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).

• How to Prepare Your Community for a Major Change « The Community Manager – "Change: it’s the one constant in life. Whether you’re introducing a change in ownership, new staff, policy change, technical update, or something else, community members sometimes resist change. Usually, they’re afraid of repercussions that could affect the community they care so much about—so, it comes from a “good place.” That being said, their fears and frustrations can create chaos, and part of your job as community manager is to make transitions as smooth and drama-free as possible. Follow these steps to turn your announcement from a sign of the apocalypse into a community-building win they thank you for."
• Interactive: How America Gives – How America Gives – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – The Chronicle of Philanthropy has launched a great new tool: an interactive map of giving data in the US. You can look at total contributions, contributions by household, discretionary income by household, and percentage of income given by household at the national, state, county, and local level.
• Survey says: Most noprofiteers blend their personal/professional brands | Big Duck – "Last week I had the joy of presenting a workshop with the fabulous Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation at the 7th Annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing & Fundraising Conference in Washington, DC. To gear up for our session on "Mixing Business and Pleasure: Managing Your Personal Brand in Social Media," we asked nonprofiteers (readers like you!) to respond to a quick survey about their own behaviors. We heard from 209 nonprofit staff, consultants, and the people who love us–and some of the results suprised us. While not scientific, the survey offers some interesting insights and we highlighted the key findings in our presentation (included in the slides below and online here). Here are some of those insights…"
• e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics » How a Twitter Rapid Response Campaign Helped Susan Sarandon ‘Get’ Paid Sick Days – "A coalition of diverse organizations in New York City has banded together to escalate the conversation regarding paid sick days for workers, with an emphasis on getting the NY City Council to pass legislation mandating paid sick days. So far, Council Speaker Christine Quinn has not called for a vote on this issue. But now, it just may happen — after the coaltion (with a little help from their friends) gave us an impromptu course in how to run online rapid response."
• Direct Energy | Direct Energy Contest | Reduce Your Use for GoodReduce Your Use – "Nonprofits, you know it: small changes can make a big difference. At Direct Energy, we’re committed to using our energy expertise to make a difference in people’s lives — so we’re donating up to $100,000 to nonprofits like you to help reduce energy use. Just make a short video of two minutes or less showing us the good work you do in your community. Acceptable submission formats include Windows Media, Quick Time and MPEG (files ending in .wmv, .avi, .mov, .mpg or .mp4). Be passionate. Be creative. Be concise. Tell us about your organization and its vision, how the small things you do make a big difference and why it’s so important that you continue your mission."

Join the 100th Episode of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony is turning the 100th show over to the community: You choose the questions! And we’re giving away cool stuff to those who listen live and archive.

What do you want to ask me? I told Tony that I’ll take on all social media questions for listeners’ charities. What’s your question? We’re up to it!

We want your questions in advance. Comment on this blog post or on Tony’s, use the LinkedIn group or Facebook page or Twitter.

The whole show is devoted to using social media and social networks to help you reach your supporters and draw them close to your work.

The regular contributors will also be on hand talking about social media! Scott Koegler on technology; Maria Semple on prospect research; and Gene Takagi & Emily Chan on legal. All these areas relate to your social networks and the social media properties and our team will share their ideas, as they do every month.

We’ll also give out prizes to live and archive listeners. I’ve donated a bunch of NTEN books and swag, and Tony’ll give away his book and free consulting hours, in Planned Giving and Charity Registration.

Check us out live on July 13th at 1 o’clock eastern. Or subscribe on iTunes to catch the archive.

With so many incredible videos submitted to this year’s contest it was no easy task, but judges in the 6th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards have narrowed down the field of entries to 16 finalists. Now, the YouTube community has the opportunity to get involved and cast their vote for the best nonprofit videos of the past year.

The 16 finalist videos can be watched on the Contest homepage. Participation is easy: just select your favorite video or videos in each category. You can vote once per day. Don’t forget to tell your friends and social media buddies to do the same.

>> Vote on the 6th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards!

