The online media world was in one helluva tizzy late Wednesday and early Thursday when someone discovered that CoveritLive, the live publishing interface used by many brands and news organizations, was no longer offering free accounts. Many of us have been using the ad-supported version of CiL to hold reader chats and publish liveblogs for years now – and we were quite surprised. With several big conferences and annual news events coming up, news orgs will need some alternatives in place very quickly.

As of Wednesday, CoveritLive’s trial/free plan allows for only 25 “clicks” (whatever those are) per month, with all other plans charging per “click” with a capped limit each month. In other words – this is no longer a viable option for most newsrooms.

Having only recently posted my praises of CoveritLive, I felt compelled to help by pulling together a list of alternative workarounds for live chats and liveblogging.

Welcome to twitter, @DennisFischman. #nptech folk should follow for his wealth of community organizing experience at .

What funders need to know about mobile - New report by @zerodivideorg #philanthropy #mobile #fundertech #nptech

What can I use RowFeeder for?
We usually see RowFeeder used for 4 things:
1.) Brand Monitoring -- tracking and analyzing the conversation about a your brand, products, and competitors
2.) Campaign Measurement -- analyzing the performance of a specific social media campaign for reach, participation, and engagement
3.) Contests & Promotions -- tracking entries in a Twitter contest based on a hashtag
4.) Market Research -- tracking and analyzing the conversation for a specific topic, market, or set of topics.

Welcome!  Going International is a resource for organizations of all types to help them more effectively engage internationally.  On this site you will find resources to help you in your work.  Major topics include: international trends, international NGO trends, international outreach, cross-sector approaches, cross-cultural and international communication, strategic planning, and using social media and technology.

Originally designed for books, magazines, and newspapers, editorial calendars have been around for centuries and are the lifeline to successful publishing. Today’s editorial calendar takes into account web content, company press releases, blogs, social media news network postings in the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and YouTube as well as email marketing plans and PPC, should also wrap into traditional marketing campaigns.

The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog.

Should nonprofits use video for their annual reports? Maybe it's time, says @askdebra: #nptech #nonprofit

What's wrong with your organization's website? Find out next Thursday w/@silverbell : Free for #NTEN Members! #nptech

“The best tips and examples that I've found”
Created and curated by Beth Kanter
Beth Kanter curates this topic from blogs, tweets, videos and much more: find out how!

Upload a text file or spreadsheet of your customers' emails and instantly get age, gender, and location data.

Excellent analysis by @Mary_Joyce about digital activism & strategy (w/ a chart!) #nptech #4change

"Let's put the organizing back in online organizing." @silbatron in #11ntcwom #WOOT #11ntc #nptech

RT @idealware: How to shoot a #nonprofit video with a digital camera from @socialbrite #nptech

RT @peterscampbell: Earthjustice is hiring an IT Admin Support Specialist in Oakland, CA. DM me if you apply: #nptech

Wow RT Join @NTENorg by Friday 2/4 and get a free copy of The Networked Nonprofit by @Kanter & @afine #nten #nptech :

Great piece from @geoffliving on trends in online fundraising, with quotes from @ntenhross @causes & more: #nptech

#NPTech Tip: Use @Google Trends to learn what words are used more, even by region. eg; support, donate or give?

During 2010,  I been able to read, blurb, write reviews, do blog giveaways, or author guest posts and interviews for a lot of terrific books that would be useful to nonprofit professionals in the social media, marketing, and ICT areas.  Many authors generously sent me review copies .     I also have a small pile of books sitting on my desk that I wanted to blog about.   So, to close out the year,  I thought I’d share this list of books with you, especially if Santa gave you an Amazon gift card.

Twitter is a social network that allows users to share brief, 140 character messages. Each time another user shares your message it is considered a ReTweet. ReTweets expand you reach as an individual or company and can contribute additional website traffic, subscribers and customers.

However, when you make the mistakes outlined in this post it can cause your content to be ignored and not get ReTweeted.

GREAT case study RT @bangpound Thorough analysis of how #MooreAndMe Twitter campaign worked #nptech #4change #p2

The easiest things to measure are the least important. RT @WomenWhoTech: It's About Impact NOT Influence #Klout #nptech

Great InfoGraphic from the Designers Couch blog which details the anatomy of a perfect landing page. The landing page infographic shows us 10 key items to include in your design as well what colors go well with different sites. The 10 elements they suggest concentrating on are:

Page Headlines and Ad Copy
Clear and Concise Headlines
Impeccable Grammar
Taking Advantage of Trust Indicators
Using a Strong Call to Action
Buttons and Calls to Action Should Stand Out
Go Easy on the Links
Use Relevant Images and Videos
Keep it Above the Fold
Always be Testing

Fleapay is a simple shopping cart system that works with your existing website and payment gateway. Accepting credit cards? Plug in Fleapay and start selling!

