Digital Arts Service Corps - tech assistance for non-profits

Data Management / API

Colleen Kelly — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 15:15:43 +0000

How Open APIs Can Change How Nonprofits Manage Data
See attached presentation.

Using Open APIs for a Virtual March
See attached presentation.

Website Planning/Expansion

Colleen Kelly — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:58:20 +0000

Nonprofit Communications 2.0 – Seven Steps to Transform Your Organization
This presentation (attached) has a WEALTH of information on the following:
I. Network Centric Communities
II. Strategic Communications
1. Planning for Integration
2. Viral Marketing
3. Building Blocks of Nonprofit Communications
ii. MEANS OF PRODUCTION
a. email
b. blogging
c. online media
d. wikis
e. mashups
ii. MEANS OF DISTRIBUTION
f. Syndication
g.Tagging
h.Content Management Systems
III. Web 2.0 Applied
a. E-Democracy: from Political & Activist Campaigns
b. Friend Raising to Fundraising: “Resource Development

3 Ways to make your nonprofit more effective with RSS aggregation
(see attached presentation)

4 Steps to Assess Your Organizational Effectiveness

Ben Sheldon — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:41:56 +0000

In our work with nonprofits, we've noticed that one of their greatest challenges is lack of attendance or participation by the organization’s target audience. This caused us to ask ourselves if the organization had conducted sufficient footwork before selecting and implementing their project.

When considering technology (or any other) projects to deliver to your community, it is critical to engage in a needs-and-resources assessment that allows your organization to identify gaps, prioritize needs, and carry out the project. Such an assessment usually consists of four steps:

Define the target audience and gather information about them that will help you make decisions about how best to serve them. Assess their needs.
What is it that will make a difference for them in their lives right now that you are in a position to address?
Map the existing resources in the community that address these needs; where are the gaps?
Identify potential solutions based on the information collected.
Assess whether your organization is best suited to deliver this service.

Check out this free tool inspired by the work of the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.

See attachment.

Non-profit Technology Resources

Mike Moore — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:36:28 +0000

These might help when you are looking for answers to common non-profit and technology issues. Sign up for newsletters or just browse when you have a question:

Websites

Blogs

Beth Kanter: One of the most prodigious nonprofit technologists around.
Entry Level Living: The Personal and Professional Insights of a Struggling College Grad
Many-to-Many: A group weblog on social software
Media Shift: tracks the way the Internet and technology are reshaping the mediasphere
Allison Fine: the ways that digital tools, particularly social media, are enhancing our connectedness to one another and our ability and willingness to work for the collective social good
Apophenia: how American youth engage in networked publics like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Xanga, etc.
Mind Mob: emerging trends in science, collaboration, the online world and elsewhere.

Skills, tools, & direct resources

Presentation Zen: Information on creating effective presentations
Copyblogger: How to blog effectively
Six Steps to Adopting Open-Source Software at Your Org (Aug 2006)
How To: Put Technology to Use (May 2008)
"The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy -- and Their Open Source Alternatives"
Social Source Commons: http://socialsourcecommons.org/
Free Software Foundation: http://directory.fsf.org/
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/
Lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com