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When service to mission and technology alignment are maximized, the organization is in a phase best labeled

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Steve MacLaughlin, Director of Internet Solutions, Blackbaud Technology is a wonderful thing. It enables nonprofits to deliver programs, services, and ultimately, meet their mission. But having the right people is absolutely critical to being successful. Given the choice between the latest technology or the best people, the choice should be obvious. I have interviewed hundreds of people in my career. Along the way I've learned some important lessons that are true for companies and nonprofits of all sizes. Here are some keys to finding and hiring the ...

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By Julie Chapman, President, NPower Greater DC Region Increasingly, nonprofits are looking at outsourcing part if not all of their IT support. How do you know if this is the right choice for your organization? What factors should you consider? How should you go about finding and selecting a provider? Here are some thoughts from the team at NPower DC where we provide hands on tech support to small and large nonprofits across our region in a variety of mission areas. There are two compelling reasons to consider outsourcing. The first is that your ...

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At the Nonprofit Technology Conference last month, I got the chance to sit in on the session about the 2011 Social Networking Benchmark Report. As we talked through all the stats – how many nonprofits are on Facebook, what they're doing there, and so on – a great questions came from the crowd. "What do I do with all these interactions? How can I make sense of them?" My answer was that we're still a couple of years out, but we're getting closer and closer to processes and tools that will let us make sense of this. Social CRM has been in our vocabulary ...

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The NTC Bookstore and the wonderful NTC Bookstore volunteersIf you bought something from the bookstore at the NTC, you may have already met the credit card app, Square. We’ve received a lot of questions in person and over email about how Square works, so we thought we’d share our experience.  Honestly, I’m not sure how the actual mechanics work. You plug a tiny reader, the approximate height and length of a donut hole and width of your finger, into the headphone jack of an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch and swipe a credit card through it. Voila! ...

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[Editor's note: The following first appeared in the March 2011 issue of NTEN:Change. Read the complete issue of NTEN's new quarterly journal for nonprofit leaders by subscribing to the journal for free!]By Farra Trompeter, Big Duck1. Decide your goals for communicating in social media.Consider your personal goals and those for the organization you work for. Where do these goals meet and how do they differ? How you use social media can help your contacts connect both to you and the organization, while also demonstrating your understanding about how ...

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By Cynthia M. Adams, President and CEO, GrantStation Before you begin reading this blog post, let me throw in a disclaimer. Our researchers at GrantStation are incredibly good at their jobs. They all have strong research and writing skills, and a loyalty to finding the right information for our Members that is sort of stunning. So, everything I have to say about trends in technology grantmaking is based on subjective observations made by those people who spend their days researching grantmakers. What sorts of changes are we seeing in grantmaking due to ...

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By Jocelyn Harmon, Director of Nonprofit Services, Care2Unless you've been living under a barrel, you know the demographics of the U.S. are changing. Here are some key highlights from The Changing Demographics of America by Smithsonian. I encourage you to read the entire article. The United States of 2050 will look different from that of today: whites will no longer be in the majority. The U.S. minority population, currently 30 percent, is expected to exceed 50 percent before 2050. Most of America's net population growth will be among its ...

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For those of you who have read Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip and Dan Heath – or if you were at the 2011 NTC and saw Dan's Plenary – you've probably already started thinking about the Direct-Motivate-Shape the Path triumverate for helping people change their behavior. I've got another triumverate for you, courtesy of Dr. BJ Fogg, founder of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University: B=MAT According to Dr. Fogg, B (behavior) happens when Motivation, Ability, and Triggers coincide. The concepts are similar to ...

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By Amy Potthast, Director, Service and Graduate Programs, Idealist As a non-techie, I think I can safely say that a hiring nonprofit's current staff may have so little technical knowledge, they don't even know what skills are needed to do a job they want done. This lack of clarity on the employer's part can translate into some confusion and challenges on your part when you apply for a nonprofit job. I chatted with my colleagues on Idealist's web team for pointers to pass along. The following are some things you can do when you're interviewing for a ...

