John Kenyon - Nonprofit Technology Educator & Strategist

2010 Nonprofit Tech Conference - Registration Now Open

If you deal with technology in a nonprofit, there is one can't-miss event for you - NTEN's annual Nonprofit Technology Conference.  

In 2010 it will be held in Atlanta, GA April 8-10th.

Here I am with my co-presenters William Neuheisel from DC Central Kitchen and Jennie Anderson from AIDS.gov at the 2009 conference.

And another with Beth Kanter, also at the 2009 NTC.

The conference sold out in 2009, and early-bird pricing for registration (save $200!) ends December 15th, so register now!

Click here: 2010 NTC Information and Registration

Dropping eNewsletters in Favor of RSS?

At a conference where I spoke recently, someone mentioned an organization who decided to drop their enewsletter in favor of RSS. I was really surprised by this and am not sure I understand (or would recommend) this strategy.

From my point of view, marketing in nonprofits (and business in general) today is about managing multiple platforms. I think that matching your message and its delivery to various channels is one of the most important skills for nonprofits to have. Using the same message across all media is not as effective as matching it to the audience. Your youth program participants may be on MySpace and your donors on Facebook, so modifying your message to these different audiences and the medium they prefer is essential. Although much of my work is around online fundraising and communications, I still believe in print. I think there is something about a print piece that people can pick up and peruse. If I am visiting someone's office I can't peruse the enewsletter you send them unless I snoop in their email. 

I appreciate the story about how when broadcast radio began, the prediction was that since people could now get news for free, newspapers would soon go out of business. Almost a century later, at least some are still in business. Different people prefer to consume information through different channels.

While having an RSS feed of your website/blog is important for those who wish to use RSS, that likely is not 100% of your audience. I understand wanting to consolidate communications for efficiency, but I think it is important to use the various channels favored by your stakeholders.

A great way to understand this is to ask. If you are going from a print to an online newsletter, ask your current subscribers to sign up for the enews and see what they do. Do 70% of your print subscribers sing up or only 20%? That give you an indication what they prefer. Be sure to do a good job explaining and enticing people to sign up, citing why it is more cost effective for the organization and what great things they will hear about in a timely fashion.

With some planning even small organizations can handle messaging across the platforms and to the audiences they determine are most important. 

Find HIV Testing Locations via Text Message and More - National HIV Testing Day June 27th

I think the folks at AIDS.gov site are doing a fantastic job using technology tools such as text messaging, widgets and a Twitter hashtag* to promote awareness of National HIV Testing Day on June 27th. Some of you may have seen Jennie Anderson, a Consultant at John Snow, Inc. who serves as the Communications Director for AIDS.gov at NTC 2009 when she presented with me at my Effective Online Communcations session.

Before I tell you about what Jenny and her team are doing, let me say: 

Everyone should get tested - I do - and this is a great reminder. 

Now to the story - 

Jenny recently sent out messages to her contacts informing them of the campaign, their story initiative blog series and video widget. She included links and a request to include the widget on your site if you thought it was appropriate. The site then provides some facts and encourages participation. See the main landing page here. 

During June, AIDS. gov is inviting people to share their stories about what getting an HIV test meant to them on the AIDS.gov blog. They also are highlighting HIV testing storytelling campaigns from organzations such as the National Association of People Living with AIDS , POZ , Southern AIDS Living Quilt , The Positive Project and others.

Options for action include:

You can find your local HIV testing location by sending a text message with your zip code to "KNOWIT" (566948) or visiting www.HIVtest.org>

 

This video can be shared and placed on a blog or website by anyone who wants to help promote testing.

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The site also provides a hashtag* to use on twitter - #NHTD09 - so that people who are twitering about NHTD events and information can include it in their tweets or others can tag photos, blog posts, etc. They also wisely include an invitation to follow AIDS.gov on Twitter for other updates. 

I think Jenny and her team have done a great job with providing engaging content, ways to engage in a dialog and tools to help people spread the word - both online and offline. 

Support their efforts - find your nearest location and get tested.

*hashtag: A tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system. Tagging was popularized by websites associated with Web 2.0 and is an important feature of many Web 2.0 services.

- Wikipedia (click here for full Tag posting)

Salesforce Being Inappropriately Recommended for Smaller Nonprofits

I recently had a chance to see the new Salesforce.com nonprofit "skin" and it is an improvement over the previous version.

I used Salesforce several years ago when I was employed at Groundspring.org. I appreciate the power and flexibility of the product. I also applaud the donation of this tool to nonprofits (though no one knows for how long it will remain free, especially if salesforce.com is bought by another company).

For organizations who have the internal technology capacity, comfort and certain needs, salesforce can be a great fit. 

What I am talking about here is not the tool itself, but that too frequently I am seeing it being recommended to small and medium sized nonprofits (for me those are orgs under $2 million budget) for whom it is completely inappropriate. I feel this is a disservice to the nonprofit community and specifically the nonprofit technology community.

For most small nonprofits, there is a huge learning curve to get up to speed with the product in any meaningful way. If an organization has never used an integrated data system, it can be overwhelming for staff. Configuration of the software beyond the basics can be incredibly complex - it is not something most small organizations have the capacity to handle well without spending considerable amounts on consulting.

If you have experience with a tool or your organization decides to focus on one tool as a primary solution, that does not mean it is right for all of your clients. It hurts the nonprofit technology community when nonprofits put their trust in organizations and individuals who recommend a tool that isn't appropriate for their client.

More than once I have heard about a nonprofit support organization that seems particularly prone to this behavior. Let’s hope it doesn’t continue - knock on wood.

Do the work that we know is necessary:

    * DEFINE and articulate the organization's data management needs

    * COMPARE needs against tools to find the closest fit

    * DECIDE based on the org's comfort, skills, resources and capacity

    * Choose a tool based on data - not your skill set

Related Resources:

Idealware’s Reports on Data Management and CRM systems

TechSoup's Learning Center: Databases

Robert Weiner’s Database Selection and Management Resources

CEO Sleepout to Help the Homeless

One of my favorite Australian CEO's Lisa Harvey of Energetica, is participating in the St. Vincent de Paul Society's CEO Sleepout to "raise awareness, raise money and rise to the challenge of homelessness".

CEO's from around Australia are going to be sleeping outside in Sydney's Luna Park on June 18th. More information is available on the CEO Sleepout website.

Not only do I thik it is a great thing she are doing, it is an interesting concept for nonprofits to consider about bringing the realities of homelessness - and other areas of focus - "home" to people in a concrete fashion.

Lisa has already raised AU$370, please consider joining me in supporting her in this event. Here is the link to Lisa's individual giving page on the site:

Lisa's Page

Remarkable Human Services Leaders

I was fortunate this week to participate in the Executive Leadership Institute, presented by the University of Michigan's School of Social Work and Ross School of Business in collaboration with the Alliance for Families and Children. There were a variety of human services leaders there to improve their skills in both management and leadership. I presented for half a day, covering nonprofit technology essentials including planning, budgeting, data management, the internet and social media/web 2.0. 

It was a real privilege to work with these individuals who have not only dedicated themselves to serving the families and children that are most in need in our country, but who are actively improving their skills as managers and leaders. 

If you or someone you know is a leader in a human services organization, I strongly encourage you to learn more about the Alliance, which provides a wealth of resources and the Institute.

Click here for the Alliance for Families and Children

Click here for the Executive Leadership Institute

Click here for the University of Michigan School of Social Work

Click here for the University of Michigan Ross School of Business

Penguin Day, NTC09 and Policy Day Nuggets

The last week of April I attended and presented at Penguin Day, NTC and Policy Day. Along the way I did some sessions, found out about some interesting projects, tools and websites. Here is a random collection:

Penguin Day

CiviCRM vs. Salesforce for Nonprofits

Thomas Groden and I had a great session that outlined some of the major differences in the systems. It was a very well attended session and attendees had some great questions and shared valuable experiences. 

TOR Project: Imagine you are in a country like Turkey where YouTube is banned. How might you get access to it? Or you are in China wanting to access wikipedia and know that Yahoo will hand over your information on demand to the government, possibly resulting in jail time? Or you are a victim of domestic violence who knows your internet activity is being monitored by your abuser? The TOR Project can help.

