Technology for the Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sector

Tuesday, June 16

Ten things (just ten!) that every nonprofit executive needs to know about information technology

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Tue 16 Jun 2009 10:46 AM EDT

1. Very little technical knowledge is required in order for nonprofit CEOs to participate actively in strategic IT planning.

As long as you thoroughly understand your organization's overall mission, strategy, and tactics and (are willing to learn a little bit about the technology), you can keep your information technology infrastructure on target... more »

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Thursday, May 21

eHope: I'm not just a fan!

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Thu 21 May 2009 03:06 PM EDT

When I first heard about eHope, over a year ago, I was excited! Here was yet another great example of how face-to-face relationships, online networking, and heightened awareness of the importance of social capital could be combined in powerful ways. Jeffrey Wood, eHope's founder, is a visionary who is bringing all this together to help communities support people who are facing life-threatening illnesses. I lost no time in calling him up and arranging for him to be a featured guest at the Ethos Roundtable. He came down from Maine to Cambridge for the Ethos session, and impressed us all not only with the wisdom of the eHope model, but with his own spiritual depth.

As many readers of my blog know, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1999. There was no such thing as eHope at that time, so I got by with a lot of help from my wonderful and supportive friends, but the coordination involved was an extra source of stress.

For ten years, there's been no recurrence of cancer, but recently tests confirmed that I have a minor malignancy, and will need surgery. I'm one of the lucky ones - my condition is not at all life-threatening. However, I've been worrying about all the logistics involved in surgery and after care. Yesterday, it occurred to me that I should ask my buddy Jeffrey for some coaching about how I could set up an eHope "Lite" version for myself, so that I could do some of the coordination online. He very graciously called me up today, and offered to work with me to set up a full-fledged eHope community; it turns out that I'm eligible, even though I'm not based in Maine and am not facing a terminal illness.

So now, I'm not just a fan - I'm going to be a client! This is not just a boon for me, but an opportunity to bring eHope to the greater Boston area and raise a wider awareness of what it offers.

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Monday, May 11

Thanks to Yves Dehnel, Easy Peasy provides a solution, although not as easily as I would have thought

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Mon 11 May 2009 04:29 PM EDT

Yves Dehnel of Tech Networks of Boston is my new hero.

As readers of my blog know, I bought an Asus Eee PC 900 in July, but have run into obstacles in trying to use it in my habitual way.

After Twittering about it, blogging about it, going online to various nonprofit technology communities, posting a plaintive request for help to GetSatisfaction, and - yes - even after checking with Asus customer support, I still couldn't install any new drivers or applications on my Asus netbook, and therefore I couldn't use my AT&T mobile broadband with it.

Several people suggested that the version of Linux that comes installed on the Asus Eee PCs as an operating system (Linux Eee PC 1.1.0.66) is very tightly locked down, and that I should replace it with a version of Ubuntu for netbooks called Easy Peasy.

Well, I tried, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I'm one of those folks who thinks that "computer literacy" in any generic form is a myth, and I try to be brave and admit it when an IT-related task is beyond me.

Having admitted that I couldn't get Easy Peasy installed on my Asus, I took the radical step of mentioning my problem in a face to face conversation. The ever-helpful Tuan Pham of Tech Networks opined that he could probably find someone, and that someone turned out to be my buddy Yves Dehnel, also of Tech Networks.

It turns out that installing Easy Peasy is a three-step simple process, albeit a slight different one than what is described on the download page:

Drop off your Asus at Yves's shop.

Take a phone call from Yves a couple of hours later, so that he can inform you that he's done it. (Don't forget to thank him profusely.)

Return to his shop, and spend a few minutes with him, tweaking the settings so that your Sierra 881 USB connector card works with the Asus. (Don't forget to thank him profusely, once again.)

For me, the real work began at that point: settling down to the effort of acclimating myself to the Easy Peasy operating system and an Asus keyboard.

Now that I'm using that Asus Eee PC 900 for extended periods (and not just for fun), I find that it really does take some acclimation. The Easy Peasy operating system is not much of challenge, but the physical set up of the Asus is. As a touch typist, I have to acquire a new kinesthetic sense of where each key is, and there's something about the touchpad action that's very different.

When I first wrote about my Asus notebook, I said:

"If I had to make the purchase from scratch today, I'd probably choose a newer, cheaper model in the Asus Eee PC line, and I'd opt for Windows XP as the operating system, just to ensure ease of connectivity ."

