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A while back, with the generous support of the Knight Foundation, a group of Nonprofit CTOs gathered in Miami to discuss the day-to-day challenges of nonprofit technology, share their success stories, and brainstorm solutions. We'll be posting highlights from this meeting of the minds on the NTEN blog. Today, we tackle the first in a series of posts in which the CTOs offer their advice for the job by finishing the sentence "You're doing it wrong if…"

It's been two years since we released the first Nonprofit Data Ecosystems Survey report, which provided a look at not only what particular technology tools and vendors the NTEN community uses for the different data management functions across their organization (from email to volunteers), but also the grades they assign to those tools and vendors on criteria such as after-sale support and usability. Unique about that report was that we also asked survey participants to grade their data ecosystems, which is what we call that network of tools organizations use to carry out their work.

In 2009, we learned that while respondents tended to rate individual systems as generally successful for managing specific parts of their organizational work (in the B to A range for most criteria), they graded their ecosystems as unsuccessful (generally C's and lower).

We re-visted this topic this summer for the 2011 Nonprofit Data Ecosystems survey, and are happy to release the report today (free for NTEN members).

> Find out more and get the updated report (free for NTEN Members!)

By Jason Samuels, Manager of Information Technology, National Council on Family Relations

How important is it for your conference attendees to have access to the internet? We asked this question recently on our post-conference survey and the results were overwhelming:

95.9% of NCFR Conference attendees said that having internet access is at least somewhat important.

What many of your conference attendees don’t realize is just how unaffordable it is to provide blanket wireless access on the meeting room floors at major hotels. A September 2011 industry report published by the Professional Convention Management Association found that respondents spent an average of over $7,000 on internet access, and only 37% provided free WiFi to attendees. Our organization has felt the pinch, spending thousands of dollars in past years on internet access for just our cyber café and registration desk.