TOR uses various tactics to help people use the internet anonymously and send encrypted/anaonymous messages, like updates to wikipedia. Using the TOR projects plug-in for Firefox, you can re-route and anonymize your online activity. The TOR browser bundle can be used to circumvent filters (like a school who does not allow students to look at sites with the word "gay" in them).

I am testing out the Firefox client and while there is a speed hit, it has been reliable. 

Wikileaks.org - Assists "peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and institutions".

SustainableWebsites.com - 100% carbon-neutral web hosting

NTC 2009

Beth Kanter's Session: Mapping Social Media Strategy To Metrics: Listen, Learn, Adapt

Red Cross: "We are mentioned in various social media platforms over 400 times a day, so LISTENING is the foundation of what we do in social media"

A well-known internet domain registration service conducted a "conversation analysis" to see how many comments/mentions of their brand on blogs were positive and how many were negative. When they first looked, 85% of comments were negative. They made a concerted effort to counter some of the mis-information that had been spread, engaged more effectively with social media - including dropping the time it took them to respond to blog posts from 48 hours to 4 hours. The result was that negative posts dropped to 18% of all mentions.

Check out Feed.informer.com and www.NetVibes.com to help manage feeds from various sources to assist with listening.

Check out Hashtags.org to see trends in what people are tagging/talking about on Twitter.

Check out www.Radian6.com as a social media monitoring solution


My Session: Website Usability Testing for Smaller Orgs

My guest speakers, Johanna Bates from Community Partners and Maryann Osmond from Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur did an excellent job sharing stories of their experiences revising their websites based on their audiences, including testing the usability. Thanks to them both.

My Session: Effective Online Communications

Jennie Anderson of Aids.gov and William Neuheisel of DC Central Kitchen shared valuable experience and advice about how they communcate effectively online. Jennie's colleague Michelle Samplin-Salgado did a blog post mentioning the sesssion: Click here to read the post. 

Thanks to Jennie and William for adding their valuable real-world experiences. 

CBO Policy Day

I did a presentation on using Web 2.0/Social Media tools for Advocacy. A few good examples of advocacy/policy websites:

www.350.org - International Day of Climate Action

www.1sky.org - 1 Climate, 1 Future, 1 Chance (great "Get Local" section)

Third Annual East Bay Policy Day

Next Wednesday April 29th from 8:30am - 2pm I will be participating in a great SF Bay Area event put on by the CBO Center:

"Can You Hear Us Now - Nonprofit Advocacy in the Age of Obama"

The event includes:

The Local Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

A panel discussion with:
Jean Ross, executive director, California Budget Project
Supervisor Susan Bonilla, Contra Costa County, District IV
Alex Briscoe, Deputy Director, AC Health Services
Moderated by David Glover, OCCUR

My session "Using Web 2.0 to Educate and Advocate" and

"Advocacy 201" with Nancy Amidei, Executive Director, Civic Engagement Project

Nancy will also be the keynote speaker at lunch.

This event is a bargain at $65 - and there is a discount for multiple registrants from an org!

Space is limited so REGISTER TODAY.

I look forward to seeing you there!  

Penguin Day SF - All About Open Source (SOLD OUT!)

One of the best facilitators and organizers in the nonprofit world, Allen Gunn (aka Gunner) will be hosting Aspiration's Penguin Day San Francisco on Saturday April 25th. I will be participating and facilitating a discussion around CiviCRM and Salesforce.

At $35 for a full day, this is one of the best bargains in nonprofit technology education.

Sessions will include:

* Introduction to Free and Open Source Software
* Introduction to Free and Open Source Desktop Applications
* Free And Open Source Online Advocacy: Tools And Best Practices
* Online Fundraising With All Free and Open Tools
* Introduction to Linux
* Making sense of Free and Open Source Content Management Systems
* Introduction to Blogging with Wordpress
* Intro and Advanced sessions on Joomla! and Drupal
* Intro to CiviCRM 2.0 + CiviCRM 2.0 - Advanced Topics
* CiviCRM vs Salesforce.com: What Are the Differences?
* Increasing Access with Community Broadband in SF
* Learnings from Google Summers of Code
* Mobile Volunteering: The ExtraOrdinaries Project
* Healthy and Sustainable Free and Open Source Communities
* Helping Techies and Non-Techies Communicate and Cooperate
* Creative Commons And Open Content
* Free and Open Source Firewalls

Penguin Day San Francisco is happening at the Odd Fellows Hall at 7th and Market Street, in the heart of downtown.

