What nonprofit technology issues does your organization most need help with? How helpful are NTEN's resources to your work? How does your organization incorporate technology into its work?

> Please take the 2012 NTEN Community Survey!

[Editor's note: The following is an excerpt of an article in the March 2012 issue of NTEN:Change. Read the complete article -- and the rest of the issue -- when you subscribe to the journal for free!]

By Laura S. Quinn, Idealware and Amy Wagner, MAP For Nonprofits

Many nonprofits think of innovation as a luxury they can’t afford. Staff time and budgets are limited, and improving the different ways they use technology seems out of reach. But technology can offer straightforward, inexpensive means of providing higher quality services and create numerous opportunities to do more with less—even in our current economic climate. This makes innovation something organizations can no longer afford not to embrace.

You can now download the 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, just released at the 2012 NTC by M+R and NTEN.

New this year and particularly interesting to me is what we learned from the study participants with mobile programs:

• roughly a third had optimized their emails for display on smart phones
• a third had not
• the remaining third plan to optimize their emails within the coming year

> Download the Report. It's free!

Another NTC means more great studies about nonprofit technology released, including the 2012 "Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmarks Report." While you're welcome to scroll down to read some key findings, we recommend you click on over to download the complete report, right now. It's free!

> Download the 2012 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report

In the second half of 2011, when we set out to look at the “State of the Nonprofit Cloud”, we weren’t sure what to expect—and what we found after surveying US nonprofits and conducting follow-up interviews was that it’s somewhat... foggy.

The vast majority of nonprofits we surveyed were using hosted software, but our interviews with staff members revealed that many didn’t even realize those systems could be considered hosted, or “cloud”, solutions.

In addition, many respondents said they were concerned about security for some hosted systems—especially constituent databases—but were comfortably using other hosted systems for equally sensitive information, such as business email.

Please see our complete report, "The State of the Nonprofit Cloud: The Results of a Study of Nonprofit Use of Cloud Software", which is free to download.

The December issue of NTEN's quarlerly journal for nonprofit leaders is free and hot off the press. 

Featured in this issue:

• "From Outcomes to Impact," by Julie Macalik with Greenlights for Nonprofit Success, which provides guidance for measuring the real impact of your nonprofit.
• "How To Track Everyone Who's Anyone To You," from Idealware's Laura Quinn, which provides the foundation for why and how to lead your nonprofit to a "greener" bottom line.
• Three Case-Studies that document how three different nonprofits are tracking their constituents.
• Nonprofit Leaders discuss managing their organizations through change.

 [Editor's note: The following first appeared in the September 2011 issue of NTEN:Change. Read the complete issue of NTEN's new quarterly journal for nonprofit leaders by subscribing to the journal for free!]

By Judi Sohn, Outgoing VP of Operations, Fight Colorectal Cancer

Fight Colorectal Cancer:
> 6 year-old Org
> 6 Full-time Staff
> $1.1 Million Budget

In small organizations like mine, more often than not, the Executive Director or senior leadership of the organization also wears the technology leader hat, accidental or not. As a senior staff member for my organization, I don’t have the time or expertise to learn every API call. I also don’t have the budget to bring in a consultant or vendor to solve every non-program problem. But I do have to do my homework and make smaller, strategic technology decisions.

Our blog may look a little different this month - because during Member Appreciation Month we let you, our members, take over the blog!

That’s right, all month long, our members are sharing take aways, case studies, and best practices that they have learned from their work. Knowledge sharing is one of our community’s greatest strengths. It takes more than trainings to put technology to work for your cause, it also takes a supportive community.

In 2009, we started the NTC Ignite tradition at our annual conference. We told attendees they could have 5 minutes and 20 slides in front of the captive nonprofit technology audience.

Anyone who has given an Ignite-style presentation knows that boiling down complex ideas into 5 minutes is tough, really tough. But the act of focusing on this type of presentation also probably helps the presenter think more about the essence of what it is he or she really needs to convey, forcing better consideration of the best way to deliver information in a concise way that still has the desired impact on the audience.

Presenters and audience both take away from the experience a little more knowledge (if not a lot) and quite a bit of inspiration to either act on something or find out more.

Well, NTEN has a similar opportunity for you nonprofit technology experts out there – one that doesn't involve microphones or travel expenses:

> Contribute a "DIY Nonprofit Technology" article for NTEN's online journal for nonprofit leaders.

[Editor's note: The following first appeared in the September 2011 issue of NTEN:Change. Read the complete issue of NTEN's new quarterly journal for nonprofit leaders by subscribing to the journal for free!]

By Stephen J. Michaele, (C) Systems

The mere mention of PCI standards for protecting credit card data is enough to elicit painful looks from those who have had to untangle this Gordian knot to bring their organizations into compliance. However, regardless of its complexity, if you’re accepting credit cards you are responsible for complying with the standard. Here are some simple things you can do to prepare for the process: