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).

• Attention Data Nerds: Nonprofits Miss Out on the Power of LinkedIn: Learn How to Tap It | Beth’s Blog – Geri Stengel has a great guest post on Beth's blog. "Whether connected or cold calling, you can build long-term, valuable relationships using LinkedIn. Find out how easy it is. LinkedIn isn’t some stodgy place where people post their resumes. It’s a no- to low-cost database that is a rich source of information about potential major donors, board members, employees, and strategic allies." Would love to hear what you're doing on LinkedIn and how your organization has or has not found LinkedIn valuable!
• Blackbaud and Convio Now One Company – "Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB) today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Convio, Inc., a leading provider of on-demand constituent engagement solutions. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Blackbaud paid an aggregate purchase price of approximately $325 million. Blackbaud financed the deal through a combination of cash and borrowings from its credit facility. “This is an exciting day for the Blackbaud and Convio teams. Together, we can build better solutions for nonprofits, and that’s what drives us,” said Marc Chardon, Blackbaud’s chief executive officer. “Convio’s strengths in online and social marketing, and subscription and cloud-based offerings complement ours, and will accelerate our ability to deliver more to the nonprofit sector.”"
• Charities May Soon Get a Way to Seek Bigger Text Gifts – Prospecting – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – "Donors who give through mobile text messages could soon have the options of giving a larger donation and setting up repeat text gifts, say the leaders of two of the organizations that oversee text giving in the U.S. and Canada. Jim Manis, chief executive of the Mobile Giving Foundation, and Bernard Lord, chairman of the Mobile Giving Foundation Canada, said in an interview that they are working with some cellular service providers to allow $20 donations—double the current $10 limit—and recurring donations, though they gave no timeline on when those features would be available."
• Get more donors with free fundraising lessons and ideas – I love this new free series from Causevox – get a video a week filled with great information and actionable tips to help improve your fundraising right away. I don't even primarily focus on fundraising and I'm finding it really valuable!
• The A/B Test: Inside the Technology That’s Changing the Rules of Business | Epicenter | Wired.com – This is a terrific case study in the power of a/b testing on your websites – be it organization site, microsite, campaign pages, or even fundraising pages – to question everything and find what really works. Every time I do testing, I see the same thing that they note here: my instincts are wrong. We over-think things and the best way to stop is by testing!

With so many incredible videos submitted to this year’s contest it was no easy task, but judges in the 6th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards have narrowed down the field of entries to 16 finalists. Now, the YouTube community has the opportunity to get involved and cast their vote for the best nonprofit videos of the past year.

The 16 finalist videos can be watched on the Contest homepage. Participation is easy: just select your favorite video or videos in each category. You can vote once per day. Don’t forget to tell your friends and social media buddies to do the same.

>> Vote on the 6th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards!

Winners will be announced on April 5, at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco. It’s a great finale to the whole awards program and we anticipate a really exciting finish. Contest Sponsor Cisco, will be awarding $3,500 in prizes and up to $3,500 in products to the winner of each category, and the Case Foundation is awarding one $2,500 grants to the four organizations with the most fearless videos submitted to this year’s contest. In addition, the winners of each category will receive free registration to next year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference. Oh, and each winning organization will have their video featured on the YouTube homepage on April 5th!

For nonprofits, video is a great way to share your mission, get out a message and tell the stories of the people and issues you support. The medium educates, inspires and moves people to action. The DoGooder Awards recognizes nonprofits that understand this and are going the extra mile to create media that moves important causes forward.

The excitement is moving to a finish! Check out the finalists and lend your vote to the video that moves you.

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).

