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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Faith in Practice won an Honorable Mention in the Digital Storytelling Online Challenge for their Flickr story submission. I got a chance to connect with Ashley Messick, a winning lady behind the winning organization, to find out more about her work.

What organization do you work for and where are you located?

I work full-time with Faith In Practice (FIP), a nonprofit organization out of Houston, Texas that does medical mission work in Guatemala. I also work part-time, remotely doing social media for Blood Centers of the Pacific (BCP), the community blood center in the San Francisco/Bay Area.

Tell us briefly about the mission of your organization and your work.

The mission of FIP is to improve the physical, spiritual, and economic conditions of the poor in Guatemala through short-term surgical, medical, and dental mission trips and health-related educational programs. I work to coordinate and organize all the aspects of our volunteers' trips down to Guatemala so that they are prepared before leaving and have everything they need while in-country, including customs documents, supplies, hotel, transportation, and more.

BCP seeks to provide an adequate and affordable blood supply which meets the health and safety needs of the public; and to conduct medical and scientific research and education that improves the safety and efficacy of blood transfusions. I began with BCP in the Communications Department doing social media, briefly worked in Donor Recruitment, and now am back in the Communications Department working remotely to continue building our social media presence.

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I'll start off with an introduction — I'm not new to TechSoup, but I'm new to the TechSoup Blog. I've been working as a web content developer for TechSoup for a little over a year, writing content for our catalog of products each time we get new donor partners or new donations from existing ones.

Seeing all the donation requests we get from organizations has reminded me that there's a huge number of nonprofit organizations out there doing great things. And I'm really excited that so many organizations are getting the technology they need from TechSoup. However, I think it's very unlikely that most of these organizations are getting the recognition they deserve.

To that end, I'll be writing a series of blog posts highlighting organizations that have received donations from TechSoup to aid in achieving their missions. I want each post to be a small story about the organization and how they've succeeded in bettering their communities.

In my work for TechSoup, I'm guilty of being a bit heads-down and not taking note of what other nonprofits are doing, since my position doesn't require direct interaction with our member orgs. I love hearing about what organizations are doing, and starting a project like this (perhaps selfishly) allows me to do that. But I think that other organizations, potential donation partners, and pretty much anyone can learn something from nonprofits' stories and successes.

We've received a lot of content over the years from groups telling exactly these kinds of stories, and I'll probably be sorting through these for some time. I also want to reach out to new organizations that have stories to tell.

Interested nonprofits or libraries can send me an email through my TechSoup Community profile. It doesn't need to be lengthy, but at least include contact information and answer these two questions:

1. What does your organization do?
2. How have technology donations from TechSoup helped your organization achieve a specific goal or benefited your community?

Regardless of whether your organization is featured on here or not, I'm extremely grateful to all the nonprofits, libraries, and other charitable organizations everywhere doing meaningful work. Thank you — your actions mean everything.

Photo: i a mcdonnell

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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.

Don't know what virtualization software is or even care? Well, you should.

If you aren't using it directly in your office, I bet you are using it through one of your software providers without even knowing it. Is your website or email hosted somewhere outside your office? Do you use Salesforce.com or an online donor database? I bet they are using virtualization. Most large services who host software like the ones I mentioned above should be using this technology if they aren't already.

Jeff Brooks has a new article this week at FundRaising Success: Easier Said Than Done: Abstract Art or Fundraising? He starts by summarizing a few nonprofit advertisements from the past few years. The pattern quickly becomes clear: some of the ads look cool, but none of them make an explicit call to action. They replace clear marketing with symbolism.

Abstract expressionism is an acquired taste. It takes some commitment to appreciate its beauty. It sometimes draws comments like, "A monkey could paint that!" For the record, I'm a fan of abstract expressionism. There's a vast qualitative difference between one of Pollock's splatter paintings and the work of a monkey. Maybe that's why it annoys me to watch as certain ad agencies try to recreate the magic of abstract expressionism in their work for nonprofit organizations. It's not going well. I think the monkeys might do better.

The topic has been a hobby of Jeff's for awhile. For years, he's been writing a series of posts on what he calls stupid nonprofit ads. It's likely that you've heard about some of these. DDB Brazil sparked controversy in September with a misguided September 11-themed ad campaign for the World Wildlife Fund. WWF disowned the ad, but not before DDB had submitted it for ad industry awards. In Australia, a fight-fire-with-fire approach to size discrimination rose more than a few eyebrows, and some people point to One Laptop Per Child's John Lennon endorsement as a culprit in its sales decline.

Earlier this year, we took a look at the US Air Force's social media policy. I still think that not only is a social media policy for employees increasingly becoming a legal necessity for your nonprofit, but it might also be the most important thing you can do for your marketing and PR.

Here's another one to check out. Timo Luege has just finished putting together a social media policy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and he's posted the policy on his blog (via). Of course, the IFRC is a huge conglomeration of individual Red Cross and Red Crescent chapters around the world, spanning a multitude of social and political mores. How do you craft a policy that's applicable to every IFRC employee (or, for that matter, not downright objectionable)? "I realize that the parts about 'neutrality' and 'keeping your manager in the loop' might sound very restrictive to some people," Timo writes, "especially those from democratic countries." He goes on to explain that the IFRC code of conduct is actually more restrictive than the social media policy. Rather than squelching employees' freedom of expression, the policy actually empowers them to communicate thoughtfully on behalf of their employers. That empowerment means setting clear boundaries. From the policy:

The IFRC believes that sharing of information and experiences benefits the whole humanitarian community and ultimately the beneficiaries we serve. Feel free to share and discuss your experiences in e.g. vaccination campaigns, field communication, building of transitional shelters etc. If IFRC staff is perceived to be knowledgeable and helpful this will reflect positively on you and on the organization.

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Here's an idea from our friend Laura at Idealware: what if you measured any communications method by whether it would have more or less impact than spending the same amount of time calling donors on the phone?

…You could spend that time simply calling donors and constituents at random, to thank them, or to ask them a quick set of questions (how did they like the services they used? what do you do well? not so well?). If you've never done this, it can be pretty magical. Often people are amazed that you've called, happy to talk, and have useful insights. It gives you a great sense as to who your constituents actually are and what they care about. And not coincidentally, my experience is that it fosters great new connections. People want to volunteer, wanted to ask you something, and, not coincidentally, donate at considerably higher rates after. Nothing starts a conversation like, well, an actual conversation.

I love the way Laura articulates this. When we adopt social media strategies, we often tell ourselves that it's not just about donations, it's about starting a conversation. There are plenty good reasons why it's important to keep conversations going with supporters, but are Twitter and Facebook always the best way? If your goal is to have a conversation, then why not pick up the phone and have one?

This is not to say that there's no place for social media; rather, I think that the phone test can actually help you articulate the purpose of any communications tactic, be it a fundraising letter, a donor event, a print ad, or a Facebook page. If you can clearly identify who the target audience is for a particular effort and what action you want that audience to take, you can put together the right campaign for achieving that goal. It might be a letter, an email blast, or a social media campaign, and it might be a phone call.

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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