Non-Profit Tech Blog

I finally got my Presidential Inaugural ticket e-mail… easily the best e-mail I’ve received all year
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Check out this pretty cool roundup of “40+ Inspirational Non-Profit Website Designs“. They’re all great looking even if not all of them are non-profit (that’s Change.org). Unfortunately, while the designs are inspirational, their beauty is only skin deep. I did a very cursory inspection of these 41 websites (excluding Change.org). I checked to see if they use META description and keywords properly, had a <TITLE> tag and if they were using any tracking software like Google Analytics, Mint, Quantcast, Statcounter, GetClicky or even if they were using something .NET Web Parts for tracking. It’s a pretty sad and sorry record.

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Steve MacLaughlin wrote me today about giving trends for users of Blackbaud’s Internet solutions. It’s the kind of data I’d love to see released more often so that we could better understand how online fundraising was being affected by macroeconomic trends. Here’s an interesting finding:

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I’ve started working with more and more Wordpress-based nonprofit Web sites such as those at asianamericansforobama.com and apaforprogress.org, stepping in after the site has been set up. What follows is a checklist of common errors that I’ve seen that you can use with your site designer if your non-profit is creating a Wordpress site. It should also serve as a follow-up to my previous article recommending Wordpress for nonprofits. Many of these items are generic to Web sites in general but Wordpress sites especially suffer when these things aren’t done. Some of these issues are very detailed but that’s just the way it works when you’re looking to optimize your site. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, just forward this list to your local Web guru and make sure they check off on every item.
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I compiled this list using the same methodology I used for my October 2007 list. Unfortunately, I still can’t compile a list of nonprofits outside the US. Quantcast and compete.com don’t do a good job of checking out international sites so I’m still limited by their inability to go outside US borders. Check out the list after the jump…

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It’s always nice to see techies doing front-line work. From the UN Foundation:

Télécoms Sans Frontières’ (TSF) began humanitarian calling operations in Matanda, a transit camp situated 30 kms from the Congolese border where an estimated 10,000 people are sheltered.

The team also installed a satellite based Internet connection for aid agencies in Kihihi, a small town turned into a humanitarian base camp 30 minutes from Matanda. At present, aid organizations such as UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, MSF, Oxfam, Save the Children or ACF are working to provide help to those who have lost everything after fleeing the fighting in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In less than a week, over 15,000 more Congolese refugees crossed into Uganda bringing the total number of refugees from the recent combats to almost 60,000. Initially located in Ishasha right at the border, the refugees were quickly moved as Nkunda rebels were approaching.

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I’ve been using Wordpress now since the inception of this blog and used it for several other blogs as well. I haven’t been recommending Wordpress mainly because it has needed a lot of care and loving from an administrator. No longer. Wordpress can now update itself with the click of a button by its administrator. This totally changes the game and gets us closer to a Web publishing model that more or less removes the need for a techie on a daily or weekly basis.

If you’re a nonprofit that has less than 5 people on their Web team, I suggest you consider Wordpress 2.7. It has an all-new administrator UI to boot. There are so many things you can do with Wordpress it would be a shame not to use it.

Here’s a quick list:

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Ever wonder what it takes to get a IT system up and running as a nonprofit under 25 people? In these difficult economic times, it’s really important to get your act together regarding your nonprofit’s finances. When I started out in the tech industry in the 1990s, IT departments were still pretty devoted to heavy iron. Servers and hard drives everywhere complete with a networking core were de rigeur for even a modest office setup.

I no longer believe that that should be the case anymore. I think many nonprofits can get away with a kind of virtual IT system where the files reside primarily on Amazon’s S3 and any more specific applications can be set up remotely (maybe even on Amazon EC2 which now supports Windows servers). Even better, you can get by without having to pay some IT guy thousands of dollars a year for maintenance. The suggestions that follow are for you to follow should you want to create a IT infrastructure for your nonprofit that keeps labor costs down as much as possible.

Here’s a suggested IT system for nonprofits under 25 people:

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Above is a screen shot from Forbes.com. Check out the #1 most searched for item on the site. I find the word “charities” interesting as it is used interchangeably with the word “nonprofit” here in the US. I decided to take a look at a Google Trends comparison between the two terms. Check it out:
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Blackbaud launches in Spain:

eTapestry, a division of Blackbaud Inc. (Nasdaq: BLKB), announced the launch of a partnership with Daryl Upsall Consulting International to offer eTapestry’s Spanish-language version of its on demand fundraising software in Spain. Kicking off this partnership, eTapestry and Daryl Upsall Consulting International (DUCI) will be hosting a free seminar on Nov. 11, demonstrating how nonprofits can use technology to meet their fundraising needs. This half-day event will take place at DUCI, c/ Caleruega 67 in Madrid 28033, Spain. The seminar will be held from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

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