Winners will be announced on April 5, at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco. It’s a great finale to the whole awards program and we anticipate a really exciting finish. Contest Sponsor Cisco, will be awarding $3,500 in prizes and up to $3,500 in products to the winner of each category, and the Case Foundation is awarding one $2,500 grants to the four organizations with the most fearless videos submitted to this year’s contest. In addition, the winners of each category will receive free registration to next year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference. Oh, and each winning organization will have their video featured on the YouTube homepage on April 5th!

For nonprofits, video is a great way to share your mission, get out a message and tell the stories of the people and issues you support. The medium educates, inspires and moves people to action. The DoGooder Awards recognizes nonprofits that understand this and are going the extra mile to create media that moves important causes forward.

The excitement is moving to a finish! Check out the finalists and lend your vote to the video that moves you.

Are you a nonprofit? Did your organization create impactful videos in 2011? Do you want your organization to be recognized for making great videos and maybe win some incredible prizes? Perfect.

The 6th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Contest is taking submissions starting February 1st. The contest is presented by YouTube and See3 Communications and generously sponsored by Cisco and us, NTEN. We’re seeking out and celebrating the best videos that nonprofit organizations have created to advance their missions using this powerful medium to create meaningful change for the better.

So what do the winning nonprofits get for participating?

The four best videos will each receive:

• $3,500 in prize donations
• An additional gift of up $3,500 (US) worth of Cisco products to help each winning org harness the power of human and technology networks to multiply their impact on the people and communities they serve.
• Free registration to the 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference, provided by NTEN.

This year’s contest features a special category for all orgs, regardless of size: “Best Video Storytelling” will celebrate videos that employ narrative and tell the real, human stories of people, organizations, and issues.

The winning videos will be announced at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference and featured on YouTube’s homepage on Thursday, April 5th.

You read that right: the winning videos will be featured on the YouTube homepage.

At the end of last year’s contest, the winning videos received almost 1 million new views after being featured there for just one day.

For nonprofits, video is a great way to share your mission, get out a message, and tell the stories of the people and issues you support. The medium educates, inspires, and moves people to action. The DoGooder Awards recognizes nonprofits that see the importance of this. This contest is meant to show nonprofits of all sizes they can win by making video part of their communications strategy.

Organizations are more video savvy than ever. Last year’s contest had nearly 1,400 entries from 821 organizations in 4 countries. There were 24,000 votes cast by the public and a surge of views on YouTube for the entrants. That’s encouraging, but 2012 is a new year and the contest organizers want to make sure as many amazing nonprofits enter as possible.

Here are some details to get you started:

• Submissions for Best Small, Medium, and Large nonprofit organization as well as Best Video Storytelling must be videos made between January 1st 2011 and February 29th 2012 . Each nonprofit can submit as many videos as they would like, but the contest encourages only the best work from each organization.
• Entries cannot exceed 10 minutes in length and are limited to nonprofits from the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. See contest rules here.
• All nonprofits are welcome to enter their video. There are no specific types of missions we are looking for. The contest is about recognizing nonprofit organizations for outstanding use of video to create meaningful positive change.
• You can submit your videos from February 1st until February 29th. Tell your friends at other orgs to submit as well!
• Starting March 14th, voting is open to the public, so be sure to share the word (Email, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, etc.).
• Important: Your organization MUST be a member of the YouTube Nonprofit Program. If you’re not already,make sure that’s the next thing you do after you read this post (it’s quick, easy and free to eligible orgs). If you’re picked as a semifinalist in the contest, YouTube will make sure your organization’s application for membership is approved in time to be eligible for public voting.

Start thinking about which creative, compelling, and interesting video your nonprofit wants to submit, then plan to rally your supporters to vote in March. Good luck!

This message is cross-posted from the NTEN blog.

5 Nonprofits, 5000 Responses

I think there’s a lot of potential for the way organizations can use a tool like this, and I’m sure there are plenty more that you can think of! The folks at Qriously think so, too. They are going to give five organizations 5,000 responses each (these could be divided up into multiple questions or used all for one), for free, with just two stipulations:

1. You can only use global or national surveys (not local)
2. You have to share what you learn!

That’s it!

