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).

• Report Release: The 2010 Nonprofit IT Staffing and Spending … – "Nearly 1,200 nonprofit professionals filled out the latest annual survey, sponsored by NTEN and The NonProfit Times, providing us with another year of benchmarks and data concerning: salaries, outsourcing, recruiting, organizational structure, and other aspects of Information Technology practices in the nonprofit sector. One of the findings that stood out to us: Only 40% of respondents reported that their organization has some type of formal technology plan. And much less than that (22%) reported that their organization had ever evaluated Return on Investment (ROI) of technology projects or programs."
• World Bank’s Mapping for Results launched – Check out this deployment of the Ushahidi platform for digital storytelling and reporting: "This weekend at the World Bank annual meetings the World Bank launched their new Mapping for Results platform. The initiative visualizes the location of World Bank projects to better monitor project and impact on people; to enhance transparency and social accountability; and to enable citizens and other stakeholders to provide direct feedback. All 79 IDA countries, the lowest income nations, are included with the geographic locations of projects, financing, and sector identification such as water, transportation, governance, etc. There are also indicator data including maternal health, infant mortality, malnutrition, poverty, and population. The tool is meant to openly share and visualize the operations of World Bank financed activities down to as local a level as possible and compare these with actual need and monitor the effects over time."
• Conversation is the New Attention – "This article is adapted from their SXSW 2011 talk, Toss the Projector: Redefining the Speaker/Audience Dynamic. In the talk, Tim and Chris unveiled Donahue, a new experimental tool designed and built by Arc90 and Behavior Design which tears down the wall between audience and presenter, allowing the audience to interact directly with the presenter’s ideas to begin a conversation."
• 2011: The Year the Check-in Died – "Early last year, "checking in" was the cool new craze. No visit to your favorite tech news site could be had without getting buried in a tsunami of articles about Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, BriteKite or a myriad other startups. The big guys quickly followed suit: Yelp introduced "Check-Ins" while Facebook launched "Places" and most recently, Google Latitude updated to incorporate check-ins and check-outs. But here's the thing: the trends aren't actually that good."
• Hey, Let’s Fix The Internet – What do you think – can we change? Change the internet? Change the way we associated with others on and offline? This post has me thinking about many different perspectives on community organizing and community engagement and I'd love to hear what it triggers for you!

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).

• New Report: 2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study | NTEN – "A high unsubscribe rate is bad, right? Not necessarily, according to the 2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, just released at the 2011 NTC by M+R and NTEN. As it turns out, a high unsubscribe rate correlates directly with high fundraising results. People unsubscribe because they read your message and decide your cause isn't interesting to them; people donate because they read your message and decide that it is. That's just one of the fascinating drops of knowledge in the "2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study"."
• Twitter Blog: #numbers – "Five years ago this week, a small team of people started working on a prototype of the service that we now know as Twitter. On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey (@jack) sent the first Tweet. Today, on every measure of growth and engagement, Twitter is growing at a record pace. Here are some numbers…" Some very interesting numbers from Twitter – what are you most surprised about? When did you join Twitter, or what has kept you from joining? Would love to hear your thoughts!
• A Global Conversation: Free Agents and Nonprofits in a Networked World | Community Organizer 2.0 – "I am attending the South By Southwest Interactive panel discussion entitled “A Global Conversation: Free Agents and Nonprofits in a Networked World.” Beth Kanter of Zoetica Media is the moderator, along with fellow panelists Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Mark Horvath of Invisible People and Jessica Dheere, of Social Media Exchange Beirut in Lebanon. During the session, I captured the presentations and audience Q & A. This blog post is merely a recording of the session, with highlights of the key points. On an editorial note – the session surfaced some incredible pearls of wisdom from both panelists and audience members about how to work with free agents and nonprofits, and those are underlined."
• Amazing use of QR Codes by NYC’s Central Park – "I’ve been writing about and using QR codes quite a bit of late. I think the potential of this technology is staggering and we’ve only begun to imagine what is possible. Take a look at what New York City’s Central Park did last Arbor Day and begin to ask yourself… how could QR codes serve my customers, my employees and my business’ growth. I suspect you’ll find some pretty fascinating answers."
• Checkins (CI) Experimental Functionality – The Ushahidi Blog – "As we announced in January, we are working on a new checkins feature. We are really excited about simplifying the reporting process for those situations where you don’t need a full blown report. The checkins functionality in the Ushahidi Platform is one of the first open source checkin products that crosses multiple mobile platforms. We’ve been hard at work laying out the basic functionality ahead of SXSW and it’s now available for your deployment in the Ushahidi Repository on GitHub and is already active on Crowdmap."

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."

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).

