Wild Apricot Blog

Blog posts and articles on Leadership and Social Media topped the active topics at AssociationJam.org last month. Events came in close behind, as association professionals were all geared up for ASAE10. Fundraising, Membership, Technology, and Volunteers were tied for third. Here are the most popular links at “AJam” in August 2010....(read more)

September is a busy month for just about everyone – a new school year for many, harvest time for both fundraisers and farmers - and a whole new crop of free nonprofit webinars is here. Have a look – you’re sure to find an online learning opportunity that’s of interest to folks in your organization. As always, you’ll want to check back from time to time through the month, as late-coming webinar notices are often added in the comments section, down below. And if you’re aware of a free nonprofit webinar...(read more)

Creating a presentation for your board? Wading into the end-of-project paperwork? Or maybe you’re signing up a new crop of volunteers for your non-profit... Whatever the task, odds are that there’s a time-saving template, free at Google Docs, to help you do more with less effort. Browse the Template Gallery , or narrow your search by Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Forms, and Drawings. You’ll find thousands of templates – some by Google itself, and many unique templates that were contributed...(read more)

A lively LinkedIn discussion was kicked off when Elizabeth Watkin , program coordinator at Africa Carbon Credit Exchange,asked, “ What makes a good non-profit website? ” What do you like to see on a charity/non-profit/NGO website and what do you dislike? Would a website encourage you to donate or get involved? If you have been inspired by a particular website, can you pass on the link? Among the participants in the discussion is David Berg , who has been researching the fundraising and communications...(read more)

There is no end to the challenges of social media for nonprofits. How can we keep our personal and professional lives separate online? How can we identify the "influencers"? Which social media tools are best? Here, Paul Adams, Senior User Experience Researcher at Google, shares his team's insights into how people actually connect and behave online....(read more)

The buzzwords of business-speak have evolved, in part, as a shorthand way of letting us refer to complex ideas with just a few words. Annoying as the overuse of jargon may be, the specialized language of the nonprofit sector may actually serve a useful purpose....(read more)

Are you looking for a way to help your website visitors easily find relevant related information online? The folks over at ReadWriteWeb have just added a great new search feature to their site, courtesy of Apture.com . When you highlight any word, phrase, or even a part of a word on any page on the website, a small “speech bubble” appears with the word “search”; click on that, and you’re given a small window with articles, videos, and images that are directly related to the highlighted term. Here’s...(read more)

Yet another Twitter tool? Yes, and there’s room for one, too. While CoTweet, Hootsuite, Seesmic and Tweetdeck are all great for managing your Twitter account (or multiple accounts) and scheduled tweets, where Eric Kim’s Twylah shines is as a content discovery tool and social media monitor....(read more)

GreatNonprofits.org’s 2010 Science and Technology Campaign, in partnership with Guidestar, NTEN, TechSoup Global, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, Association for Women in Science, Inveneo, and Tonic, seeks top-rated nonprofits who are making a difference in the fields of science and technology. Does this sound like your nonprofit? ...(read more)

Facebook is rolling out a new feature called Facebook Questions – similar to what’s offered by LinkedIn, Yahoo Questions, and other Q&A sites. Ask questions, answer them, and rate (or be rated) for best answers. What does this mean for nonprofits? A new way to reach potential supporters, and to spread the word about your cause!...(read more)

Looking for an easy way to add your voice over a PowerPoint presentation, then share it by email or online? Here's a cool tool to try – and a special offer for non-profit organizations....(read more)

Wild Apricot Blog welcomes a special guest today: Carol Buckheit of NonprofitMediaWorks. Carol’s been studying Idealware’s Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide – the latest in a line of Idealware’s terrific research-based publications – and she’s kindly agreed to share her top “take-aways” from this new publication....(read more)

Ready for a bit of professional development, before Labor Day brings the start of another busy fall season? August is a great time for online learning – in fact, this month we’ve rounded up more free online seminars than ever before! There’s something for everyone from board members and administrators, to fundraisers and volunteer coordinators, to active members of all interests and levels......(read more)

Blog posts and articles on Fundraising, Leadership, and Membership topped the active topics at AssociationJam.org this month, in terms of the numbers of submissions, views and reader votes, while the Volunteers, Technology, and Social Media came in almost as strong. Best of all, you’ll find a number of brand new faces here, among the excellent content submitted to and voted up in “AJam” through July 2010....(read more)

Facebook has just added 3 new features to the ‘Like’ button that hold a promise of greater connectivity and better analytics. Not unusual for Facebook, the release came on a weekend, so no real chance yet to thoroughly explore the bells and whistles – and the implications. And there’s a lot to take in! ‘Like’ acts more like ‘Share’; Facebook analytics are beefed up; and Facebook Pages get to pipe their content right into the newsfeeds of all who ‘Like’ them. Here’s a quick first look at two of those...(read more)

A tweet or status update is so easy to publish – and “Please vote” is such a small favor to ask of your social network. It’s just a quick click, right? But as Chris Brogan points out, in The Problem with Social Only Nonprofit Campaigns,there’s a cumulative effect of all those social media requests. ...(read more)

Results of a detailed evaluation of the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge competition have been released in the “must-read” 2009 AGC Assessment and Reflection Report. The best part? Lessons learned can be replicated by other non-profits, both for contest campaigns and for general social media outreach. ...(read more)

Movie Mondays is a free weekly series of video interviews with fundraising professionals – a mix of practical tips, in-the-trenches experience, and creative ideas to help you meet all kinds of fundraising challenges....(read more)

The ability to retain hyperlinks when you convert documents to PDF format has been missing from most of the free or low-cost web-based PDF tools to date. Finally, here’s a free online document converter that can keep those clickable links working in your PDFs. Thanks to Donnie Maclurcan of ProjectAustralia for the tip on this useful free tool! ...(read more)

Six out of 10 professional marketers are spending more on content marketing in 2010, for the third year in a row. The rise of blogs and other social media makes online content creation a growing focus for non-profit sector, too. Why? Because content marketing works....(read more)