Share Your Questions to Win
So, as a way of opening up the possibilities and participation, I’m asking that organizations “submit” via the comments. If you’re interested in participating, please share:

1. The name of your organization
2. The question you’d like to ask
3. How the question will help inform your work

As you know, I’m a big believer in community-driven processes, and there’s nothing that helps you be community-driven than tapping in and listening directly to the people you want to serve. Hopefully, sharing your questions and reasoning in the comments will help others think about the way they can survey the community at large, and sharing back what you learn will help us all!

Winners

The 5 organizations to get free trials of Qriously include:

Storiesofourcity.org – submitted by Katy Gilber

Katy did a great job of identifying a series of questions that the 5,000 responses can be divided between that can really help with content planning as well as community engagement planning.

EpicChange.org – submitted by Stacey Monk

I love the way Stacey blended the goal of getting feedback that can improve their messaging and content with the goal of spreading awareness/exposure of the brand. Great job!

Austin Civic Orchestra – submitted by Mazarine Treyz

This is a great example of targeting mobile users by asking specifically about those generations most likely to be on a phone! The question needs some work in refining the ask and providing answers, since it isn’t an open response field, though.

Neighborhood Montgomery – submitted by Takoma Horn

I think this is a great topic to break up into multiple questions. You could ask for a sentiment measurement, like “how do you feel about commercial development” and then use some of the other 5,000 responses for specific, similar to the examples Adam shared in the comments.

buildingcommunity WORKSHOP – submitted by romoseki

I’m really interested to see how these questions can be reshaped to better understand sentiment around architecture as well as even start some conversations (guide content development). Adam shared some great examples of reworking the questions to provide answer options, too.

I’m inviting all of the 5 organizations to share a guest post here after you use Qriously to ask your questions to share what you learned and how it contributes to your work!

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).

• Gen-Y Wants More Than Cool Brands – A new 16-country study of Millennials focused on brands has a lot to offer for insight to nonprofit organizations looking to connect with the same generation. Including: "More than one-half of US Millennials (51%) say they influence the technologies their parents adopt and 41% say they influence the products they buy."
• A Mobile World – whitepaper – A new whitepaper from SmartOnMobile looks at how the constituents of nonprofit organizations are using<br />
  their mobile phones.
• Growing Virtual Roots – How our online efforts led to amazing offline results – A great case study in community organizing, on and offline, from Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure. "From the perspective of a professional planner, an ideal scenario for planning an event would be to live and work in the community in which you are holding the event. However, in the world of nonprofits, where an organization cannot afford to have boots on the ground full time in all of the cities they have supporters, it is up to the event planner to figure out new solutions to the problem of “you can’t be in two places at once”."
• <b>nononprofitspam</b>.<b>wordpress.com</b> – Check out this new blog and campaign from nptechers like Deborah Elizabeth Finn and Peter Campbell targeting an issue many of us in the nonprofit sector may not think exists, or maybe ignore: nonprofit spam. "Our message to nonprofits: Your mission is noble, and your intentions are honorable. But if you subscribed us to your organization's bulk email list without our permission, then you are sending us spam."
• Lights. Camera. Help. Film Festival for Nonprofits – "Lights. Camera. Help., the nation’s first film festival for nonprofits and cause advocates, is officially accepting entries for the 2011 festival. Exclusively dedicated to cause-driven films, the festival and it's cash prizes for winning films gives nonprofits a new forum for promoting their causes. Last year, the festival grew in entries, reach, attendance and prize money with submissions increasing from 140 in 2009 to over 235 documentaries, PSAs and short films focusing on cause-driven issues from around the world. Submissions will be open until May 31 and the submission form can be filled out at the Lights. Camera. Help. web site. It is free for all non-profits and causes to submit their film. The festival will be held July 28-July 30 in Austin, Texas."

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).

