I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of May 17th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).
- Freakonomics » Ten Reasons Why I Would Never Donate to a Major Charity (How to Be a Superhero, Part 2) – "“Giving to Charity” is another myth we fervently uphold as part of the Great American Religion — just like “own a home” or “send your kids to college.” It’s time we stop blindly believing in mythology. I’m not saying don’t give. I’m not saying don’t be spiritual or don’t be good. But do it with thoughtfulness, with true spirit, with a true desire to help. More harm than good is done when you blindly throw money at most charities."
- eAdvocacy Readiness Assessment – A terrific round up of resources from Aspiration – if you're looking to get started with or ramp up your online engagement efforts, check out these tools first! "Welcome to the pre-release version of Aspiration's eAdvocacy Readiness Tools. Aspiration uses these tools to help organizations identify deficits and establish best practices in their eAdvocacy work. These tools are in beta-test phase and available to users like you to help us make them better and more useful to you. We invite you to let us know about any problems you encounter by emailing tools@answr.net. We'd also love to hear your suggestions about how to make the tools more useful for you."
- Are you writing the blog posts that people are looking for? | Natasha Judd – Great post from Natasha with tips for getting more targeted with your blog content! "Blog entries are a great way to bring people to your website. They provide fresh content related to your organisation or business – the type of fresh content that search engines love. Other bloggers are also more likely to link to your blog posts than the home page (or services page) of your website, and those links can bring both referred traffic and a higher ranking on search engines. So, how do you create the sort of content that people are looking for and linking to?"
- Facebook Flap Puts Girl Scouts In Center of Controversy – Social Philanthropy – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – The Chronicle has a great story covering an opportunity for organizations to learn from side-steps of others instead of repeating disaster: "Girl Scouts of the USA found itself at the center of a social-media controversy this month when the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental group, used Facebook to protest the group’s use of an ingredient in the cookies it sells to raise money."
- Videos Posted by Non-Profits on Facebook: Non-Profit Resource Center [HQ] – Looking for tips and resources for building up your organization's presence on facebook? Well, the folks at facebook have put it all in one place for you! A couple notes: there are PDF guides you can download and a "share your story" feature so you can highlight the way you use facebook and get attention for all your hard work. Check it out!