Posted on 29/09/09 by admin
Have you heard of a digital story? It’s a story that is told using photos or video and then shared via the web. The Digital Storytelling Challenge is an event that has been initiated by TechSoup, our US partner organisation in the DonorTec program.
The aim of the challenge is to encourage community organisations to share information about what they do and connect with each other on issues of common interest. Using simple online tools and publishing on the web overcomes geographic limitations and offers different ways of participating. This challenge is open to the community at large, nonprofits, individuals, libraries, as well as local and international organisations.
Participants are invited to submit Digital Stories that demonstrate your organisational mission/goals/needs in a thoughtful and creative way. The Flickr image sharing platform and the YouTube video platform will be used to share the stories with the world.
If you are interested in joining the challenge and need some help or encouragement, we will be happy to help. Please contact Rosalie Day rd@connectingup.org or tel. 8122 2755.
Posted on 29/09/09 by admin
As Becky Wiegand from Tech soup (DonorTec's partner in the US) blogged:
While looking for anything to watch other than Tom Delay shake his bum on Dancing with the Stars the other night, I came across one of the new commercials from Microsoft about their upcoming release of the Windows 7 operating system. The commercial featured the cutest little spokesperson you've ever seen. Since Microsoft will be donating Windows 7 upgrades to eligible nonprofits through www.DonorTec.com.au - this reminded me to post this little "save the date" announcement, as well as give you a heads up as to what you can expect to see from DonorTec as we approach this launch.
Posted on 18/09/09 by admin
If you haven't already heard of Nancy Schwartz you may want to go now and check out her web site and fantastic resources for nonprofit marketing. Getting Attention Blog & E-News http://www.gettingattention.org/
One of her great talents is helping organisations understand and develop their "Tagline" - the one liner which is assopciated with their brand - part of their branding. For us it is "Connecting you to your communities", for RSPCA Australia it is : "For all creatures great and small". A short slogan or sentence that gets at the crux of what your organisation is about, the purpose for being.
Also the 2009 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards are now open for voting here http://is.gd/2NQx7. Check these out and vote!
Can you pick a great message?
Reflect on what works and what doesn't work for them, and consider how your own organisation's tagline holds up.
Voters can register to receive the free 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Report, with more than 2,500 tagline examples (to be published in late Spring). _________________________________________________________Spot the Next Great Nonprofit TaglineVote here for the 2009 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards. http://is.gd/2NQx7Voting will:o Sharpen your understanding of what does and doesn’t work in nonprofit communications.o Inform and inspire your organization’s messaging.o Give you the chance to register for the free 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Report, with 2,500 tagline examples.
The 60 tagline finalists have been culled from over 1,700 entries in 13 categories. Now it's *your* turn to select the best.
Posted on 02/09/09 by admin
I’ve just started using giv.to as my URL shortener of choice at work.
The service is available to causes (non-profits and political campaigns alike) only. This is a smart move by Giv.to, as by limiting service to causes, the Giv.to links will gain credibility in the online community. An added bonus is that the service does not allow anonymous links, so links can be trusted.
The analytics are the best I’ve seen to date. I’m particularly impressed with the Visitor Details, as it shows which city clicks are coming from (not to mention down to the second timestamp against each click). Clear graphs showing the Total Clicks over time and the more granular Clicks in the Last 24 Hours allow for an at a glance overview of each links success.
For those worried about Twitter account security in these times of scam Twitter services, Giv.to uses Twitter’s OAuth authentication service, rather than asking for your username and password when logging in.
Now, on to the pricing plans. For a limited time, the Basic service is free, and allows for unlimited URL creation. Extra features like extra-short URLs, vanity URLs and multiple users do come at a cost – from $5 to $50 a month (USD). However, when you consider the potential value of a URL like http://giv.to/mycause – a service like this would quickly find a place in any non-profit’s budget.
Over to you – have you used Giv.to? Will you be making the switch or are you content with your current service?
Posted on 01/09/09 by admin
As a sector we are building content sharing capacity using new tools and new practices.
Tagging is one of the ways we can categorise our content, help others find our content and share it in a pool of content to enrich the power of dicussions. It's those "clouds" again. Think like a cloud and make a storm
There are many well used tags globally with a predominant voice from the US nonprofit sector, such as nptech, however what we want to do is channel some loacl content and local conversations. So as well as using these global tags we ask you to also use local tags for content generated in Oz.
