NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network

Does Your Organization Value IT?

Brett — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:06:48 -0500

Flickr Photo: eszter

I think we can safely call it tradition now: it's time for the 4th Annual IT Staffing Survey, brought to you by NTEN and The Nonprofit Times. Your generosity of time has allowed us to create reports on the state of IT staffing in the sector that have been read thousands of times.

But, as with most things involving data, the real value of these reports will come over time, as we map the trends. We need you to share your experiences again this year.

When you have time to take a 15-minute break, we hope you'll take our survey. (From where we sit, you're still working. If anybody asks, feel free to tell them, "NTEN said it was okay.")

> Take the Online Survey

If you make technology decisions for your nonprofit, please take the survey, then pass it on to a colleague or six! The survey will find out:

How many people it takes to manage technology at a nonprofit
What exactly nonprofit technology staff do and how much they are paid
How nonprofits can find and keep good people

We’ll share the results with you in 2010, including:

Data to compare your organization to others like you
Benchmarks to help you plan projects and purchases
Statistics and information to use in grant proposals

It should only take you about 10-15 minutes to complete.

> Take the Online Survey

When you're done, check out the 2008 survey results to find out if you're being paid enough.

2009 Member Appreciation: Mission Video Webinar Contest Winners!

Sarah — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:31:46 -0500

For those of you who missed it, last week we held a Member Appreciation Webinar with Basho Mosko from the Flip Video Spotlight Program and Michael Hoffman from See3 Communications about how to create an introductory video for your organization.

Those who attended the webinar had a chance to show the community what they learned. They posted a wide variety of inspirational, funny, and just plain well made videos as examples of what they learned. You can check them out on our Facebook page.

We're not going to lie -- they weren't just doing it for extra credit. We've selected two commentators to win Flip Ultra Cameras. The winners are...

Barbara Christenson from Conservation Northwest. Barbara posted the Parks Climate Change: North Cascades 2009 video. We couldn't embed it, but you can (and should) watch it here.
Rebecca Krause-Hardie from MoonRoad LLC. Rebecca posted this short, hilarious video from RSPCA that preaches against the dangers of pet obesity.

Thanks to everyone who attended the webinar and a special thanks to everyone who posted videos. We can't wait to see examples of how everyone uses what they learned in the webinar to create even more fantastic nonprofit mission-driven video.

2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/20

Annaliese — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:12:13 -0500

Happy Friday! We're getting close to the end of our NTEN Member Appreciation month, when I'm giving out prizes every work day up to Thanksgiving Day. Be sure to tune in next week when the prizes get really big (including 2010 membership and an NTC registration!).

For today, however, I am glad to end the week with a gift of NTEN Gear for one of our current members (randomly selected):

Jenny Hezel, from the NY-NJ Trail Conference

Thank you, Jenny, for being a member of NTEN and using technology to help your cause!

2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/19

Annaliese — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:49:26 -0500

One thing we're really proud of here at NTEN is the knowledge of the community and the generosity within the community to share that knowledge with each other so that we can all do our work better, which in turn, we believe, makes the world better.

This last year we were able to harness that community wisdom and generosity and produce the first NTEN book: Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders.

I am happy to be able to give a copy of this book as one of our Member Appreciation daily prizes to:

Annika Billqvist, from Hands On Bay Area

And you are all invited to explore more information and bonus materials for the book in the book's wiki.

Thanks to Jossey-Bass/Wiley for publishing this book and for providing the complimentary copy for Annika and Hands On Bay Area!

2009 NTEN Community Report -- And 2010 NTC Winner

Annaliese — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:08:21 -0500

Every year we survey the nonprofit technology community (via our members, program participants, and other like-communities) to learn two main things:

How are WE doing, as an organization, to make your work easier, and your mission a little closer?
How are YOU doing, as someone who works with technology and/or the nonprofit sector, in terms of your job role, tech-adoption, and organizational challenges?

Earlier this spring, we collected responses from 1000 folks and have analyzed and reported back that data for you in this report.

> Download the report (free)

Key Findings

Satisfaction with NTEN programming overall, among members and non-members, is up over previous years.
84.7% of NTEN members feel that their membership helps them be more effective in their work, an increase of nearly 5% over 2008 responses.
93% of NTEN members would (or have already) recommend membership to their colleagues.
There is an “NTEN Effect” among respondents when it comes to Technology Adoption and Leadership levels: NTEN members are likely to rate themselves and their organizations higher along the adoption spectrum as compared to their nonprofit colleagues. NTEN members are also more likely to have leadership roles at their organizations when it comes to technology planning and implementation.
“Running effective email campaigns” has supplanted “Managing my web site” as the highest-rated challenge area among respondents.

> Download the report here (free)

The other thing we do every year in conjunction with this report is offer one lucky respondent the chance for a complimentary Nonprofit Technology Conference registration -- survey respondents entered their names for the drawing -- and, drum roll please:

Wanda Remmers, from Housing Rights, Inc., is this year's winner!