For more information and to register go to www.penguinday.org

I hope to see you there!

Flickr Photos: cambodia4kidsorg

Effective Online Communications Released

 "Effective Online Communications" is the chapter I wrote in the book from The Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission (2009, Jossey-Bass/Wiley), released today.

In this chapter I cover planning for and executing strategies to support an effective website and email communications in nonprofit organizations.

An organization's online communications via their website and email form the foundation of an effective online presence. In order to take advantage of social media and web 2.0 technologies, organizations first need a solid foundation. I cover planning, elements of engaging websites, using email to drive traffic to the site and tracking results to improve results.

There are a host of distinguished nonprofit writers that also contributed great chapters to the book covering the spectrum of technology management:

PART ONE: PLANNING AND PEOPLE.

Chapter 1: Mission First: Achieving IT Alignment (Steve Heye)
Chapter 2: Managing Technology Change (Dahna Goldstein)
Chapter 3: Measuring the Return on Investment of Technology (Beth Kanter)
Chapter 4: How to Decide: IT Planning and Prioritizing (Peter Campbell)
Chapter 5: Finding and Keeping the Right People (James Weinberg, and Cassie Scarano)
Chapter 6: Budgeting for and Funding Technology (Scott McCallum and Keith R. Thode)

PART TWO: THE TOOLS.

Chapter 7: The Foundation: Introduction to IT and Systems (Kevin Lo and Willow Cook)
Chapter 8: Where Are Your Stakeholders, and What Are They Doing Online (Michael Cervino)
Chapter 9: Effective Online Communications (John Kenyon)
Chapter 10: Donate Now: Online Fundraising (Madeline Stanionis)
Chapter 11: Where Will We Be Tomorrow (Edward Granger-Happ)

The Editors

Purchasers of the book have access to premium content available online, which includes bonus materials and posts from the authors.

The book is available on the Jossey Bass/Wiley site and on Amazon.com

Online Evangelists Help Feed Shelter Animals and Provide Housing

Twelve year old Mimi Ausland from Bend, Oregon has provided over 50 tons of food to needy animals in shelters through two websites she created.

In 2008, after learning about the food shortages many animal shelters face, Mimi - with help from her parents and months of research and planning- created the websites freekibble.com and freekibblekat.com. Her efforts prompted Castor and Pollux, a Portland, Ore. pet products company, to donate 10 pieces of kibble for every answer to the animal trivia questions Mimi posts on her site. Visitors to the site not only help contribute food but learn something about animals in shelters.

Since April of 2008 she has provided over 713,000 meals to hungry dogs and cats. She has become the sole supplier to 11 shelters nationwide. In the fall of 2008 she was honored by the ASPCA with their "Kid of the Year" award for her efforts. Mimi is one of a new breed of "online evangelists" who promote good causes, often independently, not as agents of the organizations they support.

Judith Sol-Dyess was touched by the people she saw who lived at the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, where she works as the Sr. Director of Information Systems.

Judith created a simple yet effective website called Project30W named for the buildings address, 30 W Chicago Ave. Although the building is her office, for many it is their home.

On the site she shares her experience of her neighbors along with portraits of them, showing their humanity and giving viewers a window into the lives of people who live a that Y. Even though she is an employee, Judith is sharing her personal experience and suggesting people make donation to help support the people she now knows as friends.

These are two examples of individuals motivated to help a cause on their own using the online medium. How do you excite your supporters and motivate them to spread your message online?

Making Web 2.0 Work for You

The Nature Conservancy has been using Flickr for their annual digital photography contest for the last 3 years, with some impressive results. The organization realized that a lot of their supporters were also photographers of nature. Meeting their supporters where a lot of them already were online, on Flickr, they were able to tap into the populatrity of the site.

