Technology Burner Technology Burner

You’d think with the election over, we would shut up about Obama’s internet strategy - but not so much. Because it turns out that an oft-quoted statistic about his campaign isn’t quite right. See, I went around telling everyone that small donors formed the bulk of his campaign contributions. I bragged about how the internet had made it possible to mobilize huge numbers of regular folk, who gave small amounts of their hard earned cash until, together, they put Obama in the White House! Power to the people, baby!

A nice story, but according to a study of his campaign finances, not exactly true.

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What can we learn from the unstoppable Obama PR machine that just rolled over the country? Never mind the politics: the campaign was the smartest publicity siege that’s been seen in a long time. It’s particularly worth paying attention to how Obama and his crew of merry techsters paid attention to the net. They pulled a bunch of cool tools from their utility belt: social networking sites, twitter, text messaging, and even virutal advertising in video games.  Find out more about their strategy and how it could work for your non-profit...

Mark Hayward, co-founder of Train for Humanity, sets out today from his home to participate in the Miami Man Triathlon and raise awareness (and funds) for relief in Darfur.  Train for Humanity launched this September with social media as a core aspect of communications, fundraising, and more.  I recently connected with Mark to hear more about Train for Humanity and how social media is working for them.  Learn more about Train for Humanity in the interview below or at

You can sense the nervousness for fundraisers right now as they watch the stock market flop around like a goldfish on the floor.

And the media pundits aren't helping. There are the Survivalists ("It's the Long Emergency - grab a tin of cat food and head for the hills!"), but also the Pollyannas ("It's business as usual - Capitalism needs to have a heart attack every few years!")

Don't panic! Instead, let's look at a historical example to gain some perspective. In fact, our example will be Ground Zero for the original Wall Street apocalypse: what was it like to fundraise during the Great Depression?

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Google has apparently applied for a series of patents that will enable it to a put a value on how connected you are, within your social network. Akin to the "pagerank" system used by the search giant for valuing the popularity of websites, "friendrank" would help identify individuals who are particularly influential within circles of friends.

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The month of October plays host to the DonorsChoose.org BloggersChallenge.  Last year, the Challenge raised $500,000 and helped 75,000 kids in high-need public schools.  Which bloggers will raise the most and what projects will get funded is up to you!

About the Challenge

There are many different 'charity mall' providers for nonprofits and shoppers to choose from, and the launch of We-Care.com adds one more to the mix!

The funcation of a charity mall portal is to provide a co-branded space where nonprofits can direct supporters to make many of their ordinary online purchases while supporting the organization.

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After a series of hurricanes have devestated the Gulf Coast lately, charities both small and large are looking for much more in relief funds to support the varied relief efforts already under way.

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We are all guilty. You too.

We have all used Excel as a database, even though it’s really not a database program. Real database programs take training - Excel, however, can make you that call list in the blink of an eye. So you use it. There’s more: many of us have used Photoshop for making pamphlets and posters, even though it’s not actually meant to do either. Worse, we’ve made pamphlets in Word.

The mind reels! Or maybe it doesn’t, because frankly tech tools are made to be subverted. Especially by non-profit staff who are on a grant deadline, and just need a way to get this poster done, fast.

I will give you some actual nuts and bolts, but let me first say this: all good online fundraisers have two basic directions they work in - in and out. ‘In’ is a webpage, where people visit you. ‘Out’ is as in reaching out, through emails, smsing, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook etc etc etc. You are aiming for flow between the two directions. Because - just like all really successful fundraising - this is not so much about asking a bunch of people for money. Actually, it’s about a personal exchange - exactly what the internet was made for. Hold that thought, here come the nuts and bolts…

(to read the rest of this post, click here!)

A remote funding developer. They work from home, they take up less support costs and they don’t involve supervisory time - what’s not to love? I worked as a remote funding researcher recently, and while I’m not willing to flat out say it doesn’t work (comments welcome from people doing just fine at this job) I am willing to tell you what to watch out for.

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Carie Lewis, Internet Marketing Manager at the Humane Society, talks about how the humane society is able to raise funds, awareness, and activity through social networks.

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The online fundraising platform, Firstgiving, has an interesting promotion running right now.

If you follow them on Twitter at  www.twitter.com/firstgiving, and tweet them at @firstgiving the URL of your favorite firstgiving campaign, your favorite campaign will be entered in a drawing to win a $250 donation.  The more people who tweet about that campaign, the greater its chances of being chosen for the $250 donation.

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Lola Elfman, Senior Organizer at the New Organizing Institute, talks about how her organization is teaching non-profits across the US how to leverage technology to organize themselves, raise awareness, raise money, and save the world.

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This month's Net2ThinkTank question is, How Can Nonprofits Use Online Video to Raise Money? Below is a round up of posts that were submitted, along with a few addditional ones I found on the topic:

Michael Hoffman of See3 Communications posted 11 Tips for Using Online Video to Raise Money.