Introduction
The Best Tools for the Job
Holly Ross, Executive Director, NTEN

We know: it's not the tool, it's how you use it. Or, as Jeremiah Owyang would say, "Stop fondling the hammer."

We've been moving offices here at NTEN HQ, so we know how shiny and cool hardware can be. We also know that choosing the right tools is as much about recommendations and peer experience as it is about strategy and planning. When there are so many choices, you have to use some criteria as a place to start. That's why our theme this month is "The Best Tools for the Job".

We hope you find these tips and recommendations from your peers as useful as we do. And, we hope you'll share your own favorites in the comments.

Best,
Holly

FEATURE
Five Free Tools for Social Media Listening (And How to Start Responding)
By Carie Lewis, Director of Emerging Media, Online Communications, Humane Society of the United States

Listening is the first step in social media. You have to listen to what others are saying about you before you jump into the fire. Listening will tell you what people are saying, and where they are saying it, so you know where to get started.

Here are 5 tools I recommend to get started.

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FEATURE
The Five Best Tools For Quick And Effective Project Management
By Peter Campbell, IT Director, Earthjustice

As an IT Director, co-workers, peers, and consultants frequently ask me, "Do you use Microsoft Project?" The answer to that question is a resounding denial.

Then I elaborate with my true opinion of Project: it's a great tool if you're building a bridge or a luxury hotel. But my Project rule of thumb is, if the budget doesn't justify a full-time employee to manage the Project plan, then MS Project is overkill. Real world projects require far more agile and accessible tools.

Here are five tools that are either free or you've already obtained, which, used together, will be far more effective than MS Project for the typical project at a small to mid-sized organization.

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FEATURE
The Fantastic Five GIS Tools for Nonprofits
By Steve Spiker, Director of Research & Technology, Urban Strategies Council

As more and more people are bombarded with maps from every media source, many nonprofits find themselves asking "How can we use maps in our work?" – followed by, "Just how hard can it be for us to make maps for our work?"

The realization that maps can be a powerful tool for advocacy, management, and planning sets off a chain of events in many nonprofits: much excitement and anticipation that ultimately ends in a fizzle when executives realize how expensive this endeavor can be, or how little any of their staff know about mapping or GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology.

Here are five of our favorite tools. They’re all accessible at modest cost to most nonprofits.

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Partner Sponsor

FEATURE
The Challenges of Protecting Intellectual Property on Social Networks
By Geoff Livingston, Principal & Co-Founder, Zoetica

Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter and LinkedIn have become the interstates of the social web. Nonprofits that want to connect with their constituents are almost obliged to participate on these networks. Causes and associations provide status updates on the networks, post links, publish content via tools like Facebook Notes, groups on LinkedIn and Facebook, and ask questions on all of the services.

Yet, while the social networks hold tremendous benefit for nonprofits that successfully engage their stakeholders, there are also dangers. Specifically, the surrendering of licenses to use nonprofits' content as each network sees fit. While these legal disclaimers are to empower other users to share content, each network uses content differently.

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FEATURE
Boosting Board Collaboration: Getting Board Buy-In for Collaboration Tools
By Chris Bernard, Senior Editor, Idealware

While budget and board requirements will play large roles in determining which tools you use, don’t underestimate the importance of the human element in your decision.

A board is made up of a group of people, and people have varying levels of comfort with, and willingness to adopt, new technology. Even the most technically articulate board members will start to push back if they have to remember a handful of different log-ins and passwords, or have to learn too many different tools or systems.

In other words, board support tools are useless without board member buy-in.

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FEATURE
Top 5 (Intangible) Tools for Nonprofit Marketers
By Evan C. Parker, Associate Director, Online Donor Engagement, The Nature Conservancy

There are dozens of tactics and platforms that the nonprofit glitterati will tell you are "absolutely essential" to nonprofit marketing success. They're right about each and every one of them.

What makes the difference in my day-to-day work, however, are those intangible tools that you don't really buy -- you just sort of "wing it", and hope that the powers that be don't figure out what you're doing. Here are my favorites.

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FEATURE
Comparing Open Source Content Management Systems
By Chris Bernard, Senior Editor, Idealware

Idealware's first report on Open Source Content Management Systems for nonprofits, published in March of 2009, covered WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone. More than a year-and-a-half later, these four systems still account for the lion's share of the nonprofit market, but a lot has changed -- in fact, all four systems have grown stronger.

All four systems have released major new versions which address some of the shortcomings we noted in our initial report, and in many ways the systems are drawing closer to each other in functionality. How do these systems actually compare to one another? We took a detailed look at 14 different areas to see how they stack up.

