As mentioned last week, our Customer Service Representatives are working their tails off to dig out from a huge backlog of donation requests following the launch of Windows 7 last month. In order to help do that, they will not be taking calls today so they can go through the mountain of email requests and hopefully decrease the wait time for everyone in the coming weeks. So, even though they won't be answering phones today, they'll be plowing through your emails all day long.

From our good friends at Idealware:

Are you on staff at a nonprofit? Are you using any social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, video sites, blogs) - or even just starting to experiment with it? If so, please take our Social Media survey today: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=l3Z9bXmCorZ_2fQzAYlvrOkw_3d_3d

Idealware has embarked on an intense, year-long social media research initiative which will ultimately result in a Social Media Decision Making Guide for Nonprofits.

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TechSoup is a nonprofit that has many moving parts, programs, services, and functions. It's a lot of work to provide (what we hope is) good content, useful events, inexpensive or donated products from corporate partners, and more. With that, we need your help. There are many ways to get involved; check out the pages on the TechSoup Global site to learn about current job openings and internship opportunities. This post will discuss two of those opportunities in detail.

The TechSoup Content Team Is Seeking Volunteers and an Intern:

A couple of weeks back, I wrote a post to address some frequently asked questions about Windows 7 that opened with a plea for patience and understanding as our customer service reps work to dig out for the overwhelming demand for the new operating system. I'm gonna take a minute to expand on that request a bit.

Ya see, TechSoup is a nonprofit. I've spent my whole adult career working for nonprofits that I believe do pretty darn good jobs of serving the needs of their communities, providing valuable services, advocating and educating on behalf of important policy decisions, and do all around good work for the world. TechSoup is high on that list from my vantage point. If you don't believe me, check out the reach and impact we've had from 2008 alone. As much as we might want to be like Amazon.com, where you jettison through an order and get your package delivered the next day, it just doesn't work that way for TechSoup. And I'll explain why.

First, we don't "sell" the products listed on our site. We are the conduit via which those for-profit companies listed on our site distribute donated products to nonprofits and libraries. With being that conduit, we have a whole host of guidelines we need to follow to ensure that each organization that applies for a donated or discounted product actually meets the eligibility requirements set by the donor partner.

That means, we need to take all the info you give us when registering your organization, then get your IRS tax determination letter to confirm that you're a 501(c)(3) nonprofit or a public library. Then, Adobe or Symantec can say that they want their donations to only go to organizations that work with, say, youth or homelessness. We need to sort through all of that in order to determine if your organization is actually eligible — based on those restrictions — to receive that donation. All that info is fed into a system that matches your organization type to which donated products you may be eligible to receive. Even if you're already registered, we still need to make sure the items you're requesting aren't exceeding any limits the donor partner sets and that you still qualify for an item you may have received two years ago (since our partners can change their restrictions at any time).

If you're not already familiar with the popular online customer relationship management (CRM) tool, Salesforce.com, you should get to know it. The software as a service (cloud) tool allows extraordinary levels of relationship tracking and management for companies and nonprofits worldwide. A few years back, the Salesforce Foundation started offering their services for free to nonprofits.

I was working at a small, but well-connected nonprofit at the time and we were an early adopter of Salesforce when it was very corporately modeled. Within a couple of years, Salesforce started offering a "nonprofit dashboard" which helped make the lingo a little more digestible for those of us looking for new members and to track existing supporters and donors, rather than the more standard "leads and opportunities" their system supported for corporate sales and support offices. Since then, they've made it even easier for nonprofits to embrace their donation by offering discounts on tutorials, online and in-person trainings, free weekly webinars on acquiring the donated license, and a bevy of resources to get started.

I've now worked with Salesforce in-depth at two nonprofits and have to say that it has every bell and whistle you could ever want (and maybe more than your organization might need), but most importantly for budget-conscious nonprofits, it's free.

Whether you're a regular TechSoup user or haven't heard of us til now, we've got a free webinar coming up that will likely show you something new about how you can get more out of the variety of (free) services we offer to nonprofits and libraries.