This is still true. I would never recommend an Asus with a Linux operating system for use in a nonprofit where the staff members weren't burning with curiousity to see for themselves what open source platforms are all about. It's too much trouble for folks who have enough to do with nonprofit programs and operations. An Asus loaded with XP as an operating system would do the job.

But speaking just for myself, I'm glad to have the opportunity to live and work with an open source operating system, especially if colleagues and buddies such as Yves are willing to get my back.

(Full disclosure of financial relationship: TechNetworks of Boston is a client of mine, and I bartered my services in exchange for Yves's. Had I been a paying customer, I would have been charged about $150, which I consider very reasonable.)

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Friday, May 8

Online capacity mapping and resource matching for nonprofits

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Fri 08 May 2009 01:26 PM EDT

Having served as a co-convener of the Ethos Roundtable since 2006, I have finally scheduled myself as a presenter for June 2009:

Tuesday, June 16th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: (yours truly)

I was first inspired to think about one giant web-based tool for capacity mapping and resource matching for nonprofits by a conversation in 2003 with my buddy Tim Gassert. Since then, I've looked for ways to make it happen. Within the last year, some sort of tipping point occurred, and all sorts of esteemed clients and colleagues started pulling me into conversations about pet projects that were closely related to the pipedream that Tim and I had.

I've been actively working on the big picture, and bringing together these folks who are converging on the concept, for about six months. It's clear that this could be a tremendous asset to nonprofits, philanthropies, and communities in the region - at a time when money is tight, it's important to ensure that surplus assets, capacities, and resources do not go unused. It's also clear that this could be many separate projects with clever mash-ups and data interchanges. In the age of XML, it does not have to be a monolith with one owner, one web host, and one platform.

This session will not be a nuts-and-bolts discussion of technical specifications or organizational arrangements, but an exploration of the big picture. Hard times can give us an incentive to collaborate and consolidate in new ways. What if we had web-based tools to help mission-based organizations use every possible resource and meet every possible need? If you're interested in this question, please come and brainstorm with us.

(Full information about the session and directions to the Charles Hotel are available at the Ethos Roundtable's blog.)

Here are some organizations and projects that bear a really strong spiritual affinity to what I'm envisioning:

Here are some other blog articles related to this topic:

In the nonprofit sector, we need better knowledge management...of our knowledge management

Online social networking and knowledge management for nonprofits: How about a mash-up?

Is the Internet the New Social Welfare Delivery System?

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Tuesday, April 21

Not that I am bitter

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Tue 21 Apr 2009 01:10 PM EDT

That headline is a lie. I'm not going to be able to attend NTEN's Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) next week, and I'm feeling pretty grumpy about it.

Fortunately, NTEN is doing a good job of providing channels for remote participation:

We can follow the NTC's Twitter feed, and look for tweets that are tagged #09NTC

We can follow the NTC Flickr photo stream

We can listen to NTC podcasts

There are also plans for offering conference sessions through webinars, live streaming, and live blogging. Kudos to the NTEN team, and to all the other folks who are collaborating to make that possible.

Still, it hurts to miss the conference, because not being there in person means that I can't engage in my favorite activity, which is standing around in the hallways and persuading people to talk to each other. When 1,000 or more of my favorite colleagues get together, I'm overwhelmed by some sort of inspiration or compulsion to introduce them to each other and to point out how it would practically be a crime if they failed to collaborate with each other.

Perhaps next year there will be a special Altruistic Busybody traveling fellowship for people like me. We do have our uses. I'm tempted to grumble "Hey, just try to have a successful conference without me. When you all go home this year, having failed to forge new professional relationships that permanently transform your lives, that's when you'll really miss me." However, I'm not that bitter. I really do wish NTEN and all the attendees a wonderful conference experience.

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Sunday, April 19

Your mileage may vary: Birthday etiquette and online fundraising

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Sun 19 Apr 2009 02:46 PM EDT

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about online fundraising campaigns tied to birthday gifts, and have been inviting my nptech colleagues to discuss the topic.

Lately, I've received at least one online solicitation a week from a colleague or acquaintance who would like to invite me to make a donation to a nonprofit in lieu of giving him/her a birthday gift. In almost every case, it's someone for whom I feel respect or even affection, and a cause that is extremely worthwhile. Oddly enough, I've never received one of these requests from any members of my circle of intimates, i.e., folks for whom I routinely buy birthday gifts.