• This is What a Librarian Looks Like – I love this example of a Tumblr blog used for a perspective-changing campaign. It's a great case study of how individuals and start and drive a campaign and the way that a concept can translate across cultures and countries.
• 12 Digital Fundraising Trends for 2012 – "Back at the start of January I set myself the target of publishing twelve posts on trends I think are going to prove important to digital fundraisers this year – both as a means of kick-starting my own thinking after the holiday season and to help inform your planning considerations at this key time in the year." Check out the 12 Trends, from Personalized Video Thanking to Ebooks to Digital Fundraising Staffing!
• NTEN’s Technology Leadership Academy Returns for 2012 – "We're excited to announce that the Technology Leadership Academy is returning in 2012. Even better, thanks to the generous support of Google and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we're able to offer the Academy at no charge to qualifying organizations. The Academy gets at the very heart of what NTEN does. We believe that with improved tech leadership, nonprofits like yours will provide more and better programs, inspire more communities, and involve more volunteers to share their time." The deadline to apply for the next learning group is February 24th!
• Digital Storytelling Challenge from TechSoup – "TechSoup’s annual Digital Storytelling Challenge (TSDigs), powered by Lights. Camera. Help., combines professional instruction and friendly competition into a hands-on media-making project." Learn more about the various educational programs planned and how to submit either your one minute video or five photo presentation to the competition!
• INFOGRAPHIC: The Rise of the Planet of the Apps | App Annie – This infographic and accompanying data is a great overview of the changing landscape of mobile applications around the world. It's also a great example of how infographics can help illustrate data, but coupling them with more complete narrative can ensure readers really understand what the data is saying.
• 2011 Online Giving Report – “'2011 did not have the 35% year-over-year growth rate in online giving that happened in 2010, but online fundraising did not lose its mojo,' said Steve MacLaughlin, co-author of the Report and Blackbaud’s director of Internet solutions. 'Every sector in the analysis has had double-digit growth since 2009, but as with all large numbers, the bigger the overall percentage gets, the slower it tends to grow.'In 2011, online giving was up 13% on a year-over-year basis when large International Affairs organizations are removed from the analysis. International Affairs is the only sector that didn’t experience positive growth in 2011, due to the tremendous amount of online giving in 2010 in response to the Haiti earthquake. When these organizations are included in the analysis the overall online fundraising growth rate drops to 0.3%."

Are you a nonprofit? Did your organization create impactful videos in 2011? Do you want your organization to be recognized for making great videos and maybe win some incredible prizes? Perfect.

The 6th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Contest is taking submissions starting February 1st. The contest is presented by YouTube and See3 Communications and generously sponsored by Cisco and us, NTEN. We’re seeking out and celebrating the best videos that nonprofit organizations have created to advance their missions using this powerful medium to create meaningful change for the better.

So what do the winning nonprofits get for participating?

The four best videos will each receive:

• $3,500 in prize donations
• An additional gift of up $3,500 (US) worth of Cisco products to help each winning org harness the power of human and technology networks to multiply their impact on the people and communities they serve.
• Free registration to the 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference, provided by NTEN.

This year’s contest features a special category for all orgs, regardless of size: “Best Video Storytelling” will celebrate videos that employ narrative and tell the real, human stories of people, organizations, and issues.

The winning videos will be announced at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference and featured on YouTube’s homepage on Thursday, April 5th.

You read that right: the winning videos will be featured on the YouTube homepage.

At the end of last year’s contest, the winning videos received almost 1 million new views after being featured there for just one day.

For nonprofits, video is a great way to share your mission, get out a message, and tell the stories of the people and issues you support. The medium educates, inspires, and moves people to action. The DoGooder Awards recognizes nonprofits that see the importance of this. This contest is meant to show nonprofits of all sizes they can win by making video part of their communications strategy.

Organizations are more video savvy than ever. Last year’s contest had nearly 1,400 entries from 821 organizations in 4 countries. There were 24,000 votes cast by the public and a surge of views on YouTube for the entrants. That’s encouraging, but 2012 is a new year and the contest organizers want to make sure as many amazing nonprofits enter as possible.

Here are some details to get you started:

• Submissions for Best Small, Medium, and Large nonprofit organization as well as Best Video Storytelling must be videos made between January 1st 2011 and February 29th 2012 . Each nonprofit can submit as many videos as they would like, but the contest encourages only the best work from each organization.
• Entries cannot exceed 10 minutes in length and are limited to nonprofits from the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. See contest rules here.
• All nonprofits are welcome to enter their video. There are no specific types of missions we are looking for. The contest is about recognizing nonprofit organizations for outstanding use of video to create meaningful positive change.
• You can submit your videos from February 1st until February 29th. Tell your friends at other orgs to submit as well!
• Starting March 14th, voting is open to the public, so be sure to share the word (Email, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, etc.).
• Important: Your organization MUST be a member of the YouTube Nonprofit Program. If you’re not already,make sure that’s the next thing you do after you read this post (it’s quick, easy and free to eligible orgs). If you’re picked as a semifinalist in the contest, YouTube will make sure your organization’s application for membership is approved in time to be eligible for public voting.

