To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Social Media: A Bubble About to Burst – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "Are your nonprofit staffers addicted to social media? Do they feel that one day Twitter and Facebook are going to bring in the big bucks and build a huge base of activists that will come to your organization’s rescue when you need their help the most? Perhaps around passing one of the most important legislative bills in your organization’s history? Well, I wish you lots of luck and good fortune." Great piece from Allyson Kapin reminding readers that social media is "part of" a strategy. We know that tools (aka tactics) are what help us implement a strategy, not what it is built around. So we need to remember that with social media!
• Love of Philanthropy Photo Contest « Vivanista | Living Well. Doing Good. – "Join Vivanista in sharing the love of philanthropy by participating in our Love of Philanthropy photo contest that showcases images of what it means to be philanthropic." Great example of digital storytelling and community engagement. Check it out and submit a photo yourself!
• Admitting Failure – "“All my successes have been built on my failures.” – Benjamin Disraeli Human and economic development are complex. Progress requires testing, trialing and constant iteration – in short, many failures. This site is an open space for those in the international development community who want to honestly and publicly share their failures. It is a conversation and it is an archive. It aims to create a culture in the broader international development community where failure is embraced."
• Twitter’s Response to WikiLeaks Subpoena Should Be the Industry Standard | Threat Level | Wired.com – "Twitter introduced a new feature last month without telling anyone about it, and the rest of the tech world should take note and come up with their own version of it. Twitter beta-tested a spine."
• Apple’s Disdain for Philanthropy Hurts Society – Opinion – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – "Holiday season is always a time for giving—but not on your iPhone. That’s because Apple doesn’t allow nonprofits or other organizations to include a direct donation system in the phone’s applications, so the only way to give is to go to a charity’s Web site, a cumbersome process with a small phone-size keyboard. The only question: Is it a mere glitch or a natural extension of Apple’s policy that is generally indifferent to nonprofits and philanthropy? The company’s policies toward philanthropy and nonprofits are growing increasingly problematic as Apple products become an ever larger part of our media and communications landscape."

As Beth shared in your post:

“I love my iPhone,but I don’t want to support a company that is so nonprofit unfriendly.   Since none of these in-App donation challenges apply to the Android – as soon as my contract is up, I’m getting an Android.     But, since I have a few more months on my contract,  I’ve left a comment on this post asking Apple to reconsider its policy.  If you think having the ability to make in-App donations through iPhones without hefty fees or hassle – please send Steve Jobs a message now by signing this online petition.”

What do you think? Did you sign the petition – why or why not? Would love to hear from you!

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There’s been some interesting discussion about Apple, donations and This American Life‘s iPhone application lately that I want to touch on.  Not because I’m really all that invested in either pro- or anti- Apple camp, and not because I love This American Life (which I do – and yes, I have donated).  It’s because this is another example of how our tools are defining community.  (Last month’s post focused on that topic using Causes, Ideablob and Ning as references for the conversation.)  Let’s start at the beginning…

A recent conversation sparked on the Ars Technica blog focused on the use of push-notifications by the This American Life application on iPhones – the pop-up messages asked users to make a donation to the program as, it is, like other public radio/media, listener supported.  Personally, I don’t feel impassioned by the discussion because 1. notifications, pop-ups, and the ins-and-outs of what works with apps are still being figured out, 2. the user is always in control to either turn off notifications, uninstall apps, or give feedback (all of which contributes to the developers’ learning about what works and what doesn’t), and 3. public media is all about donations.

A few days ago, Jake Shapiro’s guest post appeared on the Ars Technica blog acknowledging the conversation about push-notifications but diving deeper into the real issues around the This American Life application.  This is where things start to spark for me.  In Jake’s post, he notes that Apple is essentially denying nonprofits “the most powerful direct-payment platform in the mobile marketplace” by denying access to 1-click payments. Jake suggests:

One option would be allowing in-app donations using Apple’s payment infrastructure, but this immediately runs into the next deal-breaking issue: Apple’s 30 percent cut is untenable for charities and nonprofits, and for the donors themselves.

This is where we really start to touch on the issues around the tools we use defining how we can build and connect with our communities. Taking a 30% cut of donations seems incredible.  I can’t imagine organizations or donors feeling comfortable with that deal.  As I said before, “Market” does not equal “Community”. Here’s Jake again:

I suspect the deeper reasons for Apple’s uncharitable stance is that the nonprofit and education markets are just that—“markets” that represent hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue to Apple in the form of computer, software, iPod, and now iPhone and iPad sales.

Part of what sparked my exploration of this topic a year ago was the way Causes left MySpace, without public notice and leaving organizations unconnected to supporters. Though I would love to see many improvements to Causes, they are getting better about connecting the benefiting organizations with the donors and campaigners supporting them.  Apple, though, seems to have a cripplingly closed system; here’s Jake:

The other issue gets to Apple’s broader competitive approach. If Apple permitted donations by users, it might have to change another restrictive policy: passing certain individual information to app owners/developers and content providers. Currently app developers get zero data from Apple about who buys and uses their apps, just a flat report of total downloads and resulting revenue if it’s a paid app.

In order for organizations to cultivate community, thank donors and supporters, and encourage deeper engagement, they need to be able to say thank you directly, provide opportunities to donate directly, and capture information, registration or other sign-ups directly.  The key here is that the platform (the phone) and the provider (Apple) do not represent hurdles that make that “direct” connection and action impossible.

The example of This American Life‘s application shows the crippling power that tools and providers can have on the way organizations want to define what community means and what kind of options for engagement organizations want to provide to their community.  It sparked Beth Kanter to question whether Apple or Andriod is more nonprofit friendly.

What does it mean to you? How are your tools defining the way you can work or the way you can engage with your community?