This has led me to wonder how these online solicitations are received in cultures and sub-cultures where asking for a birthday gift is not customary. Are they seen as offensive and presumptuous? This is something that we need to think through, when we plan online fundraising campaigns, especially now that the internet allows us to communicate across national and cultural boundaries. If we encourage our organization's stakeholders and friends to use their birthdays as an occasion to go online to raise money, are we doing more harm than good? By going online to make these pitches for donations to our organizations, our friends and stakeholders may be inadvertently offending others with different cultural norms about gift-giving, and those others may end up blaming our nonprofit organizations as the instigators.

These reflections have also led me to inquire about the norms for the culture in which I live (i.e., English-speaking residents of the U.S.A.), but I am hardly the best person to adjudicate what's appropriate. Indeed, for years now, I've been marking my birthday by going on a silent retreat at a monastery. This only shows how out of step I am.

However, I consider Judith Martin (a/k/a Miss Manners) an excellent arbiter of gift-giving etiquette in this part of the world. Poking around her books and an online index of her columns, this is what I infer about American gift-giving traditions:

o Gift-giving is never obligatory on any occasion

o It is unacceptable for me to imply that I expect a birthday gift

o It is unacceptable for me to ask for cash (or anything at all) as a birthday gift, unless the giver asks what I would prefer

o Gift registries are acceptable, but potential gift-givers must not be directed to them unless they ask me about them

o A charitable cause is not an excuse for me to break any of the aforementioned conventions of etiquette

Now, I might decide to defy the conventions, or I might decide that Miss Manners is not a valid authority on these matters, but these do seem to be norms that I need to consider.

In my own case, I think it's a tremendous challenge to show ample courtesy and consideration for those with whom I interact face to face and who belong to my most intimate circle. When it comes to relationships that are conducted mostly - or entirely - online, I think it's etiquettically impossible for me to ask them for a cash gift to a nonprofit organization in lieu of a present to me. It's too much of a presumption on my part. I might go online to say, "I know that you care passionately about this cause, so I'm letting you know about an opportunity to support it financially," but I wouldn't tie it to my birthday or any other personal celebration. It's far too easy for me to give inadvertent offense in online communications.

I'm just sayin'. YMMV.

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Monday, April 13

Perhaps there's no such thing as a free lunch - but thanks to the Data Collaborative, your nonprofit could have a free strategic technology consultation

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Mon 13 Apr 2009 03:11 PM EDT

The Data Collaborative, a database and web development firm in Massachusetts that serves a lot of mission-based organizations in the area, is a firm that consists of real mensches.

Earlier this year, they started underwriting a few free technology consultations by yours truly, so that small nonprofits in the Boston area could have some much-needed strategic assistance. I love doing these consultations, and am very grateful to Data Collaborative for making them a part of their service to the community. Organizations I have worked with at the behest of the Data Collaborative include Leadership Metrowest, the Parents Forum, and Chelsea Neighborhood Developers.

The Data Collaborative is now open to applications from more small nonprofits in the area that are interested in free strategic consultations. There are a limited number of slots available, so there are no guarantees that you will be selected, but the application process is very simple. It consists of three questions:

1. What does your non-profit do?

2. What are your technological challenges?

3. How do you think a consultation with Deborah could help?

Here's how the consultations themselves work:

A typical session kind consists of sitting down with me for an hour or two, alone or with key members of your nonprofit's team. If you prepare a list of strategic technology problems, concerns, or questions in advance, I'm often able to make recommendations on the spot. During these sessions, I can also walk you through a discussion that will help clarify how to subordinate your technology infrastructure to your mission.

In many cases, I can recommend products, services, and vendors that would be a good match for your needs. I do not ever take a commission on any products and services that I recommend, and will not make any sales pitches. In every case, my concern will be to ensure that your information and communications technology is helping you achieve your organization's programmatic goals.

Please note that I cannot provide hands-on tech support in these sessions.

After your consultation, I will be available to you by email and telephone for brief follow up questions. In some cases, I may do follow up research for you, and report back via email with additional information and recommendations.

Our goal is to provide you with the greatest possible benefit from a single session on a pro bono basis, and in almost every case a one or two hour consultation is all that a small nonprofit needs.

If your nonprofit organization is small, based in the Boston area, and in need of some strategic technology assistance, please call Eric Segal, the Data Collaborative's point mensch for this initiative, at 781-777-1119.

