Everyday, we find great resources on the different uses of technology and social media in the nonprofit sector. We bookmark them, note them, share them, Tweet or re-Tweet them, and sometimes, we even blog about them. So, in this post, we thought we'll round up some of the most interesting resources that we think you might also find useful for you and your organisation.

Nancy Shwartz's website and blog Getting Attention about "Marketing for Nonprofits" is o

The Social Media for Nonprofit Organizations group on Linked In have been following a discussion by members about developing a social media strategy in the nonprofit context and ways to do it, pros

We just had our Monday morning staff meeting and discovered two team members - very active Facebookers, have decided to leave www.facebook.com .

You may or may not use YouTube for your nonprofit already. A number of organisations are embedding a YouTube channel in their home page to futher communicate a message or explain what they do. See some examples here :

What is Linked In? http://linkedin.com

Linked In is a social media site for professional networking.

Many social media users grapple with personal and professional identities and whether to seperate the two or how to manage combined usage on sites such as twitter and facebook. Linked In provides quite a clear boundary and purpose for professional profiling and liaison. Unlike facebook where many people accumulate as many "friends" as possible whether they are known or not, the emphasis in Linked In is to invite people you know or have done business with.

You can also add your twitter posts so that if you are broadcasting a new blog post or other news about your organisation, you only have to do it once.

If you're more of a listener, Linked In provides a good way to see who knows who and keep up to date with others' news.

There are also "Groups". You can create a group or join existing ones. There is a Directory to browse groups by topic. You can search by "Nonprofit" http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?results=&sik=1274424184119  Remember this is international. You can select language too.

Some groups you might like to join:

Connecting Up Australia

Online Fundraising for Australian Non-profits

Social Media For Nonprofit Organizations

See you on Linked In!

Karen Gryst

What a great story - the incredible difference that technology can make to nonprofit organisations when time and money are so limited.

This story submitted to DonorTec below is a wonderful example of how the generosiy of companies donating the latest technology products and services can change the level of hope for workers striving for social justice to help people in great need. For more information on the technology available through DonorTec click here.

Our story - Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project, Melbourne

"If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution"
Emma Goldman

First day, first impressions.

Four women and one man, all about 30, sitting close in the upstairs bedroom of a two bedroom flat in North Melbourne. Their clothes explore the whole range from charcoal to black.  The room is dim. The blind is down to stop the glare through the large northerly window.

I would later come to know them as an amazing team of caseworkers who had helped about three hundred asylum seekers to escape destitution and homelessness in the previous 12 months. Workers with incredible skills who had walked alongside vulnerable people while they waited for their case for protection to be assessed - children and adults, who had known flight, trauma, detention, isolation, illness, hunger and heartbreaking delays – this team had helped them to find a way through all the barriers raised against them - language, policies, laws, authorities, utilities, and all those call centres. In the end, some were given visas and could stay, while others were sent away from Australia. For those who were refused, the patient workers crowded in this room had helped them to gather as much readiness as could be managed before they set off again in search of safety and life. For all of them, as one man said, Hotham had been hope.

Tags and the use of tags is still emerging in Australia for the nonprofit sector. The greatest traction seems to be ( not surpirsing) from the tech nonprofit community and so #nptech is the most common. Is this too US centric? Well there is a large US contingent of bloggers and twitterers using it, but I like to think of it as international. So what about locally relevant content for Australia such as local competitions, funding opportunities etc?

We at Connecting Up Australia have tried to initiate some discussion around this with little response, however some of the "early adopters" and advocates in the social media community have picked it up and are using some Australianised tags such as nptechau and gov2au.

This generally means putting "au" on the end of a tag.

Two Nonprofit tags to start using :

• npau ( np= nonprofit, au = australian) - use to identify content / comments relevant for the australian nonprofit community.
• nptechau ( np= nonprofit, tech = technology related, au = australian) - use to identify content / comments relevant for the australian nonprofit community related to technology.

Tags need to be meaningful to the user group, so they do evolve.

Sometimes I tag a blog post or tweet with both "nptech" and "nptechau" if the content is relevant to the international community but I also wish to identify it as being created or sourced in Australia.

Lots of countries and user groups around the world are grappling with similar issues of initiating locally relevant tags to help identify local content from the large pool of US content or international content.

We have started a page at What the hash tag - to monitor use of tags : http://wthashtag.com/Nptechau 

Announcement from the Gov2.0 Taskforce on their blog - their report and 12 of the 13 recommendations have been accepted.

http://gov2.net.au/blog/2010/05/03/response-to-the-government-2-0-report/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gov2Taskforce+%28Government+2.0+Taskforce%29

Now for the roll out.

