Postnote: The nonprofit tech sector is a quite different ballpark when it comes to equity among the sexes.  Which is not to say that it’s perfect, but it’s much better, and certainly less vicious.

I do the work I do because I believe that technology in general, and the Internet specifically, have the potential for making the biggest impact on social justice, access, equity, and democracy here in the U.S. and everywhere. With access can come so much. For individuals and for those working to tackle some of the toughest issues in our communities and around the world. I’m often leading trainings for nonprofit groups who work in locations, towards missions, or with communities of people that make the Internet seem like a scary place. I’ve talked to incredibly smart people – from scientists to activists – who openly admit that they personally want nothing to do with the Internet for fear of the comments, the responses, the people that will emerge.

As a supporter and member of various “women* in tech” events and groups, as a member of the nonprofit tech community, as a human, I believe that we need a free and open Web that includes all of us and only if all of us are there will it truly be free and open. So how do we balance that with the level of harassment, the level of fear, the level of hate that exists?

And, is it really so different in the #nptech sector?

I’m a realist (though appreciate the consistency in which others call me an idealist). I don’t actually think that I, or even any small number of us, could change the entire tech sector. But, even thinking about the corner of the sector, the corner of the Web where we spend our time, over here at #nptech, I’m not sure things are very different. I appreciate that Peter admits our sector isn’t perfect. And I want to believe that we have an entirely different stadium in an entirely different town for the ballpark we play in. I don’t have to try very hard, though, to think of a long list of examples (even if they aren’t those currently linked in Peter’s blog post) that remind me we have a lot to change.

How do we tackle digital inclusion – something that is part of NTEN’s core mission but also something that every nonprofit needs to tackle in order to fully serve their communities, communicate with their members, understand the constantly changing needs of their constituents – when we know that we have all, like it or not, cocreated a Web that isn’t necessarily as free, open, and safe as we’d like to believe? How do we encourage more participation when these examples that justify people’s fears of the Internet are so prevalent? How do we continue to engage, start to make the change, and bring others along in the process?

I very much want to be part of cocreating a different story about the Internet.

Update: 10/13/14 

After posting this yesterday, I knew there was much more to say but prioritized timeliness over thoroughness. I appreciated finding that Peter posted the link on Facebook and it prompted some discussion. Unfortunately, that discussion made clear that engaging in comments on a public blog was, as a default, already an unsafe place to participate. The idea that my own blog (a nonbinary femme working in this space) could be seen as unsafe by default because it exists on the Web is already incredibly disheartening for me. I think any conversation we have about moving forward needs to recognize how very far back we are coming from.

I also wanted to highlight here (“for the record”, if you will) a bit more about why I brought up those questions related to the nonprofit angle of this conversation. In addition to all of the same issues the recent personal stories from women in the tech sector have surfaced, the nonprofit sector piles on top the issues we seem to perpetuate, create, or at least be blocked by: lower salaries than for-profit industries, assumption that we do the work only because we want to do good at the sacrifice of anything and everything else in our individual lives, assumed credibility issues to begin with because of the nature of asking for money to do our work, and the misconception that our sector “gets it” when it comes to women in leadership roles (take a look at the data, it isn’t true – for example, “In 2009, women made up nearly 75% of the nonprofit workforce, but held only 45% of CEO positions.” – U of Denver).

I don’t bring this up to make the case that the mountain is too high to climb. But, like I said above, I think it is critical that we put everything on the table so we can have a full, valuable, and forward-moving conversation.

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).

• Attention Data Nerds: Nonprofits Miss Out on the Power of LinkedIn: Learn How to Tap It | Beth’s Blog – Geri Stengel has a great guest post on Beth's blog. "Whether connected or cold calling, you can build long-term, valuable relationships using LinkedIn. Find out how easy it is. LinkedIn isn’t some stodgy place where people post their resumes. It’s a no- to low-cost database that is a rich source of information about potential major donors, board members, employees, and strategic allies." Would love to hear what you're doing on LinkedIn and how your organization has or has not found LinkedIn valuable!
• Blackbaud and Convio Now One Company – "Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB) today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Convio, Inc., a leading provider of on-demand constituent engagement solutions. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Blackbaud paid an aggregate purchase price of approximately $325 million. Blackbaud financed the deal through a combination of cash and borrowings from its credit facility. “This is an exciting day for the Blackbaud and Convio teams. Together, we can build better solutions for nonprofits, and that’s what drives us,” said Marc Chardon, Blackbaud’s chief executive officer. “Convio’s strengths in online and social marketing, and subscription and cloud-based offerings complement ours, and will accelerate our ability to deliver more to the nonprofit sector.”"
• Charities May Soon Get a Way to Seek Bigger Text Gifts – Prospecting – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – "Donors who give through mobile text messages could soon have the options of giving a larger donation and setting up repeat text gifts, say the leaders of two of the organizations that oversee text giving in the U.S. and Canada. Jim Manis, chief executive of the Mobile Giving Foundation, and Bernard Lord, chairman of the Mobile Giving Foundation Canada, said in an interview that they are working with some cellular service providers to allow $20 donations—double the current $10 limit—and recurring donations, though they gave no timeline on when those features would be available."
• Get more donors with free fundraising lessons and ideas – I love this new free series from Causevox – get a video a week filled with great information and actionable tips to help improve your fundraising right away. I don't even primarily focus on fundraising and I'm finding it really valuable!
• The A/B Test: Inside the Technology That’s Changing the Rules of Business | Epicenter | Wired.com – This is a terrific case study in the power of a/b testing on your websites – be it organization site, microsite, campaign pages, or even fundraising pages – to question everything and find what really works. Every time I do testing, I see the same thing that they note here: my instincts are wrong. We over-think things and the best way to stop is by testing!

Location: San Francisco, CA

Topic: Designing Online Engagement to Collaborate with Your Community

Description: You can design online engagement to unleash your evangelists. In this workshop, we’ll focus on all aspects of designing high-value, engaging, and participatory content that creates a partnership with your fans. A true evangelist is moved to create, is a seamless co-creator with your organization, and motivated spreader of content. Successful organizations intentionally design and construct multiple online channels that enable access for all fans and develop paths for relationship reciprocity and trust, fostering true evangelists.

In this session, we will discuss how co-creation unleashes online evangelists and strengthens cause centric communities, and help you to do that as well. Specifically, we will reveal the latest research about designing online engagement, highlight the connection between the theory of relationship ties and online evangelism, and offer examples of organizations with successful co-creation strategies. Towards the end of this workshop, we’ll work together to design a co-creation strategy to engage and motivate your online community and evangelists.

Related Links:

• 2012 NTC
• Session information
• Presentation slides

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).

• Eric Lanke: Stop Calling It Strategic Planning – "So I'm working my way through Humanize, and like most everyone else, I'm really enjoying it. This will probably be the first of several posts describing the thoughts it provokes for how I am and should be running my association. But dare I start with the endlessly controversial subject of strategic planning? I've heard Jamie Notter (and others) decry this staple of association board meetings as a tool whose time has come and gone, but it wasn't until I read the treatment of it in Humanize that I really understood what he was talking about. And it's convinced me of one undisputable fact. I need to stop calling what my association does strategic planning."
• 2011 NTEN Champions Fundraising Campaign by the Numbers | NTEN – "The funny thing about being the Nonprofit Technology Network is that it can be really hard to practice what we preach. You may recall that the NTEN community recently helped us raise over $15,000 to host more local events throughout 2012. We learned so much while running that campaign, but we also made lots of mis-steps along the way. One of the things we wished for as we navigated the campaign: benchmarks. Besides average gift amount, what might we expect?"
• New Research Proves the Business Case for Product Giving : PitchEngine : Get the Word Out™ – "New research from Indiana University concludes that businesses can do well by doing good through product philanthropy.  Donating products to charities helps corporate bottom lines, reduces waste in landfills, and provides relief for people in need. With a record number of Americans living in poverty today, product donations allow people to use their limited resources to pay for food, health care, prescription drugs, utilities and other vital needs. The study, released today by Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), provides the first detailed examination of the return on investment for donating merchandise as opposed to liquidating or destroying it."
• Is email going out with 2011? | craigconnects – "I took a look at a few articles and studies, and according to ComScore's 2010 Digital Year in Review, email use dropped 59% among Internet users ages 12 to 17 in 2010. Users ages 18 to 54 have reportedly turned away from email, as well — many are instead communicating through social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. An increase in email use, however, was visible in the 55+ age group, who used web-email 15% more in 2010 than in 2009. The report also went into detail on what sites people spent their time on: it illustrated that time spent on webmail sites declined while social networking sites increased considerably." Would love to hear what your experience and perception of email use is! For me, I see the way I use email and treat email changing, but the importance and irreplaceability (is that a word?) of it staying the same. You?
• Multiple Constituent Groups, One Database: Case Studies | Idealware – A great collection of three case studies from very different organizations, including Fight Colorectal Cancer, Sarah's, and Earthjustice. How are you managing your data?

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).

• Why Real-World Socializing Is the Next Big Thing for Social Media – "From the Latin root socials, meaning “united, living with others,” the word social is firmly grounded in the physical world and implies face-to-face interaction. If you’re a social person, it means you like to spend time with other people. But this definition conflicts with today’s concept of social networking, in which we interact primarily with screens rather than with people."
• Here’s What People Look at on Facebook Brand Pages – "In an effort to catch your eye on their Facebook pages, brands have experimented with apps and splashy profile photos. But in almost all cases, it turns out, the humble Facebook wall itself steals the show. In an webcam eye-tracking study for Mashable by EyeTrackShop, the 30 participants who viewed top Facebook brand pages almost always looked at pages’ walls first — usually for at least four times longer than any other element on the page."
• The Buzz Builders Blog – "As Habitat for Humanity celebrates their 35th anniversary, along with the completion of their 500,000th home this month, they’re jumping on the “social” train and investing in new web tools that integrate the “social media experience” with the “volunteer experience.” Check out these three great tools that Habitat has developed to make volunteering more social in this digital age."
• How One Company Saved Thousands of Dogs Using Social Media – Great post from Frank Barry with beginner, intermediate and advanced levels! "Social media is all the rage, but does it actually help create real change in the world? The folks at Best Friends Animal Society would answer with a resounding yes! Best Friends has introduced the Invisible Dogs Campaign, a nod to the invisible dog leash from the ‘70s and ‘80s. “Invisible dogs” refer to the forgotten pets found in city shelters that face tremendous odds to get adopted. “[We’re] turning that into a real message about adopting dogs unseen in the nation’s shelters,” explains Claudia Perrone, marketing manager for Best Friends. Best Friends provides a valuable example of social media mobilizing people to take action in the real world."
• What Nonprofits Can Learn From Occupy Wall Street – Social Good – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – "In the six week since Occupy Wall Street began its protests, the movement has spread across the country. Nonprofits that want to create movements that take hold and spread fast need look no further than the We Are the 99 Percent Tumblr blog, says Micah Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum. Where nonprofits often stumble in their social-networking efforts, he says, is by creating campaigns that are "a little too slick, a little too professional, a little too cautious, a little too controlled.""

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).

• The Complexity of Scaling Up « Aid on the Edge of Chaos – "Despite increased prominence and funding of global health initiatives, attempts to scale up health services in developing countries are failing, with serious implications for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. A new paper argues that a key first step is to get a more realistic understanding of health systems, using the lens of complex adaptive systems."
• How can I organise social reporting from events? | ICT-KM of the CGIAR – "Over the last couple of years, whenever we have been involved in social reporting at the Share Fairs, conferences, workshops and smaller events we have attended, we have noticed similar challenges and successes. So, when the ICT-KM Program was tasked with organising the social reporting for the Share Fair on Agricultural and Rural Development Knowledge in Africa in Addis Ababa in October 2010, it was clear that it was high time that we document the social reporting team’s experiences and lessons learned in a generic guide. If you are going to organise an event, a conference or a public meeting, you should seriously consider organising a team of social reporters to help spread the information and stimulate conversations before, during and after the event."
• The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide – "With more than 750 million people signed up for Facebook alone, there’s little doubt that social media can be a powerful part of most organizations’ communications mix. But what can it be used for—outreach and engagement? Event management? Advocacy? How about fundraising? For many nonprofits, it’s far more obvious that such tools can be useful than how to use them. We created the Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide to help organizations like yours determine what results and benefits you can reasonably expect from social media, and to guide you through the process of identifying the right channels for different goals. To help you turn the theoretical into the practical, we included a workbook that applies what you’re learning to your own real-world needs. This year, we updated the entire guide with new research, additional sections on goals and strategies, and information about using social media for advocacy and fundraising."
• 11 Innovative Crowdfunding Platforms for Social Good – "Why crowdsource? In addition to funding, the tools below can engage new supporters, constituents and future advocates. If it’s ideas you’re looking for, collaborative thinking can provide solutions faster and with input from people with diverse backgrounds, thus strengthening the project. Also, by involving people in the early stages, they will feel more connected to the project, and likely repeat their support and advocacy. Below, we’ll look at some of the best crowdsourcing platforms on the web, along with successful campaigns funded on each one."
• The State Of Social Media 2011: Social Is The New Normal | Fast Company – "The state of social media is no insignificant affair. Nor is it a conversation relegated to a niche contingent of experts and gurus. Social media is pervasive and it is transforming how people find and share information and how they connect and collaborate with one another. I say that as if I'm removed from the media and cultural (r)evolution that is digital socioeconomics. But in reality, I'm part of it just like everyone else. You and I both know however, that' I'm not saying anything you don't already know. Social media is clearly becoming the new normal."

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).

• Groupon Case Study: Jolkona’s Groupon Experiment | Community Organizer 2.0 – Check out this great interview by Debra Askanase with Laura Kimball, discussing their experiment using Groupon! "Jolkona ran a Groupon deal as an experiment to try to raise money for a specific campaign using Groupon. Jolkona partnered with the Seattle International Foundation (SIF), which pledged to match every donation, dollar for dollar, up to $25,000. Starting July 26th, Groupon Seattle’s G-Team allowed subscribers to join Jolkona and SIF in making an investment in women’s leadership by pledging support in increments of $10. For each $500 collected, Jolkona would fund one week of training for a woman leader to come to Seattle and participate in a 10-week fellowship program, run by iLEAP: The Center for Critical Service."
• Year-end appeals have you stumped? Four quick tips to get the ball rolling | Big Duck – "This is the time of year when most people I know are thinking about ‘back to school’ and beginning to plan their fall/winter holidays and vacations. Of course for us Ducks and most of you, this time of year is dominated by the ever-glorious year-end fundraising appeal. These days, the year-end giving season starts as early as October. In fact, as I write this (in mid-August), we’re already at work on several year-end campaigns. If you’re not quite there yet, here are a few quick tips I hope you’ll find useful to get your fundraising wheels in motion."
• When Communities Identify Their Own Poor, Aid Has The Most Effect | Fast Company – "When governments and NGOs plan on giving assistance to the most needy, how do they know who needs the most assistance? It's a question people are at great pains to answer, yet social welfare programs around the world are still plagued by error and abuse. That has not deterred the development of programs to help people escape extreme poverty. But because the poor–especially those earning less than $2 or $3 per day–typically hold informal jobs with no official records about their earnings, conventional ways to determine need are ineffective. MIT researchers in a recent study (PDF) looked at two alternative methods for establishing who needs assistance."
• 7 Things Nonprofits Can Talk About on Facebook Besides Themselves « – "Recently I met with a client who was sensitive about what they posted on Facebook, because they not only had privacy issues to be concerned with of their constituents, but they didn’t think that the other things they do would be applicable to their fans on Facebook. In other words they didn’t think that their fans on Facebook cared about what their organization was doing other than fundraising."
• Complex and Contradictory: A New Way to Think of Digital Activism | The Meta-Activism Project – "The effect of digital technology on political contention is neither good nor bad, it is both.  Yes, the Internet can help activists mobilize and re-frame public issues.  It can also distract citizens and feed apathy.  It can also help repressive governments watch and censor their citizens.  The sooner we accept digital technology’s complex and contradictory effect of political power dynamics, the sooner we can move forward to answering more interesting questions about those effects.  What contextual factors lead to these different outcomes?  Why does one factor win out over others when all three are in play?"
• 5 Reasons Social Media Measurement is Making You Lie to Yourself | social media measurement | Social Media Consulting – Convince & Convert – I love the comparision Jay makes here between Twitter and email, followers equals sends and actual Twitter reach (people reading and responding) equals open rate. Really changes the impact of those Twitter numbers! "Social media measurement causes unsavory (and ineffective) marketing behavior because unlike the rest of our marketing key performance indicators, social media metrics are out there for anyone to see."

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).

• Vivanista Hosts Question Session « Vivanista | Living Well. Doing Good. – "Have you ever wanted to ask a fundraising expert a question you just can’t get your arms around? Like ‘how many times can I invite my Facebook friends to a fundraising event before it’s considered spam?’ Or ‘do I really need spend the money for a back-up venue if my outdoor event falls on a date that it rarely rains?’ Well, now’s your chance! Starting  August 5th Layne Gray, Vivanista Founder, is going to answer 3 questions per week – submitted by you, and reply directly via video response. Ask her anything (it should probably relate in some way to fundraising or Vivanista, although she’ll most likely answer any questions about pugs whether you ask her or not). If she can’t answer it she’ll find an expert who can!"
• Facebook gets into texting game with Facebook Messenger — Tech News and Analysis – "Facebook has already started to supplant traditional email providers as a dominant way that people communicate online. And now the social networking giant is poised to delve even deeper into users’ messaging activity with a new mobile app with SMS-like functionality."
• KnowHow’s impact — Knowhow Nonprofit – Here's a great example of how you can reinvent the way your organization reports it's impact! And it doesn't have to cost a ton: this video is made with basic tools that are free to use. Have you made a video like this? Would love to see your other examples of annual reports that break the mold!
• Wikipedia Rolling Out Article Rating System – What Do You Think? – "Love it or hate it, you can't say Wikipedia is slow to innovate. The giant encyclopedia site announced this weekend that it will now roll-out site-wide an article rating system that allows page visitors to rate an entry on a scale of 1 to 5 on trustworthiness, objectivity, completeness and quality of writing. Article raters have the option of self-identifying as a subject matter expert for whatever article they rate."
• The Social Website: Integrating Social Media into Website Design and Function | NTEN – "If you're considering revamping your website to include social elements like the Facebook Like button, streaming from YouTube, or adding information from a social site through its API, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. There are many ways to “get social,” and so many reasons for doing so. Primarily, it's about creating a fundamentally engaging experience for the website visitor that brings them closer to your organization."

Location: New York, NY

Topic: Social Media Done Right in 30 Minutes/Day

Description:  Even if you have only 30 minutes for social media in each day you can use these methods to be strategic and make the most of your engagement. From content planning to really listening online, you’ll find that the more you look for ways to interact, instead of broadcast, the more you can do with those 30 minutes.

Related Links:

• SM4NP Conference
• Slides
• Community map template: http://bit.ly/DIYcommunity
• Content map template: http://bit.ly/DIYtemplate
• Metrics tracking template: http://bit.ly/DIYmetrics