Start thinking about which creative, compelling, and interesting video your nonprofit wants to submit, then plan to rally your supporters to vote in March. Good luck!

This message is cross-posted from the NTEN blog.

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).

• Don’t assume everyone is offline | DavePress – "When I’m talking at events or to meetings of people within an organisation about the benefits of moving communications and engagement activity online, I often have someone put their hands up and say: 'I totally get what you are saying, Dave, but the problem is that we can’t move all this stuff online, because not everyone has access to the web.' There are two responses I usually give here. One is the most obvious and slightly boring, which is that online engagement is an as-well-as, and not an instead-of. Keep doing the offline stuff for the offline people! I might also ask at this point, however, ‘what are you doing to fix this?’. In other words, if a large number of people in an area haven’t the access or the skills to use the internet – what are local public services doing to get this fixed?"
• Kiss Malaria Goodbye – I really like the use of video and the compelling message/ask in this campaign: kiss! I wonder, though, when looking at the campaign information and actions if participants or potential-participants see the connection between responding to the ask (upload your kiss – your kiss can make it better) and the real goal of tackling Malaria? What do you think?
• Get free postage and mail books you can spare to a child in need. | The Giving Effect – I love this campaign because it makes participation easy, let's participants feel like they are making a difference but also helping directly, and can be done from anywhere. Basic elements that should be considered in any campaign. What do you think?
• HOW TO: Create Custom iFrame Tabs on Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Page – "In March 2011 Facebook disabled the popular Static FMBL App that many nonprofits had used to create custom tabs on their Facebook Pages. Rather than having their apps be based on FBML, Facebook has now switched over to iframes. Those nonprofits that have already created custom tabs using the Static FBML app will continue to be supported (not indefinitely, however), but those that want create custom tabs for the first time or switch over to iframes have a few new apps to experiment with, namely Static HTML iFrame Tabs, Static HTML for Pages, and TabPress."
• E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis … – "The truth is that everyone is, indeed, a community facilitator / manager nowadays, as you saw in a recent blog entry where I referenced Gautam’s comments along these very same lines. So I thought I would develop further on this topic, specially since, earlier on today, I bumped into a couple of rather relevant and interesting links very much connected to this topic that I am sure you would enjoy quite a bit. The first one is coming from my good friend, Gautam Ghosh, once again, who earlier on tweeted a link to a blog post that he put together in September 2010 and which, despite the months gone by already, it’s just as valid today, if not more!, than ever before. Have a look into “5 Skills for Online Community Managers” and find out what some of the community facilitator traits would be like, according to him…"

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).

• Nonprofits and Location-Based Services – "This past week Noland Hoshino of [B]Cause media was kind enough to give a presentation on Location-Based Services (LBS) at a PDXTech4Good event. The presentation covers a good bit of why nonprofits should care about LBS and then gets into some solid examples and tips for a few of the major platforms."
• Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog – "Nonprofit marketing is only worth doing if your aim is to get people to do something. Raising awareness isn’t enough. So make sure you have all the elements of a strong call to action…" I really like Katya's list of 5 elements to a great call to action. But, I also have a few that I would add – what about you?
• sparking creativity through cognitive distance – "I had the opportunity to speak earlier this week at the Innovators Improv. It’s a monthly gathering that brings together a variety of interesting folks from the community to share experiences, discuss questions, and raise ideas on a range of topics. I was invited to talk about “Sparking Creativity“. I wanted to share my talk as I think we all benefit from the opportunity to spark creativity in our everyday lives."
• 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami – Find news, follow real time content, get official warnings and information, and much more on the earthquakes and tsuanmi that hit Japan, and the tsunami watches in effect around the Pacific. There's also a "people finder" tool and information numbers to call. I'm really excited to see Google support crisis information in this way and hope that nonprofits can work with Google to identify ways we can integrate responder information as well as donation and other support mechanisms into the site.
• A think tank for the ages creates Goodness Engine – Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog – Site Home – TechNet Blogs – Working with DonorsChoose.org, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Google, Microsoft, REI, and WebTrends discussed how to most effectively use online tools and processes for maximum impact. The result? A free eBook called the “Goodness Engine: Driving Greater Social Impact in the Digital World” has been created to help other nonprofits learn about a whole range of topics from driving online traffic to creating dynamic content and managing online engagement.
• YouTube – goodwork’s Channel – "Through Good Work, YouTube is matching up nonprofits with expert creatives around the world, asking them to make video ads for nonprofits like yours. The best video ads, as selected by an esteemed judging panel of ad executives and Nonprofit sector leaders, will be featured at a showcase at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival and linked from the YouTube homepage, providing a huge amount of exposure for both the creatives and the nonprofits."