What's a good way to list a "Contact Us" email address on a web site, while reducing the likelihood it will get spammed?

Any #nptech want to test out @vyoucom for online advocacy campaigns & conversations? Hit me up at #video4change #p2

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be co-hosting The Zoetica Salon on my Facebook Page with my Zoetica colleagues,  Geoff Livingston, Kami Huyse, and Julie Pippert (the newest Zoetican) where almost 7,000 nonprofit leaders have been engaging in informal peer learning about nonprofits and social media.   Our intent is to provide a space for  just-in-time answers and share best practices at no charge.

Interesting: New Twitter Search Tool Gives Marketers Insight into User Communities via @mashable #nptech #ri4a #p2

VisualEyes is web-based authoring tool developed at the University of Virginia to weave images, maps, charts, video and data into highly interactive and compelling dynamic visualizations.

VisualEyes enables scholars to present selected primary source materials and research findings while encouraging active inquiry and hands-on learning among general and targeted audiences. It communicates through the use of dynamic displays – or "visualizations" – that organize and present meaningful information in both traditional and multimedia formats, such as audio-video, animation, charts, maps, data, and interactive timelines. The effective use of the visualizations can reveal and illuminate relationships between multiple kinds of information across time and space far more effectively than words alone.


VisualEyes enables scholars to present selected primary source materials and research findings while encouraging active inquiry and hands-on learning among general and targeted audiences. It communicates through the use of dynamic displays – or "visualizations" – that organize and present meaningful information in both traditional and multimedia formats, such as audio-video, animation, charts, maps, data, and interactive timelines. The effective use of the visualizations can reveal and illuminate relationships between multiple kinds of information across time and space far more effectively than words alone.

The speed of the social web is forcing us to stand up and take note. We know we need to respond quickly. We know that a crisis can boil over in minutes and hours, not days or weeks. We know that expectations are for more, faster, now.
But measurement, collection of data, development of proof points; all of those take time. Sometimes a great deal of time. Gathering enough bits of information in order to draw conclusions, derive insights, spot trends over time that can inform decisions and process about future investment? That requires the patience to collect. To put the processes and platforms in place to capture that information, tie it together. To allocate human resources that can not just aggregate the data, but spend time evaluating it, asking questions, extract not just insights but recommendations.

Online donation ASPs offer secure web pages where a nonprofit’s supporters can make donations using a credit card. The ASP typically handles all of the credit card processing and deposits the funds directly into the nonprofit’s bank account (minus, in most cases, a small fee or percentage cut taken by the ASP.

A number of the services listed in this section offer web-based donor analysis and management tools that can perform many of the functions of sophisticated donor management software programs like Raiser’s Edge.

In an online and social media world, measurement is the key to success
If you can measure your key business relationships, you can improve them. Even though relationships are "fuzzy and intangible," they can be measured and managed-with powerful results.

Measure What Matters explains simple, step-by-step procedures for measuring customers, social media reputation, influence and authority, the media, and other key constituencies.

Based on hundreds of case studies about how organizations have used measurement to improve their reputations, strengthen their bottom lines, and improve efficiencies all around
Learn how to collect the data that will help you better understand your competition, do strategic planning, understand key strengths and weaknesses, and better respond to customer preferences
Author runs a successful blog and serves as a measurement consultant to companies such as Facebook, Southwest Airlines, Raytheon, and Allstate
Don't draw conclusions or make key decisions based on guesswork. Instead, Measure What Matters and the difference will show in the most important measure: your bottom line.

The other day, Klint Finley wrote a very good walkthrough of using the new Multisite functionality of WordPress 3.0. In the comments, a lot of people wanted to know how to use your own domain names. Since I’m doing that now, here’s a quick walkthrough/how-to guide.

@engagejoe Just a dream? Let's make it happen! #nptech & #4change comms *should* get involved in 10/10/10

So I return from vacation to find the latest MailerMailer report citing average open rates for H2 2009 of 11.2%.

This number has declined every half-year since H1 2004, when it was 26.66%.

Email is an incredible tool for many things, but it’s also not a very good vehicle to communicate much of what most folks tend to use it for. And on top of that, we all just get so darned many! Reading email is more often a nuisance than an opportunity to many (most?) recipients. And that’s a particular shame because email is still considered the primary outreach channel for most organizations. In fact, it’s not just a shame, it’s an outright “problem” if your job is to engage both current and potential supporters in your cause.

If your nonprofit wants to start engaging in online conversations, first you need to start by listening to what people are saying about your organization and the issues you work on. You will want to analyze the competition too. Here are some of my favorite online listening and analytics tools.

