Articles

Neither “snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” might stay the U.S. Post Office’s couriers from delivering the mail entrusted to them, but it’s a cold fact of the digital world that email has no such steadfast guardians. Some electronic mail will simply never reach its destination—it might go to a bad address, get caught in a spam filter, or routed to a “junk” folder where it’s deleted or overlooked. This can be frustrating for nonprofits who work hard to nurture a list of email addresses. 

(This article was originally published in the December issue of the NTEN:Change journal.) Since most organizations don’t track just one type of constituent, the idea of a single database for all of them—donors, volunteers, clients, email subscribers, advocates and everyone else—is something of a holy grail. The ability to easily see how all your constituents interact with your organization, and with each other, makes for an attractive, ideal vision of what a database should be. 

Advocacy organizations often encourage their grassroots supporters to influence politicians and corporations using different methods, from promoting a cause or opposing legislation to challenging ad campaigns or policies. A large display of public opinion can have a powerful message, and advocacy groups often help to focus and channel this support to make the most impact.

It’s been six years (almost to the day) since I incorporated Idealware as a nonprofit. At the time, the idea of providing impartial info to help nonprofits choose software was more of an aspiration than a reality. But 15 reports and well more than 100 articles later—and about 60,000 nonprofits helped—it’s humbling to look back on the real impact Idealware has had on the ability of nonprofits to make smart software decisions.

(This article originally appeared on Third Sector New England's site.) If you post a message on Twitter and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a noise? The fact is, there isn’t much reason to tweet if you don’t have an audience—a fundamental truth of all social media channels.

(First published in the September issue of the NTEN: Change journal.) Social media has provided nonprofits with a whole new toolbox for marketing themselves and engaging constituents.

 What is a guerilla video? What does it take to make a video? This diagram will give you a crash course in film school, walking you through the steps to make your own video without breaking the bank.

Click here to view the diagram.

Sure, you’re on Facebook. Twitter, too. Maybe you have a blog. You put a lot a lot of work into keeping them fresh and updated with pertinent, interesting posts. But aside from the few comments you get now and again, how do you know if anyone is listening to what you have to say?

Accepting payments by credit card is not necessarily difficult or expensive. We provide some tips and tools to process credit card transactions, both on- and offline, for organizations of all sizes. 

An association management system can be a huge help in tracking your members, newsletter subscriptions, special gifts, invitations to events and workshops, discounts on products and services, and more. We asked a number of different nonprofit experts about the systems that have worked for them.

The Google Apps donation program provides organizational email, calendaring and document sharing as a free alternative to Microsoft Outlook. How do the two applications compare in the face of typical nonprofit needs?

Petitions and pledges provide ways to effect change by letting people add their names to a particular cause to show the amount of support for it. They can also help your organization build a list of people interested in its causes. So how do you implement these measures?

Staff training and development can pay dividends for any organization, but because of the cost and logistics involved, they're often overlooked or ignored. Traveling to offsite trainings and conferences is expensive, and the nature of today's geographically-diverse staffs can make onsite training a challenge. Technology can overcome many of these difficulties in many cases, without significant expense. A number of viable methods for professional development online make it likely your organization can find one that works.

Can software help your board collaborate more effectively?  It likely can -- potetnially, anything from scheduling meetings to share documents or even to meet online.  This Idealware article was written for the inaugural issue of NTEN: Change, the new quarterly publication of the NTEN. Thanks to NTEN for their support.

There's a lot of talk these days about privacy issues on Facebook.  What does that mean for you as an organization?  The issues for an organization are different than those facing an individual—but still absolutely something you should be thinking about.  This article was funded through the Idealware Research Fund, with the support of people like you.  Thank you!

Despite the increase in popularity of email, social media and other online networking tools, organizations still depend on the telephone for a good portion of their communications. But telephone service has gone through some dramatic changes, and the options for purchasing a new voice communications system are more numerous than ever before—and more confusing.  

eLearning modules -- multimedia modules that provide students information in an interactive, multimedia-rich way -- can be an interesting way to teach staff or constituents.  But how do you create them?  There's a whole class of software packages that help you create the core elements like text, graphics, narration, animation, and interactivity.  

For a while, nonprofit organizations' choice of office suites was limited to Microsoft Office or... Microsoft Office.  But over time, a viable open source option has emerged: OpenOffice.org. Should you consider OpenOffice? Will it make sense for your users and organization? In this article, updated in July 2010, we compare Microsoft Office 2010 to OpenOffice.org 3.2.

Are your online communications working?  How can you tell?  In this article, we talk through four types of measures-- Views, Followers, Engagement, and Conversion-- that help you track your efforts to see if they're worthwhile.  

Chances are, your organization has a website. Perhaps you also send out broadcast emails, or maintain a blog, Twitter or Facebook account. Is the effort you’re putting into online communications working? How can you tell?

What tools can help you collect donations via credit card through your existing website?  In this adaptation and update of our 2005 report, we look at the considerations and the options for taking online donations.

One of our most popular articles, fully updated March 2010. Email newsletters, action alerts, or fundraising emails can be a very cost effective way to communicate with your supporters, but it can be complex to send and track thousands of emails. We talked to eleven nonprofit technology experts to find out what eNewsletter tools have worked well for them.

It's easy for your organization to get overwhelmed with data. Executive dashboards can provide an overview of your organizational health at a glance. But how do you actually create one? We provide three examples of nonprofit dashboards.

Email fundraising is a technique that’s within the reach of the smallest organization.  This article walks you through the basics: how to design a campaign, write emails, build an email list, select software to send email and take online donations, and measure the results.

How can online friend-to-friend fundraising help you to raise money and engage your staff and volunteers? This detailed case study looks at how one small school raised $3000 from mostly new donors with a minimal investment.

Through HIPAA, the US government provides a set of instructions and guidelines for working with patient health data. What you should look for to ensure that a software package will comply with the HIPAA standards? We asked a number of experts and rounded up their answers.

Nonprofits have a lot of choices when it comes to communications - from direct mail, to websites, to social networking sites and more. With Spam on the rise and open rates down, what role should email play in a successful communications strategy - and when should nonprofits choose to use it?

The Internet gives you access to a virtual smorgasbord of information. From the consequential to the trivial, the astonishing to the mundane, it's all within your reach. This means you can keep up with the headlines, policies, trends, and tools that interest your nonprofit, and keep informed about what people are saying about your organization online. But the sheer volume of information can pose challenges, too: namely, how do you separate the useful data from all the rest? One way is to use RSS, which brings the information you want to you.

New donor management software will improve your life, solve all your organization’s problems and make all your goals a reality. Right? And it comes with prime waterfront property in the Everglades. This last sentence is only slightly less true than the first, but we take it as common wisdom. In fact, many non-profits change systems when they don’t need to, for the wrong reasons, or in an ineffective manner—and sometimes all of the above!

If you’re looking for software tools that can help your group collaborate, you’ll find a lot of options. There are many different types of solutions that support many different types of needs. This article compares your options.

If you need an inexpensive software tool that’s not particularly strategic for your organization, traditional software selection techniques can seem awfully complicated. Here’s a simplified six-step process that can help when you just need to make a simple choice quickly.

Open source software applications are becoming an increasingly viable alternative to vendor provided commercial software. Jeff Walpole explores the differences between these types of software, and the pros and cons of each alternative.

You already know the value a good email campaign can bring to your nonprofit, whether it is an eNewsletter, or email advocacy and fundraising appeals. But how can you tell if your electronic communications are actually having the impact you hoped for? Is the work you’re putting in worth the effort? Email metrics can help you determine the effectiveness of your communications and fine tune them to improve their efficiency.

If your photo needs to be cropped, adjusted, or reformatted, how can you get it ready for publication in print or the web? We spoke to five nonprofit technology and creative professionals about the photo-editing tools that have worked for them and their organizations.

A Constituent Relationship Management can help track of all the ways that you interact with each of your supporters. But what does it take to implement one? Does it have to cost an arm and a leg? What changes will your organization need to make to support it? We look at four different organizations' CRM stories.

Managing all the dates, documents, tasks and people associated with a project can be daunting, but online project management software can help. We present three case studies of nonprofits who have used packages like Basecamp, Central Desktop and Trac to help manage real projects.

If you want your site to show up prominently in search engines like Google, your website content management system can help - but not all CMSs are created equal. We suggest the features to look for to help with search engine optimization. 

Documenting your organizational procedures can be a big help, but this information often languishes in obscurity and goes slowly out of date. Jeremy Wallace talks about how wikis - easily editable websites - can help.

Most organizations have (or at least should have!) internal documentation that outlines procedures, best practices, and tips to help make everyone’s job easier. For instance, an organization might write up:

Successful online communities require more than a software package. In this article, we outline the strategies and features that can help you build online message boards, social networks, or other conversation based sites that become vibrant, useful communities.

Acquiring software for very little money — or even getting it for free! — can feel great. Yet is that bargain really a bargain? Learn how to assess whether that affordable software package is a great deal or a lemon.

Online integrated applications allow nonprofits to manage a number of different aspects of their constituent information and Web presence all together in one package. Eric Leland took a close look at eight packages to compare their functionality in a variety of areas.

Secure, staff-only websites, called intranets, are widespread in the business world and increasingly common among nonprofits. What are NPOs doing within these private Web sites? What are the benefits, and the costs? We profile three different administrative intranets.

When you’re using enterprise software to help run your organization, the software vendor becomes a key ally – and the right relationship may be as important as features or price. Steve Lancman and Steve Heye recommend methods for comparing the intangible aspects of vendor services.

Information and communication technologies can be a huge aid in the effort to build lasting peace, by helping people communicate, view information, make decisions, and understand each other better. Teresa Crawford and Skip Cole give a tour of the possibilities.

Constituent Relationship Management can help to provide an important 360° view of your constituents. However, an effective technology solution requires a detailed understanding of your constituents and processes. Paul Hagen explains, in Part One of a two part series exploring the issues behind CRM.

Screencasts – movies that capture tasks performed on a computer – can be powerful communication and training tools, and you don’t need to be a Hollywood filmmaker to create them. Beth Kanter walks through why screencasts are useful, how to create them, and some of the software tools that help in the process.

Integrating all your constituent tracking applications so they can share data is highly desirable, but how should you go about it? We walk through the pros and cons of three basic methods of integrating data: Manual Import/ Export, Integrated Packages, and Automated Connectors.

It can be hard to understand how online payment processing works. Many different steps and a lot of jargon make it seem more complicated than it is. To help you see the big picture, we’ve laid out a typical payment process in diagrams.

Here’s the whole diagram – but don’t worry, we’ll break it down.

Limited budgets don’t have to substantially limit your online advocacy possibilities. Alan Rosenblatt describes the new generation of online tools that help organizations of any size cope with the increasingly complicated internet world.

New online participatory tools like blogs, YouTube, and MySpace can be powerful and valuable – if they mesh with your goals. Colin Delany walks through the benefits and costs of common participatory tools and suggests which are likely to be useful for you.

You may have seen signs that knowledge isn't flowing easily through your nonprofit: Staff can't find documents, or research things that others already know, and decisions are made without full information. Software can't solve all your problems, but it can probably help.

It's a challenge to manage information about all your organization’s constituents.  But this challenge is common to both commercial companies and nonprofits. A strategy borrowed from the commercial sector has been gaining popularity in the nonprofit sector over the last couple years: CRM.