[Printer Friendly Version]

News for August 2004

27 August 2004

Frictionless Fundraising Intensive, Seattle, Oct 20-22, 2004

We're very pleased to announce a new workshop. We've developed a two and half day, intensive workshop on Frictionless Fundraising, designed for organizations and professionals that are ready to make a meaningful breakthrough in their use of new tools for success in fundraising. It will be held in Seattle on October 20 - 22, 2004. We strongly encourage organizations to send more than one person and we have discounted our registration fees accordingly. Posted: 8/27/04; 7:40:53 PM #

23 August 2004

Moral and Practical Challenges to NGO Neutrality
	The September 2004 Issue of the Newsletter of the International NGO Training and Research Centre looks at the moral and practical challenges to NGO neutrality. Barbara Brubacher's opening article lays out a great framework and the case studies are excellent. Posted: 8/23/04; 12:45:38 PM #

Systems Biology
	if you're interested in systems theory, you might enjoy reading about Systems Biology. A substantial portion of my inspiration for communication systems research and design comes from my background in biology. Posted: 8/23/04; 12:45:23 PM #

Access, Culture and a Hole in the Wall
	Some parts of the digital divide are hard to bridge, but it seems that teaching children computer literacy can be so easy that it doesn't even require an instructor. In Access, Culture and a "Hole in the Wall", Brian Michael King interviews Sugata Mitra about the success of 'minimally invasive education'. Posted: 8/23/04; 12:44:39 PM #

The NPT Power and Influence Top 50 of 2004

The Nonprofit Times has published their 2004 Power and Influence Top 50 (5 page PDF with a huge image of a bicep on the cover). I'm always fascinated by this list, even though the methodology for selection is weak, and it's not even clear to me what exactly it is that they have power and influence over. But I do believe that these are people to whom we ought be be paying attention. Posted: 8/23/04; 12:44:04 PM #

Looking for Likely Allies
	In Looking for Likely Allies: New Capital for the Social Sector, Daniel Rabuzzi looks at some interesting ideas, including expansion of program related investments by private foundations, state and local governments, and the role that universities could play in social investment. Posted: 8/23/04; 12:43:43 PM #

Bill Gates Is Not a Prospect for Your Campaign!
	Robert Hoak tells his clients that Bill Gates Is Not a Prospect for Your Campaign! This is a solid short piece on major donor fundraising, with a great emphasis on affinity and access. Posted: 8/23/04; 12:42:35 PM #

18 August 2004

When IT Lifts Productivity
	Writing in McKinsey Quarterly, Stephen J. Dorgan and John J. Dowdy echo a familiar theme. They argue that investments in IT can raise productivity when they are preceded by improvements in management practices. This is one reason why wise technologist are being dragged into the practice of management consulting. But they shouldn't have to do that. Posted: 8/18/04; 5:46:41 PM #

Small Businesses and Blogging
	In Small Businesses and Blogging, customer evangelists Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba give seven reasons for starting a weblog and five good tips. Posted: 8/18/04; 5:46:10 PM #

10 Reasons You Should Start a Weblog Right Now

Marnie Webb of CompuMentor has her own 10 Reasons You Should Start a Weblog Right Now. She has covered all the good ones: (1) Updating is easy. (2) Links are valuable to your readers. (3) You can become a trusted information source. (4) A Weblog gives readers a reason to visit your Web site regularly. (5) Weblogs provide a more personal communication vehicle. (6) Google loves weblogs. (7) Reverse chronological order is wonderful. (8) It's easy to be topical. (9) You can use a variety of media. (10) The sum is more than the parts. Posted: 8/18/04; 5:45:58 PM #

It Takes Two to Tango
	There are great ideas coming out of Toronto. Tonya Surman of the Commons Group presents a clear, simple vision for the value of organizational collaboration in It Takes Two to Tango (for some reason, a 1 page PDF). She explores the synergies available in the areas of funding, advocacy, and operations. Posted: 8/18/04; 5:45:41 PM #

Create-Your-Own-Brochure Program
	Huntington College's Create-Your-Own-Brochure Program is a fantastic example of well conceived personalization and direct marketing. The content of this college's marketing brochures are customized to the prospective student's interests. Posted: 8/18/04; 5:45:24 PM #