Learn How TechSoup Can Help Your Organization

Join TechSoup.org content creators, community leaders, and customer service support on November 12 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon Pacific for a tour of how your organization can use all that TechSoup has to offer to improve your technology and help reach your mission. TechSoup, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is working toward a time when every nonprofit and social benefit organization will have the technology resources and knowledge they need to operate at their full potential.

We'll walk you through the process of registering and requesting donated and discounted products from more than 35 donor partners like Microsoft and Adobe. We'll also take you on a virtual tour of other resources in TechSoup's tech arsenal including;

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Since Windows 7 launched last week, there has been a flurry of activity from nonprofits and libraries looking to start using the new operating system. TechSoup has written a bunch of articles, blog posts, and forum threads to help people figure out whether to upgrade and how to do it. One thing we haven't really mentioned here yet, is the cool contest that Microsoft is hosting right now — specifically to benefit nonprofits and other social benefit organizations.

Organizations are encouraged to create a short video submission to tell the world how Windows 7 could help them change the world. For example, if you've got smoother running systems, maybe that leaves more time for you to do your real work of providing domestic violence counseling to women, children, and families in need. Or maybe upgrading the public computing lab you run for local lower-income community, will help people access job-hunt, language learning, and healthcare information easier. Whatever it is, tell your story. Here's more, direct from Microsoft:

As many may know, Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system became available last week worldwide and through TechSoup's Microsoft Donation Program. Our customer service representatives have been plowing through the donation requests, helping nonprofits and libraries register and place their requests, and answering questions about whether to upgrade and how to do it. They're working as hard as they can to meet the demand and overflow of queries, so please be patient if you've called or emailed since they have a lengthy queue (even with additional staff support). Our community forums have also experienced a flurry of discussion on the operating system and lots of questions are being answered there.

To help bring some of the more frequently asked questions to the forefront (and hopefully answer some of your lingering questions), we've compiled this short list of Q&A to help you navigate.

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This week through TechSoup Limited, we've been running a special discount on NOZA, a database of philanthropy data. This database has more than 43,000,000 (million) donation records in it — where you can search for individuals, corporations, and foundation donation records to see who they've supported in the past, how much they've given, and look for those donors who may be likely to also support your cause. The special discount ends today at 5 p.m. Pacific time, so place your request now.

The promotional offer is for a 30-day subscription that gives you unlimited access to the database and all those donor records for the grand total of $99. The subscription starts when you activate your account (between now and December 31, 2009) and gives you unfettered access for the next 30 days, so you can research for the best donor prospects to grow your organization's support. It's available to 501(c)(3) nonprofits and public libraries. Also, libraries and nonprofits can make their subscription available to individual community members and patrons to help them research potential donors for community, school, and local programs.

In preparation for this promotional offer, we sat down to interview Craig Harris, the CEO and founder of NOZA, about his fundraising background and how NOZA can be put to use by nonprofits and libraries. He also guest blogged earlier this week about developing a major gift fundraising program.

When asked about his background, Harris wasn't shy about what's helped him learn the ropes of fundraising for nonprofits. "I don't consider myself an expert," Harris claimed. "I've failed at a lot of my fundraising endeavors. I come from the school of trial and error… mostly error. In the evolution of my fundraising career, I've gleaned some of those best practices that are relevant to nonprofits. My fundraising came by accident."

Last night, we held our Digital Storytelling Challenge Awards Party here at TechSoup headquarters in San Francisco. We screened highlights from the more than 100 video, image, and GoldMail submissions and celebrated the great work nonprofits and libraries are doing to tell their unique and important stories. These stories help convey the work they do, advance their missions, and highlight the communities they're working within by giving a visual (and sometimes audio) story to help supporters connect with their mission and values.

If you missed the party, here's the full line up of our awardees:

• First Place: Kramden in 60 sec by the Kramden Institute awarded a Flip Video camera.
• Second Place: Dragonfly Forest by Dragonfly Forest awarded Adobe Audition software and a Flickr Pro account 
• Third Place: Tabor Kalaka 2009 by The Community Foundation of Odorheiu Secuiesc awarded Adobe Production software.
• Fourth Place: 30 Ways to Create Peace by Legacy International/Global Youth Village awarded a Goldmail Synergy account.

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