Anshe Chung, the world's first virtual millionaire, has donated virtual space in Second Life – space which can cost hundreds or thousands of real dollars per month – to set up the Nonprofit Commons. According to the New York Times, more than 30 nonprofits have already opened offices in this "virtual business incubator".

According to their wiki, the Nonprofit Commons "was designed as a pilot project to lower the barriers of access to Second Life, and to create a community of practice for nonprofits to explore and learn about the virtual world." The "sim" – which looks like a cross between an idealized European college campus and a French sidewalk cafe – will be formally launched on Tuesday, August 14, at 5:30 PT with a mixed-reality event. The live event will be part of NetSquared's Net Tuesday, while simultaneous events will take place in Second Life. You can learn more from their press release.

Hollyhock RossiniI hate to admit it, but I am this century's equivalent of the the cranky old person who doesn't want to learn how to program the VCR. This social networking stuff is clearly very powerful - but one more thing that I have to learn. And, quite frankly, I have enough other networking stuff to keep me busy - my email inbox overflow-eth. It's tough to convince me that Twitter isn't a nuisance and that FaceBook is a place I ought to spend some time.

So I admit that the idea of Second Life sounded pretty, well, ridiculous to me. I have enough trouble keeping my real self out of trouble and on task. A virtual me could only lead to trouble (and an even bigger email overflow problem!). Nonetheless - I vowed in 2007 to be more open minded. To try things BEFORE I wrote them off. So now that things have been a teensy bit more manageable here at NTEN, I tool the leap this weekend and created my virtual self - Hollyhock Rossini.

NTEN has a new headquarters in Second Life!

If you get sick of all the face-to-face meetings at the NTC, take a break to come see what we're up to in Second Life and meet other nonprofit techies virtually.

Thanks to Andrew Hoppin and Trellon for getting us set up!

Andrew Hoppin, NASA Ames Research Center and YearlyKos Convention/Bloggerpower.org

Excerpted from Corante with permission

Second Life's greatest utility, to me, is that it better mimics the experience of being offline in the same room together than any other online medium. The experience of interacting there is vastly more social and immersive than, say, an online blogging community. High trust relationships are built quickly. Think Meetup, except that you don't need 40 people to be in the same place on the planet to have an effective Meetup.

Second Life is also a rich medium for content creation that can be "surfaced" to the Web for broader exposure.  More than 100 people participated in an anti-war "virtual march on virtual Capital Hill" that we organized between CodePink and RootsCamp in Second Life recently, and one of our volunteers made a video of the event that went mildly viral with over 50,000 views. The cost of creating it was $0.

Nonprofits are using technology some truly inspiring ways, and we think that deserves some recognition. Below are brief descriptions of a few technology projects by NTEN members that are making a big difference. You can find out about other innovative technology projects and meet the people behind them in the Innovation Plaza at the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

Cutting through tax-code confusion

Tax season is here, and with it the annual confusion of deciphering perplexing rules about tax credits and deductions (and squinting at the tiny type of IRS forms). The Legal Aid Society of Orange County is helping its clients cut through the tax code confusion and ensure they get the refunds they are entitled to with its I-Can! E-file program.