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Monday, April 6

Participatory journalism goes mobile

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Mon 06 Apr 2009 08:20 PM EDT

A message from Capitol News Connection:

Think about being able to use your iPhone, Blackberry or cell phone to hold lawmakers to account!	Can't get your U.S. Senator on the line? Whose call does your Congressman take: yours or the deep-pocketed lobbyist's? Democracy suffers when citizens have little meaningful access to or influence over elected officials. That's why we're asking for... your vote ... online, right now! Help Capitol News Connection build a mobile application ofAsk Your Lawmaker interactive widgets in this year's N2Y4 Challenge. NetSquared's Global Challenge will award$60,000 to the best mobile applications for social benefit.
Learn more about N2Y4 and participate!	VOTE now! It's easy...it only takes a minute! Create an account or login at www.NetSquared.org Add Ask Your Lawmaker to your ballot. Then visit theProject Gallery to add between two and four more projects. Double check that 'Ask Your Lawmaker' is one of your chosen projects. Once you have three or more Projects added to your Ballot, you'll see the "Cast Ballot" link. Click and you're done! Thank you!
The N2Y4 Conference taking place May 26 & 27 in San Jose, CA at Cisco Systems will bring together the 14 Projects selected in a NetSquared Community vote along with project teams from previous years, developers, nonprofits, corporations, funders, and others interested in the intersection of technology and social good. Last year 'Ask Your Lawmaker' was a finalist.	Don't forget to tell all your friends! Use this link http://tinyurl.com/coootw to Twitter it, send it to your Facebook or MySpace friends. How will your vote help us? Your support will let citizens can question their lawmakers directly from their cell phones and vote for the questions they most want answered.CNC reporters in the U.S. Capitol will be notified when users submit questions and again when each question gets enough votes. With their accredited direct access and regular 'face-time' with Senators and Representatives CNC reporters get citizen questions answered, and upload the audio and text directly to the web and the original questioners' cell phone, Blackberry or iPhone for them to listen, read, comment on and share with their friends. Giving citizens a powerful voice It's hard for a Senator or Representative to sidestep a question asked by 18,932 people in 26 states! Ask Your Lawmaker gives citizens a powerful voice, and with iPhone, cell and Blackberry applications, anyone will be able to participate anytime - any place - without need for a laptop or desktop.
	Whether submitting a question via SMS, finding out who your Congress person is via GPS or a street address, mapping a question, recording audio of your question on an iPhone, listening, sharing or 'truth-squading' an answer, CNC's proposed suite of mobile solutions will make lawmaker's ears as accessible as the phone in your pocket.

110 Maryland Ave NE Suite 201 | Washington, DC 20002 US

And now, back to your usual blogger...

As usual, I would like to make a full disclosure of financial relationship. I hope that everyone is 100% clear that I am beating the drum for one of my esteemed clients: Capitol News Connection (CNC), the nonprofit nonpartisan news agency. However, I am not just a consultant - I'm a fan.

CNC recently launched the "Ask Your Lawmaker" widget, and I am very enthusiastic about this mash-up of new era geekiness with a fine old American tradition.

The basic equation is:

Populism + Professional Journalism + Web 2.0 = Ask Your Lawmaker

In other words, everyone in the United States should have a role in holding our elected officials accountable, and professional journalists should make use of interactive web-based tools to enlist all of us in this enterprise. Fortunately, CNC's founder and bureau chief, Melinda Wittstock, has the experience, the credentials, and the vision to make an outpost of any computer that has internet access.

But wait, there's more!

As more of us rely on phones for news, information, navigation, and communication, it's become clear there's a need to develop web applications that are well-suited not only to desktop computers but also to mobile devices. (Fortunately, Melinda has been tracking this closely.) Organizations such as MobileActive have been innovators in the field of activism, advocacy, and organizing, and NetSquared, with its emphasis on "remixing the web for social change," has also become an important leader in this field. The latter has now sponsoring a Mobile Challenge, and Ask Your Lawmaker is in the running, along with an exciting array of other projects.

Ask Your Lawmaker is a somewhat unusual candidate here, in that many of the projects in the Mobile Challenge are pointed toward a specific kind of social change. Most of them are designed to further specific causes (health, environmental sustainability, human rights) or to eradicate specific social evils (human trafficking, sexual harrassment, violence against children). In contrast, Ask Your Lawmaker upholds an ideal of journalism in the public interest and provides a conduit for a crucial exchange between elected officials and those they serve. It seeks to strengthen journalism in the service of civil society, rather than to advance a particular cause, ideology, or agenda for action.