This year, winners will again have the chance to win one of four $2500 grants generously provided by the Case Foundation, awesome video cameras from Flip Video, a free registration to next year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference provided by NTEN and more. For small nonprofits that have small funds in the video department, we have a new category for the best “thrifty” videos produced for under $500. And… wait for it: the winning videos will be announced at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference hosted by NTEN and featured on YouTube’s homepage in March. (The YouTube part is sort of like having your nonprofit video seen during the Super Bowl.)

Learn more about the contest guidelines and how to submit your video!

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).

• UNICEF Haiti365 – Be Their Voice – I'm really excited to see this new campaign from UNICEF – focused on the children in Haiti, and building on a multimedia effort to move people into engagement. "Haiti 365 will continue to evolve as more people create videos and sign-up to show their support. This project, housed on a social media enhanced micro-site allows people to commit to a year of service via an email sign up. This means throughout the year we will ask them to help send messages to the government to keep the focus in Haiti on the children, we'll update members on progress or specific needs and we'll also engage them in outreach when needed. The most touching piece of this campaign is the ability to read and share a constantly changing selection of stories and anecdotes from the children themselves."
• Why I'm dancing: The Point + Groupon = G-team – My Social Actions – I'm really excited about the news Christine shared on the Social Actions blog: the potential being harnessed by Groupon/The Point to get social impact into the stream of success that Groupon has created. Check it out! "So I'm especially thrilled to see Groupon announce the launch of G-team, an experiment in complementing Groupon's deals with The Point-type campaigns. The sky is clearly the limit in coming up with creative ways to tack social actions campaigns onto Groupon deals. Take a look at the examples on the G-team page and let your imagination run wild."
• MLK2011 – Join Us Live! – "Get HandsOn! and join HandsOn Network and your community in leading deliberate dialogues that turns conversation into action. Don't forget to tell us about your conversation!" Check out these excellent opportunities for turning MLK Day into a day for igniting important, purposeful conversations in your community. What will you be doing on January 17th – I'd love to hear your plans for making the holiday a day of action!
• Animoto – For a Cause – "How can we help your cause? Animoto supports not-for-profits and other humanitarian causes with free pro accounts." Thanks to Stacey Monk for the tip that Animoto let's nonprofits apply for free pro accounts – looking for a tool to help with your video storytelling, multimedia fundraising and more? Check out Animoto!
• Ten for Ten: Philanthropy from 2010-2020 (December 20, 2010) | Opinion Blog | Stanford Social Innovation Review – "Earlier this year, I took a look back at my decade of predictions, 1999-2009. You can find that online here. I’ve also published my annual forecast for what will matter in philanthropy and social investing in 2011—you can find that online here (use the special SSIR discount code). With this post I’m going to take a slightly different tack on the end-of-year ritual top 10 lists. Rather than focus in (anymore than the buzzwords list already does) on the top 10 of the year gone by, let’s think about the factors that will shape philanthropy for the decade ahead."

Location: London, UK (via video)

Topic: Online Campaigning and Co-Creation

Description:  This Third Sector Foresight seminar, run in collaboration with Campaigning Effectiveness, will focus on how charities and community groups will be campaigning in the future. We will also consider how changing expectations of participation might affect how organisations campaign in the future, and explore how this trend links to social media use.

Related Links:

• NCVO
• Event information
• Future Focus guide: What will campaigning will be like in 5 years’ time?
• Online discussion forum
• Video interview: Role of co-creation