Here's a summary of what we found.

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Partner Sponsor

FEATURE
Four Social Media Fundraising Tools
By Ehren Foss, CTO, HelpAttack!

Social media fundraising is driven by a combination of relationships and immediacy. The most successful campaigns are reactions to real world events or sparks that move quickly through established networks of human relationships. Your gala event is a culmination of a year or more of relationship building, multi-channel outreach and face-to-face interaction, just like a social media fundraising campaign.

If social media is to truly pay off as a long term investment, it must be integrated closely with your database of donors and messaging in other channels, and your social media campaigns must eventually result in the cultivation of long term, loyal donors.

There are many companies and nonprofits out there trying to solve this problem.

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FEATURE
Say "No" to Money (to Make Money)
By Arnon Shafir, CEO and Co-founder, give2gether

Say "no" to money. We dare you.

Believe it or not, sometimes saying 'no' to money helps the money pour in. Counter-intuitive? Yes. But does it work? Yes!

Based on 10+ years of game-theoretic research and live lab experiments conducted by two of the US founders of give2gether and NYU and Berkeley economics professors, give2gether has built an online fundraising platform based on a brand new line of thought that confirms the following.

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FEATURE
Five Tools for Engaging Your Members Online (Easy, Inexpensive Ways to Make Your [Virtual] World a Better Place)
By Carrie Spates, Design Manager, Siteworx

Nonprofits have generally mastered the art of engaging members and supporters once they are in the door. But with the ever-changing properties and tools on the Internet, that door has evolved into countless spaces, conversations, and opportunities that can seem tough to tackle.

If you aren't using your Web presence to engage committed and potential members, you're losing a prime opportunity. The days of "reaching out" via a static website and hoping people come to you are over. You need to join the conversation where it's happening. You can't bring the mountain to you; you have to go to the mountain.

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Partner Sponsor

FEATURE
The 5 Best Social Impact Games of 2010
By Jeff Ramos, Community and Content Manager, Games for Change

When most people outside gaming think of video games, they typically fall into three buckets: "old school" games like Super Mario and Tetris, social and mobile games like Farmville and Angry Birds, or hyper-violent console games like Grand Theft Auto.

Of course, at Games for Change, we support and assist in creating games for social good. And the types of social impact games that exist are really varied -- from real-world games that are location specific, to polished multimedia games you can play on any web browser.

Before the end of the year we conducted a survey to find out what the Games for Change community believed were the best social impact games of 2010. I'm happy to share with you our community's favorite games.

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2011 NTC
2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference Wrap-up
By Amy Sample Ward, Membership Director, NTEN

Last week, as I emerged from the post-conference haze of catching up on sleep and clearing my in-box, I started reading through blog posts from attendees and speakers. Then I couldn't stop! There are SO many posts to read that I figured I should round them all up in one place and share them.

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Things We Like

1. We had, ahem, a few problems with the wireless Internet at the 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference. To try to help mitigate the problem, Holly made a funny video. After it aired on the big screen, even the Washington Hilton IT staff wanted a copy, so we posted it to YouTube.
2. Fortunately, the NTC made up for the connectivity failures with general fabulousness, including the release of two of our favorite reports each year:
   • The 2011 e-Benchmarks Study from M+R found that a high unsubscribe rate is not necessarily bad, among other things. (Still, our feelings would be hurt if you unsubscribed from NTEN Connect after we helpfully pointed that out.)
   • And the 2011 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report found that 30% of the organizations that have raised more than $100,000 on Facebook have budgets under $5 million. Also, 90% of nonprofits reported having a Facebook presence, even after watching The Social Network.
3. Google just consolidated their full line of nonprofit resources -- Google Earth, Google Grants, Google Apps, and GoogleTube YouTube -- into a single application process. Even better, they promise you'll get a response within 30 days.
4. Will Web X-Ray Goggles put "adult" sites out of business? Not unless naked HTML turns you on. Geeky goodness!
5. Sharing.
6. The Case Foundation recently relaunched their video portal, CaseSoup, and it's loaded with tutorials, livestreams, interviews, and even more good things for nonprofits than Maurice Sendak could dream up.
7. You should also check out the winners from the 2011 DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards. (And, while it didn't win, one of our favorites, "Passover Moses", will almost certainly make you smile.)
8. If you care about the future of journalism and public media, check out the National Conference for Media Reform, coming up April 8-10. NTEN Members can get a discount!