2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/18 (Multi-Pass!)

Annaliese — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:20:18 -0500

Last year we introduced a new member benefit for NTEN members: NTEN webinar packages. Many of our members are organizations that have multiple staff accessing NTEN resources and programming. We wanted to make it easier for the staff at these organizations to sign up for NTEN webinars, and at the same time make it easier for the organizations to manage the training for their staff.

So, we created two webinar pass options that both increased the member discount on our webinars and made it easier for staff to sign up for webinars when they wanted, without having to get approval for new registrations:

Flickr: Gaueko > Multi-Pass (3 webinars)

> Season Pass (unlimited NTEN webinars)

Why am I telling you all this, you ask? Well, today is another Member Appreciation give-away opportunity for us, and we decided that today's randomly-selected NTEN member should receive a Multi-Pass! (Whenever I hear multi-pass, I think of Fifth Element.)

And we are happy to send that pass to:

Laura Durington, Catholic Relief Services

Thank you, Laura, for being a member of NTEN!

2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/17

Annaliese — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:14:15 -0500

With all the buzz about Twitter and Facebook Causes over the last year, I feel like the focus on Second Life for nonprofit organizations and causes has diminished a bit. But there are organizations and resources for nonprofits who are and want to engage with constituents in Second Life, and we are happy to be able to send a how-to resource on Second Life to an NTEN member today (as part of our Member Appreciation daily prizes):

Susan Neuman, of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

We're sending you Second Life for Dummies, by Sarah Robbins and Mark Bell, courtesy of Jossey-Bass/Wiley Publishers.

Thank you for being a member of NTEN, Susan, and, considering your organization and cause, perhaps there are some new ways you can engage and educate the community about Historic Preservation -- and who knows, maybe someday Second Life will be among the communities and places your organization strives to preserve!

Changes to the Google Grants Process

Brett — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:32:50 -0500

Kristie Ferketich, Google Grants Team

I'm happy to share with the NTEN community a major change in the Google Grants process designed to improve the experience for prospective Google Grantees.

This change will allow new grantees to get up and running with their Google Grants AdWords ads sooner, to have a stronger understanding of the AdWords program, and to be better suited for success with their grant. Now, instead of waiting for our team to build an AdWords account for a newly-accepted grantee, the organization will have the tools and resources to build their account on their own much sooner!

We've found that grantees who build their own account gain a much better understanding of the Google AdWords system resulting in improved engagement with the program and increased success using their grant to achieve their organization's mission and goals.

For more on this change to the Google Grants process, please visit the Google Grants blog post on this topic.

For more about the Google Grants program which offers free online advertising to select non-profits, please visit the Google Grants program website.

2009 Member Appreciation: Third Week

Annaliese — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:23:18 -0500

It's the start of the 3rd week of our 2009 NTEN Member Appreciation Month! On deck this week is another great member appreciation program: What is Google Grants? An Introduction to the Google Grants Program, Thursday, Nov 19th, 2pm ET / 11am PT.

And we're starting the week off with some NTEN Gear for the daily prize, and I am happy to be sending some off to:

Beth Hynes-Ciernia, from the Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota!

Thanks, Beth, for being a member of NTEN and working with technology to help your organization achieve its mission!

Love is in the Air: A Wrap-Up of the First NTEN Thanks Day

Sarah — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:46:37 -0500

The NTEN staff is consistently amazed at how fabulous our members are. But honestly, last Wednesday, on NTEN Give Thanks day, you really blew our minds. There was so much love floating around it silenced the NTEN office -- which is really hard to do! -- while we sifted through your posts and reflected on your greatness.

We had inklings of how much you appreciate each other, but to see it all out there in the universe was something else entirely. As a part-time poet, I have a thing for words. Here are some of the best and most used words (according to this Twitter Stream Graph) from your thanks:

Always
Awesome
Cause
Community
Fun
Helpful
Inspirational
Love
Make
Share
Tech
Work

Taken together, they make NTEN sound like a supportive and positive community to be a part of -- which we knew, but it means so much to us to know that you all think so, too.

And now, on to the winners. We promised prizes to those who gave & received the most thanks on Facebook & Twitter and those prizes are going to...

David Krumlauf, Pierce Family Charitable Foundation
Peter Campbell, EarthJustice and TechCafeteria
Robert Weiner, Robert Weiner Consulting

We also have an honorable mentions catagory. In it are Beth Kanter of Beth's Blog, and Amy Sample Ward from NetSquared. If there were an NTEN prom queen, Beth & Amy would be some fierce competition.

So, in summary, #NTENThanks to all of you, for keeping us and each other going. If you feel like you missed out, you didn't: the love is still being spread. It’s not too late to get out there and tell an NTEN member just how much you appreciate them.