One of my delightful clients is Bob Doyle, who is the developer of skyBuilders, an open source web-based content management system (CMS) that he built specifically for nonprofit organizations.  Bob also serves as a technology advisor to CM Pros (which is the community of practice for content management professionals) and as editor in chief of CMS Review.

Bob is looking forward to the CM Pros Summit, which will be held next month here in  Boston. He's quite the CMS evangelist, and he and I have been talking about reaching out to the nonprofit technology community to invite its members to the CM Pros Summit.

For me, the underlying question is what a CMS has to offer nonprofit organizations, and how to communicate that to nonprofit community.

When I look at a web site such as the one sponsored by the Digital Divide Network (DDN), the first part of the question seems to answer itself.  Without the content management system powered by TakingItGlobal, DDN would not be able provide such a diverse and timely range of information and commentary about the digital divide.  It simply would not be possible for a nonprofit organization such as DDN, with its small staff, to cover so many topics and put out constant updates - unless it had a CMS that allowed community members to create and maintain sections of the web site that focus on their particular interests.

Moreover, the DDN web site allows its readers to read the articles, headlines, calendar items, discussion boards, blogs, and other features in a syndicated format - thus demonstrating that a nonprofit web site built with the right content management system can inform and engage readers who never visit the web site at all.

So how do we answer the second part of the question - how do we communicate that to the nonprofit community?  How can we entice its technology professionals and other key nonprofit decision-makers to come to the CM Pros Summit in Boston and learn something that they can really use when they get back to the office?