My contention is that responsible, innovative journalism is one of the factors that makes it possible for a responsible public to demand transparency from its leaders, and to deliberate on what policies are in the community's interest.

If you agree, please vote for the Ask Your Lawmaker Mobile Application!

To vote, you'll need to login or register on the Netsquared web site. (Registration is free.) Once you've registered, just go to the Ask Your Lawmaker Mobile Application project description page, and vote.

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Sunday, April 5

It was an inside job!

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Sun 05 Apr 2009 10:03 PM EDT

Every so often, I just have to boast. One of my much-loved clients just launched a new web site, and I had hardly anything to do with it!

The Public Conversations Project (PCP) decided to develop their own Drupal web site in house, and they launched it last week. I gave them a little strategic coaching last summer, and then dropped out of rotation. They had outside help from Steve Backman of Database Designs Associates (who provided technical coaching), and from Rachel Stark, librarian extrordinaire (who catalogued the content of the previous site and provided invaluable guidance about usability and navigation). However, most of the development work was done by Andrew Park, their IT coordinator, with input from other members of the PCP team.

It's very satisfying and yet a little bit sad to work with PCP, because I keep rendering myself obsolete. I enjoy working with them so much that I'm sad when it's time to stand back and watch them go forward on a project without me. On the other hand, there's great joy in seeing clients really learn what they need to know in order to make strategic decisions and manage their projects. That's when I become obsolete, for the best of reasons. If I'm really lucky, they bring me back in when they're ready to go to the next level or take on a different challenge.

In the case of the Public Conversations Project, one of the next challenges is social media. We've already kicked off a PCP Facebook page, and I can hardly wait for them to try Twitter. In some ways, this is an organization with the potential to be a powerhouse and a force for good in the world of Web 2.0. Their mission is to foster constructive dialogue about difficult issues, and to uphold civil society by helping folks who have different world views build relationships with each other. This is the kind of skill set that is needed just about everywhere in the world right now. They can help netizens go far beyond flamewars, and can in turn be helped by the internet's ability to minimize (some) geographic barriers to effectiveness.*

* Oh, and just by the way, the PCP team can serve as role models to staff members in relatively small nonprofit organizations that want to develop their own CMS-based web sites using open source platforms . How cool is that?

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Wednesday, March 25

California Dreaming

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Wed 25 Mar 2009 05:14 PM EDT

I love my home state, and I love NTEN's annual Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC). This year, the conference will be in San Francisco, one of my favorite cities - however, I'm facing budgetary constraints, and won't be able to attend.*

However, I do want to urge encourage those who can to go! If you're interested in information and communication technologies for the nonprofit sector, this is the place to be. If you have the time, the money, and the opportunity - just go!

The most important thing you can do at the Nonprofit Technology Conference is to engage in conversation. The best ones will be unscheduled and introduce you to ideas, images, professional relationships, products, and services that you didn't even have on your wish list. You might also enjoy the formal sessions and plenary talks.

I always think the best event of the entire conference is the science fair and opening reception, when almost all the attendees are in the same room, talking and showing each other their latest projects. It's heaven for me; I usually spend it introducing people to each other and exhorting them to brainstorm together. Come to think of it, that's how I usually spend the entire three days. But the science fair is the setting most conducive to connecting folks who ought to be collaborating with each other.

And this year, I'll have to miss the whole thing! Dang!

If you go - and you really should go if you can - please be sure to post plenty of 09NTC blog articles, tweets, photos, and videos, for the sake of those of us who are languishing at home.

* It's been a very strange six months or so. I have wonderful clients and a full docket of fascinating projects, but my beloved clients have not all been able to pay me on time. This, combined with the possibility of some considerable medical expenses, means that I can't afford to travel right now.

A special note to those of you who have expressed concern about my health: thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers! I've been through five rounds of medical tests, and it's still not clear whether this is a recurrence of the thyroid cancer I had ten years ago. Whatever it is, it's very small, and not growing. I'm on track to have a second opinion, and perhaps another round of tests, but the consensus seems to be that even the worst case scenario is not life-threatening.

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Monday, March 2

Ooops

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Mon 02 Mar 2009 10:59 AM EST

Many thanks are due to Amy Sample Ward for the heads-up about this, along with apologies to Rachel Levine.

It turns out that Ms. Levine is not only a technology consultant but the author of "CyberYenta's Old-Fashioned Wisdom for Newfangled Times." She holds the trademark on the name CyberYenta, and therefore I should not be using it as a sobriquet.

I'm going to remove the name from my online and offline materials, and extend an apology to Ms. Levine. Trademarks should always be respected.

This means that I am now in need of a new sobriquet. I already have several, but none of them seem to be exactly right for my professional role. If you have a (non-obscene, non-degrading, professionally appropriate) suggestion, please follow this link to send it to me.

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Thursday, January 8

From Capitol News Connection: The "Ask Your Lawmaker" Widget

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Thu 08 Jan 2009 12:22 PM EST

Before I start bubbling over with enthusiasm, I need to make a full disclosure: I serve as a paid consultant to Capitol News Connection (CNC). Reaching out to nonprofit advocacy groups, and urging them to use the Ask Your Lawmaker widget is part of what I'm paid to do.

That said, I need to tell you that I just love this widget! This is a geeky yet populist approach to strengthening participatory democracy.

Capitol News Connection is a nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism organization that is based in Washington, DC. Ask Your Lawmaker (AYL) is one of their cleverest initiatives: constituents from any district in the U.S. can pose questions to their senators and representatives by posting them to the web site, and then anyone who is interested in legislation and policy can go to the site and vote for the questions that he or she deems most critical. The CNC reporters are conveniently headquartered on Capitol Hill, and when a question garners enough votes, they go out and ask the legislator in question. The responses are recorded in broadcast-quality audio, and posted to the web. They are also made available to local public radio stations, which are often in need of quotes they can use back in the home district when they report on national issues.

Ask Your Lawmaker is now making a laudable move into Web 2.0 territory by offering nonprofit advocacy groups and individual activists a free widget that they can use on their own web sites or Facebook pages. What a great way to voice your concerns, and to engage your stakeholders in pressing legislators to address an issue!

A nonprofit advocacy group's cost to participate needs to be calculated in terms of the person hours that it will require. Use of the AYL widget itself is free.

Here's simple five step process for advocacy groups across the U.S. that want to give it a try:

1) Create your AYL widget, choosing your organization's signature issues from the checkboxes provided.

2) Add a single piece of code generated by AYL to your web site or Facebook page, so that the widget appears prominently.

3) Highlight your concerns by choosing a question and a lawmaker, and use AYL to submit it.

4) Send the AYL link with your question to your friends, stakeholders, and allies, asking them to help by voting for your question.

5) Track the results, reflect on them, and refine your strategy.

This widget is only the beginning! Capitol New Connection is working on many more ideas for making national news coverage more participatory and holding legislators more accountable to their constituents. In a time when every community activist can also be a citizen journalis t, and RSS feeds are making it easy to syndicate news selectively, Ask Your Lawmaker is poised to become a provider of tailor-made news streams for any advocacy group.

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Thursday, November 20

Adventures in vlogging with Third Sector New England: The online video reference tool for new nonprofit managers

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Thu 20 Nov 2008 09:39 PM EST

The problem:

There are lots of first time nonprofit managers who need not only answers to specific questions but guidance and mentorship.

Third Sector New England has plenty of in-house nonprofit management mavens, but there still aren't enough hours in the day to provide mentorship to all the new nonprofit managers who would like a little advice.

Detailed and well-written answers to frequently asked questions are available through web sites such as the excellent Nonprofit FAQ on Idealist.Org, but some people learn more effectively by listening and seeing than by reading.

A partial solution:

Get the nonprofit management mavens of Third Sector New England in front of a video camera, elicit succinct answers to frequently asked questions, and post them to the web for all to see and hear... more »

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Tuesday, November 11

Veterans Day Reflections

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Tue 11 Nov 2008 09:44 AM EST

I actually think that my beloved sister, Stephanie Landers, has summed it up much more eloquently than I ever could, so please read her blog article on "Veterans Day in San Jose"... more »

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Monday, November 10

Two...Four...Six...Eight! NPtech can aggregate! Let's hear it for Social Actions!

by Deborah Elizabeth Finn on Mon 10 Nov 2008 07:40 PM EST

As readers of my blog know, I complain fairly frequently that we need to use nptech to make it easier to bring resources and needs together. All the information that's online needs to be mashed up so that, even if there is more out there for mission-based organizations and their stakeholders, we can have that information distilled for use in a timely and effective way...
more »

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