TNC now has over 10,000 members of their Flickr group, one of the largest to date. Thousands of photos have been submitted and hundreds of new e-news subscribers have been gained with every annual contest.

Beth Kanter has a great interview with Nature Conservancy staff members Evan Parker and Susan Citro about how the organization is using Flickr, click here to read it.

Mobile Giving for Nonprofits: An Example

With mobile phones being more ubiquitous every day, mobile technology is offering nonprofits another medium to connect with supporters and receive donations. I had a chance to take a tour of Mobile Commons recently and got an idea of what the tool offers.

Organizations can customize the codes or words that people text in. This is great for customizing for a campaign, such as "Text "ACTION" to XXXXX to request activist alerts".

The three primary actions nonprofits can offer are:

To register for updates via text or email
A prospect can text a code to a number to register for updates via text and/or text their email address to register for email updates. Organizations can provide or request additional information in subsequent text messages.

To get or provide information
Organizations can construct conversations via text. For example, once someone is subscribed for updates, they could be offered a choice of update topic, for example, or be asked to provide additional information like zip code. 

Mobile users can request information. Organizations can set up codes that send specific information. For example texting "banana" to a number would provide nutritional information or texting your senators name could provide their voting record on a certain issue.

Sending in responses is also possible. People can type in the answer to a question and those responses can then be displayed online so others can see the answers.

To make donations
Via a text message, supporters can donate $5 which is charged to their mobile phone bill. The ability to donate $10 is also soon to be an option.

From my point of view, currently these options seem best suited primarily to organizations with a statewide or nationwide presence and who are able to invest the over $400 per month for the service. For those groups this creates an exciting opportunity to engage with new audiences, including youth and lower income populations who may not have access to a computer, but do have a mobile phone.

To learn more, there are some excellent case studies done by my good friend Michael Stein and others on the MobileActive.org site.

See YouTube for several PSA's featuring or focused on texting:

AUA NFL SuperBowl Video Text to Donate

Mary J Blige FFAWN Text Message Donation

Rocky Mountain PBS Text to Donate

Rock the Vote - Getting out the Vote Through Cell Phones

USA Cares- Mobile Giving PSA

Doctors Without Borders Times Square Spot

Composing Your Online Fundraising Plan in 2009

In this one-hour session with Network for Good's Katya Andresen, I talk about the essential elements of a good online fundraising plan and how to respond to the reduction in resources most nonprofits face in 2009.

Listen to the Audio (mp3)

Download Transcript (pdf, 72kb)

Download the Outline (pdf, 52kb)

Download a Sample Online Fundraising Plan (pdf, 92kb)

Thanks to Katya, Rebecca Higman and everyone at Network for Good for inviting me - and for sharing these with everyone as a free resource.

Send Unfriendly Fire to Congress

On March 3rd, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America (St. Martin’s Press) by Nathaniel Frank will be released. The book is the definitive story of the current ban on gays in the military, but it also contains surprising stories about the appallingly dishonest process that created that policy and about the hidden costs of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” It is also a deeply personal meditation on what it means to live in a country where federal law represses the expression of who we are—a reality which affects gays and non-gays alike.

“Send UNFRIENDLY FIRE to Congress!” invites you to buy yourself a book and have a second copy sent—at half price—to Capitol Hill. The two books together cost under $39, and it couldn’t be easier: just make the purchase online, and wait for your book (it will ship March 3). When we reach our goal of buying books for all 542 members of Congress, Nathaniel will drive a station-wagonful of books to Washington amidst much fanfare. Click on the widget below for more info and to order.

Praise for Unfriendly Fire

“Brings light, not heat, to the debate.” - Andrew Sullivan

“Builds a solid case that the ban on gays in the military is not only wrong, it is endangering the country.” - Kirkus Reviews

“A beautifully written and brilliantly researched book… practically every page provides genuine reading pleasure.” - Charles Kaiser, The Gay Metropolis

“Should be mandatory reading for anyone with an interest in the state of our society or the readiness of our military.”  - General John Shalikashvili, former Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff