We have two great events coming up here in Portland - the July Net Tuesday and 501 Tech Club. I’m really excited!
Net Tuesday: Effective Websites for Nonprofits
We will learn about conversion, testing your website and campaign language, and the attributes of effective nonprofit websites (especially for fundraising!). It should be a great opportunity to examine websites from organizations in the group and relate new learning. Hal Newton will be our opening presenter, but we want everyone to participate when we open it up to discussion and conversation.
Do you have resources you want to be sure are included? What about a great case study?
501 Tech Club: Municipal Wireless
Join with members of the Personal Telco Project, NTEN and the City of Portland to learn more about and discuss the history, progress, and future of municipal wireless. This is a great opportunity to hear about efforts like MetroFi and Personal Telco, as well as how you can get involved in improving your neighborhood’s networks.
If you aren’t from Portland, what have been successes or failures in your city with municipal wireless?
If you aren’t in Portland, don’t worry! I’ll be sure to share with you the conversations and resources from these two great events!
Last week was the May event for the Portland 501 Tech Club. We had a great opportunity to hear from Roger Burks of Mercy Corps who presented on the art of storytelling around and about crises. It’s an interesting topic as many organizations who work in advocacy or aid find that their work is driven and their membership engaged around crises, but it is in those times that staff time can be the most strained, causing communication to suffer.
Roger laid out a story plan for organizations to use when a disaster strikes:
- Breaking news and details (can also include stock photos of the area or maps, etc.) - Day 1
- What the organization is doing (include stock photos or any photos coming out of the area) - Day 2
- From the field reports (include personal photos/videos from place of reports) - Day 3
- Updates (includes news stories, organization involvement and field reports with any photos and videos that accompany) - Day 4 and beyond
- Real-time field journals/blogs (great ways to send out short stories, updates, photos from the field with organization staff and partners working in the field) - Day 4 and beyond
- Beneficiary stories (help tell the story of those the organization is serving/helping) - Day 4 and beyond
- Community fundraising stories (help tell the story of local people and organizations working to fundraise themselves) - Week 1 and beyond
- Partnership stories (explain how the organization is partnering with other organizations and individuals) - Week 1 and beyond
- Milestone stories (1 month, 3 months, 1 year, etc. are great time-based milestones for reporting on the situation and progress) - Month 1 and beyond
It is important to create a place on the organization’s website for those looking to donate, a button that is clear and obvious and does not navigate the user to more stories or content but to the donation form.
Sending out emails to your membership is a great way to keep them informed of the above information, but keep in mind the balance of information and asks (asks = fundraising calls). You gain loyalty from your membership (new and old) and create a presence as an information agent by providing quick and truthful news that isn’t tied to fundraising every time. Try separating your emails into news-information and updates-fundraising, where the first may include news updates, links to more information, and firsthand reports from organization staff, while the second includes information about what the organization is doing to help, how it is partnering with other organizations and individuals to be more effective and ways the membership can help (which includes donating).
Has your organization responded to a disaster either locally or internationally by integrating the website, email notifications, and staff reports? What did you find most useful in fundraising? What did you find most useful in connecting users to information?
Today was the April 501 Tech Club brown bag lunch event and we focused on some of the best parts of NTEN’s NTC which took place last month.
It was a great chance to talk between conference goers about highlights and questions and even more exciting to have folks who hadn’t been to the conference ask questions to start conversations. Some of the areas that we touched on include:
- Leadership: Technology staff have a great opportunity for developing leadership skills and helping navigate the organization, with technology-related issues as well as non-technology-related issues. It strengthens the organization to have technology staff a part of the leadership team. Likewise, it is incredibly important for execitve directors to gain technology knowledge so that when new, shiny, tools/toys come out (which seems to happen every day!), there is an understanding of what the organization can and can’t adopt and how.
- ROI (Return on Investment): Specifically that of Social ROI, for social media, is a growing body of thought and practice with lots of conversations about different ways to measure social media work that doesn’t relate specifically to fundraising dollars. The most prominent component of social media is the community building and conversational nature of the tools, so the development of ways to measure and evaluate your organization’s use of these tools is integral.
- Social Media Adoption: I was part of or overheard many conversations reinforcing the idea that organization’s can’t, and don’t have the staff/time/support/money, to adopt every tool that comes out. Instead, campaigns and projects need to be designed around the organization’s missions and then appropriate technology can be used when it is appropriate.
