Last week, I had the great pleasure of speaking at the 2.0 nonprofit event in Washington DC, which was hosted by Idealist and the National Human Services Assembly. (NTEN community participant Jon Camfield has some good notes from the event.)

The fine folks at Google were big sponsors of the event, hosting us all at their DC offices on the first day for a tour of Google services and their nonprofit programs. They had lots of staff on hand throughout the program, which is how I met Ramya. She's the new Nonprofits and Activism Manager at YouTube. She'll be working in the YouTube Nonprofit Program.

You can learn more about Ramya on her channel at http://www.youtube.com/agentchange. You can also send your thoughts, opinions, ideas or examples of brilliant uses of YouTube to her at agentchange@youtube.com.

Your guide to resources that will help you put technology to work for your cause.

Get the Most Out of Your Online Campaign

> While more Americans are learning about this year's electioneering from their daily newspaper than the Internet, social media tools have gained traction. Wired recently took a look at one campaign's use of new technologies in "The Tech of Obamamania". You can get the NPTech slant on the election from Care2's Election Blog.

> Of course, most nonprofits aren't trying to win an election, but many of the fundraising and organizational principals remain the same. And while there's been a lot of buzz about the death of social networking -- be sure the check out Slate's "The Facebook Philanthropos" -- Beth Kanter assures us that the reports are overblown. We just need to think more strategically about how we're using all the new toys.

> In that spirit, you may want to take a look at the online campaigning overview on CNN -- yes, CNN! (Sometimes, sound bites are helpful.) -- before checking out two posts on the Wild Apricot blog: "7 Tips to Make Your Charity Badge a Success" and "Online Fundraising 101". Network for Good's study on "The Wired Fundraiser" is also an excellent resource. 

Organize Volunteers Online

> Having trouble keeping your supporters' version of your message in line? Beth's got you covered: "My Organization's Fundraiser Was Abducted by Aliens!"

> And while you could just start your own social networking site, with your own rules, wouldn't be easier just to get the recording of Peter Deitz's excellent webinar, "Sharing the Message: How to Work Effectively with Your Organization's Wired Fundraisers". (Might this be a good use of NTEN's new webinar MultiPasses? Yes, it might.)

> Wait, what's that you say? You have to organize real, live people? Oh, boy. Fortunately, NTEN Members enjoy a discount on Mission Research's GiftWorks, which has a Volunteer Management component. The World Cares Center offers trainings for working with volunteers in disaster situations. And Coyote Communications has a good section on volunteer management, including an overview of available software options.

> If you just want to volunteer yourself, you've got a lot of options, like Network for Good, VolunteerMatch, and the unfortunately named Nabuur.com. 

Rock YouTube

> So, you want to rock YouTube harder than the dueling 1984 parody ads created by rogue supporters of the Clinton and Obama campaigns? First, get your organization signed up for YouTube's nonprofit program. Then, follow Holly Ross's advice and check out Project for Awesome.

> This guy's got an oh-so-meta series on gaining YouTube subscribers. You can also dress up your video using one of the many tools available or by following some tongue-in-cheek advice from across the pond. Just take care: as NPR reports, somebody may put the "anti" in "social media" by critiquing your video.

Back when everyone was saying Al Gore "invented the Internet," no one rolled their eyes more than the Brits. Back then, the very notion of Internet-based technologies was enough to send British eyes into one-eighties, never mind the marriage of politics and social media. The idea of the Queen appearing on YouTube? Patently ridiculous.

What a change a few years can bring, because there she is, on YouTube's Royal Channel, with her annual Christmas speech and video clips of Prince William flying a plane.

With the next general election looming in 2009, politicians are beginning to mirror their American counterparts in hopes of winning more votes.

Brian Reich, EchoDitto

We are only part way through the 2008 election cycle and there have already been dozens, perhaps hundreds of articles written, TV hours spent, and blog comments posted about the role that the internet and technology are playing in this election cycle. The general consensus among the pundits seems to be that this is the year that technology, particularly social media, has had a significant impact on the outcome of the presidential election contest.

Unfortunately, that consensus is wrong and those pundits don’t know what they are talking about.