If you haven't read @kanter's summary of what all the facebook changes mean to you, u should! (via @katyaN4G ) #nptech

[New Post] Reviewing Tweetnotes from The Extraordinaries - @beextra #nptech

Recently, the Progressive Communicators of Washington, DC (PCDC) held a panel discussion on Mobile Communications for Progressives at the World Wildlife Fund here in DC. The purpose was to bring together some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the area of mobile campaigns and to find out what is working for nonprofits.

The speakers Included The Following:

Jeff Lee: Moderator and past President of Distributive Networks, the company that ran the Obama text messaging campaign in 2008.
Jed Alpert: Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Mobile Commons, a leading mobile SMS campaign provider.
Susan Murray: Sr. Officer for the Red Cross managing corporate partnerships. Susan was responsible for the record breaking Haiti SMS text campaign that brought in over $30 million via mobile phones.
Ron Vassallo: CEO of Kaptivate and Author of Are We There Yet? Non-Profit Adoption of Mobile Giving.
Rachel Labruyere:  Reform Immigration FOR America (RI4A) Campaign. Rachel LaBruyere is the Deputy Online Director for the Reform Immigration FOR America (RI4A) campaign where she manages one of the largest SMS lists in the nation at over 140,000 names and numbers.

David Miller: David Miller is the founder and CEO of Mobile Discovery, a leading mobile and social media technology company enabling new types of interactive marketing

One key take away from the event from my perspective was around the fact that SMS and mobile giving dominated the discussion. This is no surprise, as Susan Murray from the Red Cross was a panel member and non-profits are always looking for additional channels to raise money.

Are you a Communications Director or Campaign Manager who has just been asked to take care of getting your organization a new website? Never done this before and not sure why it's part of your job? You're not alone! At least once each week I talk to someone in your position who seems lost and not sure where to start. So here's your guide, glossary and reading list to get started.

The web development world is a big place with lots of terms not used in other areas of the advocacy world. (And then there are words like "development," which has nothing to do with fundraising here in the Advomatic office.)

The real crime here, though, is not that Childs’ hoarded the keys to the system. It’s that the meeting occurred at all, and the reasons that it came to the point of a stand-off are all too criminally common.  Was Childs guilty? Sure! But others shared guilt in bringing it to that point.

Small List, Big Results:  We’ve historically found a relationship between email list performance and list size.  In this year’s study, we grouped participants into three tiers for email list size (Small, under 100,000; Medium, 100,000-500,000, and Large, 500,000+ deliverable email addresses), and found significant differences in benchmarks based on this analysis. Groups with small email lists had much higher open and click-through rates and had double the email fundraising response rate of bigger nonprofits.  But Small groups also had double the unsubscribe rate of their larger peers.

Mission-Based Market Share:  When it comes to the share of online revenue attributable to different types of gift programs – such as monthly giving, one time gifts and tribute gifts – our results showed marked differences across sectors.  Whereas Environmental nonprofits in our study raised 96% of their online revenue from one-time gifts, Health nonprofits raised 50% of their online revenue from “other” gifts (including event giving) and tribute gifts, and International groups lead the way through monthly giving, which made up more than 25% of their online revenue.

Click-Through to Success:  The largest difference between high and low performing email programs in our study was seen in email click-through rates.  So, if you’re looking to emulate the most successful email programs in our study, then work to improve your click-through rates!

Issuu is the leading digital publishing platform delivering exceptional reading experiences of magazines, books, catalogs, reports, and more. In just a few seconds users can create beautiful digital editions simply by uploading their publications. It's our mission to empower individuals, companies, and institutions to publish their documents across all digital platforms.

Been tagging social media policy examples here: Health focused: #hcsm No more excuses!

Mobilize helps nonprofits, political campaigns, and other groups utilize the power of crowdsourcing by giving their supporters a tool for sharing info, collecting data, and receiving donations.

I launched a Facebook Fan Page for my blog over the summer shortly after Facebook announced vanity urls.  I resisted it for a year because I was concerned about having yet another social media outpost to feed and tune.  I wanted to avoid automated cross-posting of social content because I think it isn't very effective.

What is the way out of this problem?  Limited time and resources for maintaining and creating content on one hand, and a desire to get started.    The secret sauce:  Very focused objectives for your Fan Page and a selective strategy.

Advancing Your Mission With GIS Tools #nptech - NTEN

The people who work in online advocacy and fundraising are some of the most creative people I know. In 2009 their campaigns made me laugh or helped me channel my frustration over injustices into action. A couple of them moved me so much that I even teared up. Here’s my list of the best websites and online campaigns from 2009.  

The Events Calendar plugin enables you to rapidly create and manage events using the post editor. Features include optional Eventbrite integration, Google Maps integration as well as default templates such as a calendar grid and event list for streamlined one click installation.