• Bernholz: Why Juno, Facebook and the rest won't change everything | Voluntary Sector Network | guardian.co.uk – "I recently asked "If this was as interesting as it gets for the web and philanthropy?" We tend to get very excited about new technologies, many of us love the latest gadgets, and we often associate the "web" with "new and different". But the reality is, as Clay Shirky has written, that these tools "don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring". The embedding of knowledge sharing into online social networks such as on Facebook or the recently launched Jumo may be technologically 'iterative', but in terms of how we give, they may actually be a step backward."
• Engagement Ladders: Building Supporter Power – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "We, as social change organizations, exist to enable the power of our supporters. That is how change happens. Through getting thousands of people to take mass action. Through getting one person to pressure a decision maker. It is the power of our supporters, collective or individual, that we are trying to enable. That's why social change organizations exist–to leverage supporter power over time. We need to know the best way to use that power. Part of it is strategy–what kinds of actions need to happen? Marches? Politics? Direct service? And part of it is knowing what power our supporters possess so they can help us get those strategies enacted."
• The Zoetica Salon: A Peer Learning Community for Nonprofits and Social Media | Beth’s Blog – "I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be co-hosting The Zoetica Salon on my Facebook Page with my Zoetica colleagues, Geoff Livingston, Kami Huyse, and Julie Pippert (the newest Zoetican) where almost 7,000 nonprofit leaders have been engaging in informal peer learning about nonprofits and social media. Our intent is to provide a space for just-in-time answers and share best practices at no charge."
• Facebook Co-Founder Launches Social Network for Social Good, Jumo [IMAGE] – "Today, users can start connecting with all their favorite social causes in one online sphere, as Facebook Co-founder Chris Hughes has launched his much-buzzed-about social network, Jumo." Have you tried Jumo? What do you think?
• Gates funded ViewChange.org launches to showcase development success | Future:Media:Change – "The Gates Foundation is continuing their promotion of stories of global development success through the launch of ViewChange.org this week. The multimedia platform is managed by Link TV and utilizes a back catalog of development-related videos as well as new content procured for the site. The website highlights progress in reducing hunger, poverty and disease in developing nations and is part of the Gates’ broader, “ Living Proof” campaign."
• Scanning for Good – How Nonprofits Can Use QR Codes | NetWitsThinkTank.com – "I’m sure you’ve noticed QR codes by now – those funny little black and white squares that are appearing on posters, business cards, and event lanyards everywhere. These next-gen bar codes are most often used by marketers who want to link to a website or landing page from a visual appeal. If you’re looking for a fun, interactive, easy-to-implement hook for your nonprofit’s next campaign, you might want to check out QR codes."

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).

• Understanding Facebook Places Functionality Opens Possibilities | Community Organizer 2.0 – Debra has a great post walking through the steps to setting up, using, and understanding Facebook’s new geo-social tool, Places. Thanks, Debra, for a thorough guide!
• Is online community engagement “real” « Bang the Table – This is a great conversation starter and thinking piece about community engagement, not just online community. “I am sometimes confronted by a prejudice in my travels; that the relationships developed through online community engagement are less real than those created via face-to-face engagement processes. Like most prejudices I believe it is based on fear and misunderstanding. Earlier this week I was lucky enough to be asked to chair a mini-conference in Sydney about Interactive Community Engagement for the Public Sector. While there were many interesting and engaging presentations one particularly stood out for me because of the challenge it presented to online engagement methodology.”
• RSA – Connected Communities – “Traditional approaches to community regeneration which define communities in solely geographic terms have severe limitations. They often failed to deliver on key social capital improvements such as improving trust between residents or fostering a greater sense of belonging. In this report we argue for a new approach to community regeneration, based on an understanding of the importance of social networks, such an approach has the potential to bring about significant improvements in efforts to combat isolation and to support the development of resilient and empowered communities.”
• Internet Founder Tim Berners-Lee Details 4 Concerns About Future of Mobile Web (Nokia World 2010) – “This morning at Nokia World 2010 in London, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, widely known as the inventor of the Web, addressed the audience in a keynote speech where he spoke about the future of mobile technology, including both the positive impacts it brings as well as the areas of concerns. After encouraging developers to build for the Web, so as to deliver applications that work on all types of devices, even the ones that haven’t been invented yet, he then proceeded to detail areas which need addressing, specifically privacy, accountability, network neutrality and the 80% of the world that doesn’t have access to the World Wide Web.”
• How Useful is Social Media to Nonprofits?  – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – No matter where you look, social media is on everyone’s radar. The big question nonprofits ask is, how useful is social media? In an attempt to help nonprofits answer that question, Idealware, in partnership with NOI, recently released “The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide.”