Some tag suggestions below :
np = nonprofit
au = Australia
npau = nonprofit sector in Australia
Subject extensions:
Green ( environmental)
Gov ( governance)
Give (Fundraising)
Gov2 (Government transparency movement)
Mkt (marketing)
Devt (capacity development)
3rdsec (third sector)
For example:
nptech = nonprofit technology
nptechau = nonprofit technology in Australia
gov2au = the new government web 2.0 movement of transparency – open information in Australia
npgreen = nonprofits concerned about being green (environmentally conscious)
npmktau = nonprofit marketing australia
npgiveau = nonprofit fundraising australia
Please suggest more or alert us to any you are currently using so we can share them with the nonprofit sector across Australia and build their presence in our tag cloud as well as the popular tools such as hastags.org and technorati.com
Posted on 31/08/09 by admin
Many of ask the question whether we have time to participate in social media, but perhaps we need to be asking can we afford not to be?
Check out this article from social media blogger Maddie Grant and her recent "AHA" moment from Clay Shirky.
If our members are engaging and interracting through social media, will the organisations behind these groups and activities miss out from not participating? eg. the conference attendees sharing their photos on flickr or the Bushwalking club sharing their photos and anecdotes on facebook. The answer is a continuum ofcourse ranging from yes to no.
Some organisations have made a conscious decision not to service social media content to remain as non-digital as possible in the way they communicate, perhaps except for a web site and the odd newsletter and email address so that they can emphasise the physical meeting place and non-digital time or escapism from all the information and devices.
Posted on 28/08/09 by admin
If you are like many of us who are wondering how you can possibly keep up with the information you currently try to filter and now you want me to TWEET as well! You can’t be serious! Can you?
Are there any real benefits professionally for you or your organization in joining the twitter movement?
Well I think the simple answer is that twitter won’t be for everyone, but there are some interesting movements and applications – some of which have been attributed to social change movements. Plus it is kind of nice to be on the edge of the cool kids.
There are also some useful listening, and broadcasting uses as well. It does create large networks very quickly and it does disseminate bite size pieces of information as well. The bites often provide links to more extensive articles on blogs and web sites and if you manage your following well it can assist you to keep on the pulse of issues and debates as well as know when someone is attending their yoga class. There are some useful tools and a protocol behind participating, which evolves and of course which some follow and others don’t bombarding us with useless twitters – in which case you should rapidly unfollow them!
So want to try it? www.twitter.com
There are some really useful tools like reducing the link you want to send to people via : www.tinyurl.com or www.bit.ly is great because it tracks how many people have clicked on your link sent out through twitter.
A guide by Deanne Bullen – “Getting Started on Twitter”
Posted on 28/08/09 by admin
The Directory of Community Services 2010 is now available. You can find out a lot of useful things in this directory. It even works when the power has gone off! We haven't put the price up - it costs $39.95.
Get your copy from Service SA - they will take your order over the phone on 13 2324. You can also use the online shop or visit any of the Service SA shopfronts.
Rosalie Day, Connecting Up
Posted on 27/08/09 by Guest Author
First and foremost, Twitter is not a marketing channel. It’s for conversation. People may have conversations about a brand, but it’s clearly another thing to talk to a brand. Some may not agree with me on this point, but your brand on Twitter needs a name or face attached to it, otherwise your communications seem a little disingenuous. Is it just one or many people twittering on behalf of your brand? Say so. I’d like to know whether I’m speaking to Jack in Marketing, Sally the volunteer or Mary the CEO. Identification provides context to your tweets.
If you are going to inject some much-needed personality through your organisation’s Twitter account, do take the time to set some guidelines. For example, with the non-profit account I manage, I use the DM function for messages relating to birthdays or talking to people about personal triumphs or tragedies. This provides two benefits, in that you get to be human and genuinely connect to your followers, but keep the public stream open for the tweets more closely aligned to your organisational communications goals.
Do you have followers that retweet your messages? Thank them, whether it’s a DM or public reply. If your followers tweet about something related to your organisation, retweet them.
Posted on 04/08/09 by admin
Finding and sharing community information at a bus stop? Why not? Check this idea from Velo Mondial, a blog devoted to sustainable mobility. It’s a good idea to place useful information in locations where people gather. And as the blog post says, it takes the tedium out of waiting for the bus. It may be a while before we see bus stops like this in Australia, but this concept prompts us to think about how we might use items of community infrastructure more creatively to place needed information where it can be found.
Rosalie Day, Connecting Up Australia