17 August 2004

Are Useful Requirements Just A Fairy Tale?
	Dan Willis asks: Are Useful Requirements Just A Fairy Tale? He makes it clear why fuzzy technology requirements are frustrating to strategists and developers alike, and gives some nice quick examples distinguishing between business requirements and functional requirements. Posted: 8/17/04; 12:28:27 PM #

Hackers Take Aim at GOP
	Noah Shachtman explores the tensions and issues facing activists who choose to take direct action online. The example in question relates to denial of service attacks against republican Party web sites. Posted: 8/17/04; 12:27:58 PM #

16 August 2004

Fables of the Reconstruction

In Fables of the Reconstruction, Christian Parenti writes that "reconstruction in Iraq looks less like a mission of mercy or a sophisticated pacification program and more like a criminal racket". Makes me wonder how different this could have been had we turned to the international NGOs who know how to do these things. They are not utterly free of corruption, of course, but it would have been a fundamentally different approach. Posted: 8/16/04; 11:36:25 AM #

The Morning After

In The Morning After Kim Haddow and Holly Minch of the SPIN Project present some thoughts about how a wide range of nonprofit organizations might respond to the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. They touch on many issues, including fundraising implications, judicial issues, the first 100 days of a new administration, and the inevitable burnout of many activists. Posted: 8/16/04; 11:36:12 AM #

Advocacy Platforms
	The Advocacy Developers Convergence (I think this is a hip word for "conference") was held in late June of this year. In addition to some excellent session notes, they compiled a list of Advocacy Platforms, software systems related to advocacy and campaigns. Posted: 8/16/04; 11:35:57 AM #

12 August 2004

The Email Newsletter Marketing Model
	From time to time, my clients give me the opportunity to reposition my work with them for a larger audience. Our most recent feature article is one such piece of work. The Email Newsletter Marketing Model is a description of what has emerged in the last few years as the canonical form on email centric online marketing. Posted: 8/12/04; 3:17:41 PM #

11 August 2004

Wikis And Face-To-Face Events
	Eugene Eric Kim describes the use of wikis to preserve the group momentum of face to face events. My experience of this approach is mixed. I suspect that most of the work of nurturing post-meeting collaboration is not technological at all. Posted: 8/11/04; 1:47:08 PM #

10 August 2004

New guidelines gut HIV prevention

In Condom Wars, Doug Ireland writes about how new government guidelines could affect 3800 nonprofits that do AIDS prevention work. I hardly know how to characterize this in terms that are remotely polite, but they essentiall gut HIV prevention. If you work for a nonprofit that depends upon any federal funding, I would fear for your independence. If you depend upon a free and responsible world of science, you're facing a potent enemy in the form of the current U.S. administration. Posted: 8/10/04; 11:46:29 AM #

6 August 2004

The Legacy of Hiroshima: How the Press Was Spun
	Sometimes I think we're living in a time of unprecedented distortion of the media by the military and the U.S. government. But 59 years ago, when we dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, things were much the same. In The Legacy of Hiroshima: How the Press Was Spun, Greg Mitchell looks at General MacArthur's censorship efforts. Posted: 8/6/04; 11:54:27 AM #

4 August 2004

Manifesto for the Reputation Society

Hassan Masum and Yi-Cheng Zhang have written a Manifesto for the Reputation Society in First Monday. They make a strong case for the power of collaborative intelligence in communities of interest. I have been using tools like this for years in my information brokerage role at Nonprofit Online News. All of us have seen glimmers of the potential of such systems at Amazon, eBay, and elsewhere. Posted: 8/4/04; 4:52:59 PM #

ICT Policy Handbook
	The Association for Progressive Computing has published an ICT Policy Handbook. It's a truly impressive introduction to issues affecting people around the globe. Posted: 8/4/04; 4:52:50 PM #

High-Engagement Philanthropy
	The concept of venture philanthropy has matured in the last few years. A recent report entitled High-Engagement Philanthropy: A Bridge to a More Effective Social Sector does much to demonstrate this maturity. Posted: 8/4/04; 4:52:40 PM #

Progressive Book Club
	I'm not generally very excited about cause related marketing, but I just signed up for the Progressive Book Club, which is a nice combination of fundraising, education and organizing. Nonprofits can also join and be eligible for donations based upon the books ordered and read by their supporters. Posted: 8/4/04; 4:52:26 PM #

Google Guide
	Using search technology does not come naturally to every one. So most folks will find Nancy Blachman's Google Guide to be very useful. Posted: 8/4/04; 4:51:55 PM #