• Nonprofits and Location-Based Services – "This past week Noland Hoshino of [B]Cause media was kind enough to give a presentation on Location-Based Services (LBS) at a PDXTech4Good event. The presentation covers a good bit of why nonprofits should care about LBS and then gets into some solid examples and tips for a few of the major platforms."
• Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog – "Nonprofit marketing is only worth doing if your aim is to get people to do something. Raising awareness isn’t enough. So make sure you have all the elements of a strong call to action…" I really like Katya's list of 5 elements to a great call to action. But, I also have a few that I would add – what about you?
• sparking creativity through cognitive distance – "I had the opportunity to speak earlier this week at the Innovators Improv. It’s a monthly gathering that brings together a variety of interesting folks from the community to share experiences, discuss questions, and raise ideas on a range of topics. I was invited to talk about “Sparking Creativity“. I wanted to share my talk as I think we all benefit from the opportunity to spark creativity in our everyday lives."
• 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami – Find news, follow real time content, get official warnings and information, and much more on the earthquakes and tsuanmi that hit Japan, and the tsunami watches in effect around the Pacific. There's also a "people finder" tool and information numbers to call. I'm really excited to see Google support crisis information in this way and hope that nonprofits can work with Google to identify ways we can integrate responder information as well as donation and other support mechanisms into the site.
• A think tank for the ages creates Goodness Engine – Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog – Site Home – TechNet Blogs – Working with DonorsChoose.org, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Google, Microsoft, REI, and WebTrends discussed how to most effectively use online tools and processes for maximum impact. The result? A free eBook called the “Goodness Engine: Driving Greater Social Impact in the Digital World” has been created to help other nonprofits learn about a whole range of topics from driving online traffic to creating dynamic content and managing online engagement.
• YouTube – goodwork’s Channel – "Through Good Work, YouTube is matching up nonprofits with expert creatives around the world, asking them to make video ads for nonprofits like yours. The best video ads, as selected by an esteemed judging panel of ad executives and Nonprofit sector leaders, will be featured at a showcase at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival and linked from the YouTube homepage, providing a huge amount of exposure for both the creatives and the nonprofits."

This year, winners will again have the chance to win one of four $2500 grants generously provided by the Case Foundation, awesome video cameras from Flip Video, a free registration to next year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference provided by NTEN and more. For small nonprofits that have small funds in the video department, we have a new category for the best “thrifty” videos produced for under $500. And… wait for it: the winning videos will be announced at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference hosted by NTEN and featured on YouTube’s homepage in March. (The YouTube part is sort of like having your nonprofit video seen during the Super Bowl.)

Learn more about the contest guidelines and how to submit your video!

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).

• Social Media: A Bubble About to Burst – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "Are your nonprofit staffers addicted to social media? Do they feel that one day Twitter and Facebook are going to bring in the big bucks and build a huge base of activists that will come to your organization’s rescue when you need their help the most? Perhaps around passing one of the most important legislative bills in your organization’s history? Well, I wish you lots of luck and good fortune." Great piece from Allyson Kapin reminding readers that social media is "part of" a strategy. We know that tools (aka tactics) are what help us implement a strategy, not what it is built around. So we need to remember that with social media!
• Love of Philanthropy Photo Contest « Vivanista | Living Well. Doing Good. – "Join Vivanista in sharing the love of philanthropy by participating in our Love of Philanthropy photo contest that showcases images of what it means to be philanthropic." Great example of digital storytelling and community engagement. Check it out and submit a photo yourself!
• Admitting Failure – "“All my successes have been built on my failures.” – Benjamin Disraeli Human and economic development are complex. Progress requires testing, trialing and constant iteration – in short, many failures. This site is an open space for those in the international development community who want to honestly and publicly share their failures. It is a conversation and it is an archive. It aims to create a culture in the broader international development community where failure is embraced."
• Twitter’s Response to WikiLeaks Subpoena Should Be the Industry Standard | Threat Level | Wired.com – "Twitter introduced a new feature last month without telling anyone about it, and the rest of the tech world should take note and come up with their own version of it. Twitter beta-tested a spine."
• Apple’s Disdain for Philanthropy Hurts Society – Opinion – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – "Holiday season is always a time for giving—but not on your iPhone. That’s because Apple doesn’t allow nonprofits or other organizations to include a direct donation system in the phone’s applications, so the only way to give is to go to a charity’s Web site, a cumbersome process with a small phone-size keyboard. The only question: Is it a mere glitch or a natural extension of Apple’s policy that is generally indifferent to nonprofits and philanthropy? The company’s policies toward philanthropy and nonprofits are growing increasingly problematic as Apple products become an ever larger part of our media and communications landscape."