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We know that you know that you can't treat all of your donors and supporters in the same way. It's not a question of fairness. You need to communicate with a donor who has set up a $250 monthly recurring gift differently from the donor who gives you $15 each holiday season differently from the person who just joined your mailing list. The hard part is managing all that information effectively. That's where donor management systems come in – and no, Excel doesn't count. Also bad? Using the BCC: field to send out your messages.Navigating the choices you ...

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A monthly roundup of our favorite nonprofit tech resources and other goodies. Read more posts on our blog. We had, ahem, a few problems with the wireless Internet at the 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference. To try to help mitigate the problem, Holly made a funny video. After it aired on the big screen, even the Washington Hilton IT staff wanted a copy, so we posted it to YouTube. Fortunately, the NTC made up for the connectivity failures with general fabulousness, including the release of two of our favorite reports each year: The ...

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By Steve Backman, President, Database Designs To close out our month-long look at some of the best tools for nonprofits, Steve Backman tells you about some of his favorite day-to-day software.Favorite software tools are all about managing processes fluidly. Essential categories need to be personal to the job – and actual choices, even more personal. My weeks are all about writing, communicating with clients, staying in touch with project teams, being able to touch lightly many things, bear down and provide assistance on a few, all while keeping tons ...

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Last week, as I emerged from the post-conference haze of catching up on sleep and clearing my in-box, I started reading through blog posts from attendees and speakers. Then I couldn't stop! There are SO many posts to read that I figured I should round them all up in one place and share them. Hopefully, this means that all of the posts I haven't yet found will be added in the comments and we can all create a comprehensive list together.If I missed your blog post, I'm sorry! Please just drop it into the comments so we can all check it out!Session ...

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If you pay attention to the news, you've likely heard reports in the past few months of a handful of young LGBT people taking their own lives after various experiences with bullying because of their perceived sexual orientation. Out of these tragedies came the It Gets Better Project, which was lead by one of my favorite taboo-topic funny guys, Dan Savage. Once he and his partner created an initial video talking about how they met, how miserable their high school lives were, and how much better life gets as you grow out of the world of adolescent name-calling and into adulthood where you can ...

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Voices from the Community is a new series of blog posts culling popular topics of interest from the TechSoup Community Forums and other online community channels. This post was penned by TechSoup forum host, contractor, and head of Coyote Communications Jayne Cravens. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to accounting software. In addition to the variety of packages available, nonprofits use packages differently, per their unique work, sizes and approaches. In addition to TechSoup community forum discussions about accounting software at and use by nonprofits, such as this one, ...

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This blog post was written by Susan Chavez. Susan is a nonprofit consultant and social media manager for The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. March's TechSoup Online Community Meetup, featured Jeska Dzwigalski of Wikia addressing the topic of online community management. Jeska's presentation, "Engaging Community Collaboration: Three Things Community Managers Can Do to Help Communities be Heard," provided straightforward and practical advice on community management. The presentation addressed how to encourage and manage community collaboration by keeping the ...

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GreenTech has done a bit to explore green web hosting in our How to Choose a Green Website Host piece, but we thought we’d deepen the discussion a bit by profiling Enviromedia's quest to find a green host that is affordable, dependable, and that truly uses renewable energy. These days there is probably too much information on the web listing green web hosts. Websites like Hosting Review, and others offer listings of the top green web hosts. Places like ThinkHost, GreenGeeks, Sustainable Websites, and Green Web Host all claim to be number one green hosts. Back in 2007 TreeHugger did a piece ...

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With over 2000 attendees NTEN’s NTC conference was abuzz with lots of exhibitions displaying technology on offer as well as workshops and side events (which even included free massages provided by PICnet!). It provided a great opportunity for the American nonprofit sector to engage with the technology sector, as well as each other, to improve the use of technology for social benefit. TechSoup Global had an exhibition at the Science Fair and many nonprofits in attendance expressed thanks for donations they received from our donor partners through TechSoup, while others asked for more ...

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