreciate the story about how when broadcast radio began, the prediction was that since people could now get news for free, newspapers would soon go out of business. Almost a century later, at least some are still in business. Different people prefer to consume information through different channels.

I recently had a chance to see the new Salesforce.com nonprofit "skin" and it is an improvement over the previous version.

I used Salesforce several years ago when I was employed at Groundspring.org. I appreciate the power and flexibility of the product. I also applaud the donation of this tool to nonprofits (though no one knows for how long it will remain free, especially if salesforce.com is bought by another company).

For organizations who have the internal technology capacity, comfort and certain needs, salesforce can be a great fit. 

What I am talking about here is not the tool itself, but that too frequently I am seeing it being recommended to small and medium sized nonprofits (for me those are orgs under $2 million budget) for whom it is completely inappropriate. I feel this is a disservice to the nonprofit community and specifically the nonprofit technology community.

For most small nonprofits, there is a huge learning curve to get up to speed with the product in any meaningful way. If an organization has never used an integrated data system, it can be overwhelming for staff. Configuration of the software beyond the basics can be incredibly complex - it is not something most small organizations have the capacity to handle well without spending considerable amounts on consulting.

If you have experience with a tool or your organization decides to focus on one tool as a primary solution, that does not mean it is right for all of your clients. It hurts the nonprofit technology community when nonprofits put their trust in organizations and individuals who recommend a tool that isn't appropriate for their client.

More than once I have heard about a nonprofit support organization that seems particularly prone to this behavior. Let’s hope it doesn’t continue - knock on wood.

Do the work that we know is necessary:

    * DEFINE and articulate the organization's data management needs

    * COMPARE needs against tools to find the closest fit

    * DECIDE based on the org's comfort, skills, resources and capacity

    * Choose a tool based on data - not your skill set

Related Resources:

Idealware’s Reports on Data Management and CRM systems

TechSoup's Learning Center: Databases

Robert Weiner’s Database Selection and Management Resources

One of my favorite Australian CEO's Lisa Harvey of Energetica, is participating in the St. Vincent de Paul Society's CEO Sleepout to "raise awareness, raise money and rise to the challenge of homelessness".

CEO's from around Australia are going to be sleeping outside in Sydney's Luna Park on June 18th. More information is available on the CEO Sleepout website.

Not only do I thik it is a great thing she are doing, it is an interesting concept for nonprofits to consider about bringing the realities of homelessness - and other areas of focus - "home" to people in a concrete fashion.

Lisa has already raised AU$370, please consider joining me in supporting her in this event. Here is the link to Lisa's individual giving page on the site:

Lisa's Page

I was fortunate this week to participate in the Executive Leadership Institute, presented by the University of Michigan's School of Social Work and Ross School of Business in collaboration with the Alliance for Families and Children. There were a variety of human services leaders there to improve their skills in both management and leadership. I presented for half a day, covering nonprofit technology essentials including planning, budgeting, data management, the internet and social media/web 2.0. 

The last week of April I attended and presented at Penguin Day, NTC and Policy Day. Along the way I did some sessions, found out about some interesting projects, tools and websites. Here is a random collection:

Penguin Day

NTC 2009

Beth Kanter's Session: Mapping Social Media Strategy To Metrics: Listen, Learn, Adapt

Red Cross: "We are mentioned in various social media platforms over 400 times a day, so LISTENING is the foundation of what we do in social media"

A well-known internet domain registration service conducted a "conversation analysis" to see how many comments/mentions of their brand on blogs were positive and how many were negative. When they first looked, 85% of comments were negative. They made a concerted effort to counter some of the mis-information that had been spread, engaged more effectively with social media - including dropping the time it took them to respond to blog posts from 48 hours to 4 hours. The result was that negative posts dropped to 18% of all mentions.

Check out Feed.informer.com and www.NetVibes.com to help manage feeds from various sources to assist with listening.

Check out Hashtags.org to see trends in what people are tagging/talking about on Twitter.

Check out www.Radian6.com as a social media monitoring solution


My Session: Website Usability Testing for Smaller Orgs

My guest speakers, Johanna Bates from Community Partners and Maryann Osmond from Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur did an excellent job sharing stories of their experiences revising their websites based on their audiences, including testing the usability. Thanks to them both.

My Session: Effective Online Communications

Jennie Anderson of Aids.gov and William Neuheisel of DC Central Kitchen shared valuable experience and advice about how they communcate effectively online. Jennie's colleague Michelle Samplin-Salgado did a blog post mentioning the sesssion: Click here to read the post. 

Thanks to Jennie and William for adding their valuable real-world experiences. 

CBO Policy Day

I did a presentation on using Web 2.0/Social Media tools for Advocacy. A few good examples of advocacy/policy websites:

www.350.org - International Day of Climate Action

www.1sky.org - 1 Climate, 1 Future, 1 Chance (great "Get Local" section)

Twelve year old Mimi Ausland from Bend, Oregon has provided over 50 tons of food to needy animals in shelters through two websites she created.

In 2008, after learning about the food shortages many animal shelters face, Mimi - with help from her parents and months of research and planning- created the websites freekibble.com and freekibblekat.com. Her efforts prompted Castor and Pollux, a Portland, Ore. pet products company, to donate 10 pieces of kibble for every answer to the animal trivia questions Mimi posts on her site. Visitors to the site not only help contribute food but learn something about animals in shelters.