Take the answers to frequently asked nonprofit management questions from the project's founding partners, Third Sector New England and the Boston Foundation.  Bring these materials online in XML format,* with the items residing on the respective home web sites of the organizations that created them.

And then...

Add a search and aggregation engine powered by the Social Actions platform, which can organize and display links to relevant resources to those who seek answers to questions about nonprofit management.

And then...

Add one or two content partners, after a careful process of vetting the accuracy of their online information about nonprofit management. Use the IdeaEncore platform to manage and host information offered by partners who are not able to provide their nonprofit management content in XML format on their home web sites.

And then...

Launch a simple portal that enables a nonprofit manager to enter a few key words regarding his/her question, and which will then yield links to videos, white papers, cheat sheets, audio recordings, and other sources of practical knowledge on the topic.

@karma_musings Look, you're famous! Scroll down to point 7.

You can use this tool to calculate an estimate of cost and return on investment for the recruitment and fundraising efforts of your staff in social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. It works sort of like an online mortgage calculator. Just enter the starting assumptions in the yellow boxes below and the tool calculates results automatically.

Non profits inhabit their own strange little bubble of marketing goals, work attitude, lack of staff, volunteer turnover and of course, budget. NPO websites need to serve both marketing and functional goals to create engaging messaging and effective service delivery. Amanda Blum nails down why Wordpress is the ideal solution across the board (and speaking of which, how to convince yours).

The Social Media for Social Good collection calls for your case studies in leveraging social media tools in your program work. Whether you've run a successful advocacy campaign, integrated social technologies into your education programs or have found innovative ways to use social media to further your mission in any other way, we want to hear about it!

To date, successfully fundraising on Twitter has been elusive for most nonprofits. TipJoy had promise and buzz, but quickly shut down. TwitPay.me filled the void, but has received very little attention. Micr0-donations via PayPal just don’t seem to appeal to donors. Twonate has a different spin on Twitter fundraising by essentially managing pledges to donate via Tweets, but of all Twitter fundraising tools I have seen come and go over the last year, Give a Tweet by far has the most potential.

Promoting Your Nonprofit on Facebook and Having Facebook Promote Your Nonprofit.

So you have a Nonprofit Fan Page on Facebook, now what? Facebook has over 300 million users, with more than 85 million unique visitors per month. This workshop covers building a strong brand identity in Facebook using Tools from Facebook and intermixing with current media efforts. Part 2 of 3 Facebook for Nonprofits Series

The Whys and Hows of a Nonprofit Facebook Page. Everyone's talking about it. But you don't understand. Why should your nonprofit be on Facebook and how should you go about doing it. This discussion and presentation will get you up to speed. Part 1 of 3 part series.

Facebook is the world's leading social network, with over 300 million users and more than 900 employees. But how do you get the most out of it? To answer this question and more, Mashable has created The Facebook Guide Book, a complete collection of resources to help you master Facebook.

With the increasing popularity with Voice over IP apps such as Skype, a new set of add-ons and extras is available that make it easy to record Skype video calls. There are several different add-ons and extras available, but at a fundamental level, they all facilitate the recording, saving and transmitting of video chats.

There is a solution: online video conference recording. Here are some standalone apps that will record your meeting as well as tools provided by conference services.

I’ve collated the best apps for recording Skype in this list. While some of the applications are free, most of them require you to shell out a few bucks. The list is split into separate sections for Windows and Mac.

Let’s start by admitting that the fundraising pyramid is a lie. Most major donors at most organizations do not rise up through the ranks of $15 donors, who become $100 donors, and then ultimately become $100,000 donors.

Most major donors come to organizations via other major donors. Most low dollar direct mail or Internet donors hang around for a year or two and then stop giving altogether.

Core behavioral economics principles offer a clue why.

People often ask me how I’ve managed to have such incredible luck with creating and distributing political Youtube videos. With quite a few viral hits under my belt I’ve had plenty of time to experiment. When I find something that works I add it to a checklist. Now when I’m producing new Youtube content each clip has to go through a 200+ item checklist to make sure it is able to get the highest number of views possible. Here are 10 of my favorite Youtube tips from my checklist:

Our nonprofit is not unique. Over the past five years, we’ve stumbled our way into social media. We’ve listened to our supporters online and attempted authentic engagement with various social media platforms. While a large percentage of our organization can articulate the importance of being on Facebook, very few staff can grasp how these tools will help to achieve our goals: greater awareness and involvement in the broader movement to address hunger. Our use of social networking has exposed many cultural differences within our organization.

FrontlineSMS is free software that turns a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub. Once installed, the program enables users to send and receive text messages with large groups of people through mobile phones. What you communicate is up to you, making FrontlineSMS useful in many different ways.