- Communities of Practice: It was interesting to see puddles of people form because of common job functions and experiences that transcended session tracks or table topics. Groups like IT directors, peer-to-peer fundraisers, and non-technical staff that manage or work with online tools in their campaigns. It was great seeing the offline communities form with people who only knew each other online or through other friends. It is very important for people to build their support community because so many of us work in situations where we are the only IT staff person and it can be a lonely position.
- Vendors: Many people enjoyed the opportunity to meet with and talk to vendor company representatives IN PERSON. Shaking the hand of someone from PayPal or Salesforce really changed the faceless, distant organization to companies with human employees that nonprofits can connect with.
- Mobiles: A constantly growing field in the nonprofit technology world is that of mobile technology and the changing opportunities for nonprofits leveraging the power mobiles hold for reaching out to communities in need and in crisis. It is a great field to watch, and if you are interested in learning more about mobile technology, Mobile Active is an awesome organization to check out.
If you are interested in attending the next 501 Tech Club meeting in Portland, it is May 28th from 1-2:30 at the NW Health Foundation. We will focus on ‘Storytelling in Crises’ with a presentation from Roger Burks of Mercy Corps. You can find out more and join the community online at http://groups.nten.org.
There is a lot going on lately with the use of dynamic maps online.
Firstly, Google Earth now has a layer for “placemarks” of New York Times articles. A month’s worth of stories at a time will be held for viewing and Google is open for additional partnerships with other news outlets. It is a rich way to experience your news browsing and a great way to combine many of the other layers of Google Earth’s geographically integrated information like YouTube videos and organizations. You can check it out by downloading the most recent version of Google Earth.
Also making news, is the partnership program with Google Earth and the United Nations Refugee Agency that allows for the combination of satellite maps, photos, videos and personal accounts providing an insider’s view of the crises in places like Chad, Iraq, and Darfur. You can read one of the news articles about the partnership here.
In May, our 501 Tech Club brown bag event for Portland will feature a presentation from Roger Burks of Mercy Corps: Connections in Crisis - Around the world, relief agencies are working to bring their clients the tools they need to find their loved ones. From web sites to cell phones to databases, a variety of tactics have been used. Come explore this case study from Mercy Corps whether you have attended a 501 Tech Club event before or not. They are a great place to spend your lunch hour and connect with others in the local nonprofit technology sector. You can join the affinity group online or email me with questions.
Has your organization considered using Google Earth to map its work or changes in the service area? How could you use maps to better tell your organization’s story for you?
I am still so thrilled at the high turnout and positive response we received from our three-part series on Communicating in the Age of New Media from 2007. While I hope that your year is off to a great start so far, I also hope that continuing your new media education is on your resolution list! There are two monthly gatherings starting this month to help you meet that resolution and stay connected to others in the area involved with using new technologies in nonprofits.
501 Tech Club - Brown Bag Series
I am working with NTEN to build a 501 Tech Club (http://nten.org/techclub) and make it the hottest new place to learn, connect, and CHANGE within the Portland community! To get started, you can join the Portland 501 Tech Club online to connect with all the other local folks who are talking about technology in nonprofits. The first event is coming soon: January 14th.
- Topic: Organizing your Information: RSS readers!
- Presenter: Marshall Kirkpatrick
- Location: Northwest Health Foundation, 221 NW 2nd Ave, Suite 300 (in Bamboo room) Portland, OR 97209
- Time: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
- Food: Bring your own lunch and we’ll bring some goodies!
Portland Net Tuesdays
A friend and I have teamed up to sprout a Net Tuesday monthly event here in Portland. The fourth Tuesday of each month, social changemakers and web innovators can get together to network, mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships and learn at these Net Tuesdays, produced by NetSquared, http://www.netsquared.org a project of TechSoup, http://www.techsoup.org. All those interested, involved, or employed in nonprofits and that recognize the importance and utility of technology in the sector are invited to join us for discussion and exchange. The first event is this month: January 22nd.
- Topic: Introductions, goals, topics, and open source
- Presenter: Everyone!
- Location: AboutUs.org, 107 SE Washington, 5th Floor (SUite #520), Portland, OR
- Time: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
- Food: We’ll see what we can do, feel free to bring something to share!
I hope that you will be able to attend both and I can’t wait for these engaging monthly events to start!
Let me know if you want more information on either event. I hope you are as excited as I am!
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