We heard from software vendors in the Open API debate, but we also wanted to hear what you had to say. We asked people who listened in on the debate and who work at nonprofits to sound off on what our panelists said and what APIs mean for them.

Aaron Bauman, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center

"This debate boils down to one thing: whether a vendor is more interested in making money or serving its customers. As nonprofits we all must retain at least some idealism, but for-profit entities are not so burdened. In the short run stockholders, marketing, and finance want the largest return possible, which means squeezing money from customers at every opportunity. However when they ignore their clients' long-term interest to please their investors' in the short-term, everyone loses. Payroll bloats with maintenance and support costs, customers leave the red tape and antagonism behind.

An open API (e.g. SQL) reduces tech-support costs for proprietary systems by relying on freely available documentation; reduces maintenance costs of outdated, brittle software by leveraging industry standard protocols and interfaces; and reduces customer turnover by offering transparency and honesty."

Michelle Murrain, Zen and the art of Nonprofit Technology

"The basic issue is does it make sense to provide access to data that is already available to the public (or to authenticated users) via an interface that increases access and innovation, instead of keeping data close to the vest of those that hold it. Open APIs are one of the most important parts of what makes Web 2.0 applications really make a difference to people. It's not Flash, or Ajax, it's easily retrievable and manipulateable data, via RSS and APIs.

One of the biggest issues about how nonprofits can collaborate better is the issue of interoperability. Increase interoperability, you increase nonprofit effectiveness. Increase the capabilities of nonprofits to get, use, and manipulate data to their ends, the better they can do what it is they need to do. And philosophically - the sector as a whole, and people, benefit from open data access."

Read more on Michelle's take on open APIs and the debate on her blog.

Steve Andersen, ONE/Northwest

"Here's what crystallized for me on the call today. Nonprofits need technology tools to help support their business processes. No one tool can meet all their needs. So they will have many tools. They need strategies for using more than one tool in their organization.

A common strategy we've all seen many times is do nothing. Have more than one system, and do double entry. The systems don't know about each other, and nothing is shared. Track your donors in your CRM, and double enter those gifts into Quickbooks, for example. A drag, no?"

Read more of what Steve has to say on open APIs on his blog gokubi.com.

Judi Sohn, C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition

"Our mission is our fight against colorectal cancer. Our mission is not the technology. We don't use Flickr because the idea of embedding images in our blogs is so cool and we have to do it. We use Flickr because we have pictures from our events that we want to share with our constituents and Flickr makes it very easy to do. My job at C3 is to hide the technology. Most folks get in a vehicle because they have somewhere to go, not for the experience of being in the car. I use Flickr because I can embed it in a tab in Salesforce and our folks don't have to use a separate login to upload photos. To me, APIs that allow folks to do what they need to do without getting caught up in additional logins and interfaces is what it's all about. I really don't care whether it's open or not. But you can bet that a closed-off API better offer me enough to make it worth my while in exchange for the commitment. It better live up to a higher standard and it better be scalable."

Read more from Judi on this issue on her blog A View From Home.

Michael Scappa, Verve Internet Solutions

"The nonprofit world is very dynamic -- volunteers, staff, and others each contribute something unique to the mix. There are few standards in terms of software and/or customization of software being used to serve the needs of nonprofits. Within this environment software evolution can be challenging - often nonprofits must attempt to cobble together usable software from a variety of free/low-cost solutions (generally making for a cumbersome user-process), or they have to start from scratch and purchase an enterprise-level solution (which the limited resources makes very challenging). Open APIs help to make software evolution in the nonprofit sector more likely, eliminating the need to "recreate the wheel" by utilizing existing tools and helping to develop a solution targeted to the organization's mission and needs."

Laura Quinn, Idealware

"This debate is in serious need of some definitional clarity. How open does open need to be? What's the difference between an API and an Open API? What's the difference between offering access to data and an API? Without a definition as to what is or is not an Open API, it's hard to do a reality check when all the vendors say they're already offering one, or will have one soon.

Allan Benamer (of the Confessions of a Nonprofit IT Director blog) has helped me out with some thoughts on what it should take to be an Open API from a data perspective. Let's call them the Four Pillars of Open APIs. Each aspect is useful on its own, but with all four you get the Open API gold star."

Read more about what open means on Laura's blog.

Fred Armistead, Fusion Labs

"I have read a lot about 'end-users' on the blogs, and APIs have nothing to do with the end-user. APIs are to provide programming groups (vendors) with the ability to access functions and data from multiple systems. APIs are there to ensure upward compatibility with the target systems to ensure that interfaces built today will continue to function even when the target vendor upgrades their system. Whether an API is open or not, the main point is that the vendor provides APIs for other vendors to access and that vendors use APIs at all times to ensure compatibility."