Since April of 2008 she has provided over 713,000 meals to hungry dogs and cats. She has become the sole supplier to 11 shelters nationwide. In the fall of 2008 she was honored by the ASPCA with their "Kid of the Year" award for her efforts. Mimi is one of a new breed of "online evangelists" who promote good causes, often independently, not as agents of the organizations they support.

Judith Sol-Dyess was touched by the people she saw who lived at the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, where she works as the Sr. Director of Information Systems.

Judith created a simple yet effective website called Project30W named for the buildings address, 30 W Chicago Ave. Although the building is her office, for many it is their home.

On the site she shares her experience of her neighbors along with portraits of them, showing their humanity and giving viewers a window into the lives of people who live a that Y. Even though she is an employee, Judith is sharing her personal experience and suggesting people make donation to help support the people she now knows as friends.

These are two examples of individuals motivated to help a cause on their own using the online medium. How do you excite your supporters and motivate them to spread your message online?

The Nature Conservancy has been using Flickr for their annual digital photography contest for the last 3 years, with some impressive results. The organization realized that a lot of their supporters were also photographers of nature. Meeting their supporters where a lot of them already were online, on Flickr, they were able to tap into the populatrity of the site.

TNC now has over 10,000 members of their Flickr group, one of the largest to date. Thousands of photos have been submitted and hundreds of new e-news subscribers have been gained with every annual contest.

Beth Kanter has a great interview with Nature Conservancy staff members Evan Parker and Susan Citro about how the organization is using Flickr, click here to read it.

With mobile phones being more ubiquitous every day, mobile technology is offering nonprofits another medium to connect with supporters and receive donations. I had a chance to take a tour of Mobile Commons recently and got an idea of what the tool offers.

Organizations can customize the codes or words that people text in. This is great for customizing for a campaign, such as "Text "ACTION" to XXXXX to request activist alerts".

The three primary actions nonprofits can offer are:

To register for updates via text or email
A prospect can text a code to a number to register for updates via text and/or text their email address to register for email updates. Organizations can provide or request additional information in subsequent text messages.

To get or provide information
Organizations can construct conversations via text. For example, once someone is subscribed for updates, they could be offered a choice of update topic, for example, or be asked to provide additional information like zip code. 

Mobile users can request information. Organizations can set up codes that send specific information. For example texting "banana" to a number would provide nutritional information or texting your senators name could provide their voting record on a certain issue.

Sending in responses is also possible. People can type in the answer to a question and those responses can then be displayed online so others can see the answers.

To make donations
Via a text message, supporters can donate $5 which is charged to their mobile phone bill. The ability to donate $10 is also soon to be an option.

From my point of view, currently these options seem best suited primarily to organizations with a statewide or nationwide presence and who are able to invest the over $400 per month for the service. For those groups this creates an exciting opportunity to engage with new audiences, including youth and lower income populations who may not have access to a computer, but do have a mobile phone.

To learn more, there are some excellent case studies done by my good friend Michael Stein and others on the MobileActive.org site.

See YouTube for several PSA's featuring or focused on texting:

AUA NFL SuperBowl Video Text to Donate

Mary J Blige FFAWN Text Message Donation

Rocky Mountain PBS Text to Donate

Rock the Vote - Getting out the Vote Through Cell Phones

USA Cares- Mobile Giving PSA

Doctors Without Borders Times Square Spot

In this one-hour session with Network for Good's Katya Andresen, I talk about the essential elements of a good online fundraising plan and how to respond to the reduction in resources most nonprofits face in 2009.

Listen to the Audio (mp3)

Download Transcript (pdf, 72kb)

Download the Outline (pdf, 52kb)

Download a Sample Online Fundraising Plan (pdf, 92kb)

Thanks to Katya, Rebecca Higman and everyone at Network for Good for inviting me - and for sharing these with everyone as a free resource.

On March 3rd, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America (St. Martin’s Press) by Nathaniel Frank will be released. The book is the definitive story of the current ban on gays in the military, but it also contains surprising stories about the appallingly dishonest process that created that policy and about the hidden costs of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” It is also a deeply personal meditation on what it means to live in a country where federal law represses the expression of who we are—a reality which affects gays and non-gays alike.

“Send UNFRIENDLY FIRE to Congress!” invites you to buy yourself a book and have a second copy sent—at half price—to Capitol Hill. The two books together cost under $39, and it couldn’t be easier: just make the purchase online, and wait for your book (it will ship March 3). When we reach our goal of buying books for all 542 members of Congress, Nathaniel will drive a station-wagonful of books to Washington amidst much fanfare. Click on the widget below for more info and to order.

Praise for Unfriendly Fire

“Brings light, not heat, to the debate.” - Andrew Sullivan

“Builds a solid case that the ban on gays in the military is not only wrong, it is endangering the country.” - Kirkus Reviews

“A beautifully written and brilliantly researched book… practically every page provides genuine reading pleasure.” - Charles Kaiser, The Gay Metropolis

“Should be mandatory reading for anyone with an interest in the state of our society or the readiness of our military.”  - General John Shalikashvili, former Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff