Extreme Makeover: Nonprofit Technology Edition

Back to Notes
==email==
*Jenn Smith, Account Director, donordigital.com
*Link to Presentation
Why email?
*Effective – cheap. Lowcost, immediate, great way to cultivate new activist and donors
*Powerful – to spread the word – viral via friends
*Active – if you build a website, they won’t come. But they will with email.
3 ways to grow the program
#Starts with your website. People look at a page in an F format. Compelling language on why people would join your email list.
#Focus on building your email list. Collect email at every event, on every form, in every possible scenario. Ask for the email and ask for an opt-in. See groundspring.org, giftworks, low-cost email central database – instead of through outlook. 
#Develop a plan. Think about how & when you’ll be communicating to your list. Try to schedule regular communication to keep them interested and engaged. Have a monthlty newsletter –events, success stories
Biggest factor is timing – be flexible, nimble, and responsive. Responding to news related to your mission. You can manufacture your own timing and events.
Next stage
*Action alerts – one of the best ways to build your list and engage
*Fundraising – online giving
*Cultivation – eg personal stories
==Constituent relationship management==
Paul Hagen, Exponent Partners
*Need an institutional memory of interactions with your constituents. Not controlled by one person – openly accessible. Shared across the organization
*Only 7% of respondents said their systems work with each other. Over 50% use sheets of paper, excel, outlook – over four repositories of data.
*$4-10 dollars to acquire a constituent. Why do that when you have a goldmine of clients who are already supporting you?
*Databases – most deal with multiple databases that don’t talk to each other. Yell about it – tell the vendors you want your data interacting.
*Key question: How do I use technologies to impact my mission?
*Think more holistically about your contacts – not just donors and volunteers.
*Once you have the constituent segments down – think of intake, maintenance, kinds of interactions with them
*How do you measure value of existing relationships; e,g, number of articles by media connection supporters, $ donated, events attended – benchmark and grow – measure measure measure.
*Don’t overcollect data – if you don’t need the first name don’t ask for it; collect just what you’re using
*Always trade value for data – when you get data, make sure they know why, and what you’re going to use it for.
==Websites==
Eric Leland, CompuMentor
*Tell a story – instead of just hanging a shingle
*What you do is great – what’s compelling is how is it done?
*Use videos
*Tell the stories up front on your site
*Here’s what we did last week, last month – update the periodic stories about what makes you successful and attractive – if you don’t update anything else, update this
*Ask: What’s the mission of the website? who’s the audience – funders, partners, clients, volunteers. Then decide what story you want to tell, and where to put it
*How you want to act & interact with your constituency – email, signup, forums
*See netsquared.org – high tech apps for non-profits – blogs, diaries, rss feeds. With real case studies – they can take your story and put it on their site
Resources:
*compumentor, techsoup
*Orgwebmasters – for non-profit webmasters – long-term collaboration *for web-building – low-bandwidth approach
*Use your peers – ask them questions, how did you do it?
==Security==
Kevin Bankston, Electronic Frontier Foundation
*Can’t be ad hoc – need a strategy, and someone who will be responsible for it
*Who is the attacker? Hackers, governments, civil litigants 
*Read Beyond Fear; Best practices for Online Service Providers
*Have a clear data retention policy – what do you collect, what's the minimum you need to fulfill mission. Data retention schedule, eg client files destroyed in one year – otherwise will just keep accumulating – risk of disclosure gets higher
*Keep track of what records your computer is keeping on you. By default, logs what you did online. Don’t use your computers to log your passwords.
*When you delete – really delete, really destroy (shred with a crosscut). Shred your discs.
*Cipher.exe in XP – overwrites data with random space repeatedly
*Darik's Boot and Nuke
*If you keep stuff, protect it. 
*Should not run anything less than XP – Microsoft is not patching the old software anymore. 
*Avoid MS Office and Outlook – they're the most targeted, and well known by attackers; Most frequent source of security problems
*Use Thunderbird mail, Firefox instead of Explorer, Open Office
*Efs – encrypting file system – you can encrypt your entire disk
*Access – each individual should have login and pw; log out after x minutes. Different passwords for different assets.
*Random passwords – numbers and letters, as long as possible, not anywhere near the assets
*Password safe – encrypts all passwords
*Don’t use wireless – if you do, use only wep. Very easy to crack standard encryption.
*Use pgp or gnu privacy guard for 
Recap:
*Don’t keep it if you don’t need
*Encrypt your data
*Practice good password hygiene
*Clear browser logs
==Resources==
Sarah Zolad, Misson Research
Link to other links:
*Progressive Technology Project - Resources for Community Organizers
Some organizations that may be useful, (not vetted recently):
*Summit Collaborative
*ePhilanthropy Foundation
*Groundspring.org – Affordable internet fundraising, email and advocacy for nonprofits 
*Net Squared
*Net Squared in Action
*N-TEN
*NPOGroups
*Social Tech Forum
*Tech Underground - technology help for progressive nonprofits 
*TechSoup.org – The Technology Place for Nonprofits 
*The Digital Divide Network 
Category:Bootcamp