The Queensland Government has already made some headway with the adoption of a new IP licensing protocol : GILF

The GILF is based on the international convention of "Creative Commons" - see the Australian organisation http://creativecommons.org.au . This is an alternative to Copyright and it is simple to use but allows holders / creators of intellectual property to share their materials for others to us - which furthers the creative sharing / building process.

Check it out for your organisation!

by Karen Gryst

DonorTec has 8 two day delegate passes to give away to this year’s Communities in Control Conference. If your organisation is interested in the challenges and opportunities faced by community organisations today then we suggest you  register your interest for a free 2 day pass for this year’s Communities in Control Conference 31 May – 1 June, themed Power Up! Who has it, how to get it & how communities can use it.”

The Communities in Control Conference is the leading Community Conference in Australia: speakers include CHRISTINE NIXON, REBECCA HUNTLEY,  RUSSEL HOWCROFT, The Hon JOAN KIRNER AM, former Premier of Victoria and more...

All you have to do is be in the first 8 people to email us at support@donortec.org. Please include your:

Name
Organisation
Email address
Phone number
Address
Postcode
State
Dietary requirements

All winners will be notified shortly after we have received the required registrations of interest

Complete this survey to inform Nonprofit and Community Sector development – share your perspective.   All data is confidential.

AND go in the Draw to win Survey Draw prizes :

• 1 x new 32GB iPod Touch
• 1 x  8GB iPod Touch

Click here to fill it in now survey ( https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JCGSMWS )

Closes next week – Tuesday 23rd March. Drawn the next day.

One week to submit your survey response and enter the draw!

The “Listening Project” is a national research into the needs and priorities of community organisations in Australia. Our organisation Connecting Up Australia  provides a number of free support and information services to the community organisation sector across Australia including the well known DonorTec program.

This research aims to build understanding around the sorts of challenges faced by nonprofit / community organisations operationally and strategically and what support is available and needed.

Research findings will be published and shared with the sector. It will also be used to inform Connecting Up’s services to the sector and collaborations with other nonprofit service providers, business, government and academic sectors.

All data /comments will be confidential. For more information contact researcher Karen Gryst : (08) 8212 8555 or kg@connectingup.org
Click here to complete the survey ( https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JCGSMWS ) and go in  the draw to win some great prizes.
Closes 23rd March and drawn 24th March 2010 – winners notified by phone / email.

Woohoo! 

If any of you like me have developed a real interest in the exciting medium of photography and video to tell the story of our community work and create real impact that cuts through so many barriers from litercay issues and language barriers to our audience being time poor and overloaded with information - a picture tells a 1000 words!

I discovered the course on our linked in group : Connecting Up Australia through a discussion posted by Roger Burk from http://www.pictographers.org/ conducting the course. I was sure this would be another fantastic US course - but it's in Australia.

Course details : http://www.idss.com.au/pages/1261366836.app 

I'm going to register right now!

Check out some examples of the power of digital storytelling:

• our Video blog for examples of more Australian nonprofit organisations using video and photos.
• the "A Jpeg is worth a 1000 words competition"   and more info.
• "Big Stories" an amazing project - award winning documemntary
• Online Video for Nonprofits workshop slides - a how to guide - from Connecting Up Conference 09

By Karen Gryst

The Gov2.0 Taskforce's Public Sector Information "Ideas" contest for nonprofit organisations received huge numbers of entries which is very exciting that there is so much traction around how we could innovate to use government information for collaboration and application in our contexts.

The winner is.............“Indicators of social inclusion in local geographic areas for planning an evaluating community services” from Helen McGuire, which proposed that data should be published on key social indicators based on local geographic areas so it can be made available to community organisations, policy makers, and government funding bodies.

There were numerous great ideas - find out more here.

And for more on what the Gov2.0 Taskforce are doing click here.

We're all going on a summer holiday.......la, la, doobie, doobie, do, do, do, do.

We would like to wish our Australian nonprofit sector a lovely summer and festive season.

Every year is busy but 2009 has been particularly challenging with the financial crisis.

We hope that everyone gets the rest they deserve to continue your great work in the community.

Connecting Up December newsletter - short and sweet - Connecting Up have a nonprofit specific Board position available - see more information in the newsletter.

So take it easy......sleep, walk, read, meditate......Ommmmmmmmmmmm!

And we'll see you with all those fantastic resolutions in the New Year...2010!

Purpose

Connecting Up Australia is conducting a national research into the capacity development priorities of
the nonprofit sector in Australia 2009-2010 to build an understanding of current and emerging
nonprofit priorities in Australia. Research findings will be published and shared with the
sector, Government and other stakeholders. Findings will also be used to inform Connecting
Up as an organisation to represent and support nonprofit capacity development needs
among nonprofits and also with business, government and academic sectors. This valuable
data will enable the development of new strategies, collaborations and services.

Who is Connecting Up Australia?