What’s the difference between the world’s second most popular Web site and nonprofits? According to Paul Graham, a co-founder of the venture capital company Y Combinator, not as much as you’d think. In a recent essay, Graham writes that in Google’s first year, it was indistinguishable from a nonprofit. When startups initially focus more on making what people want rather than making money, he charges, they’re more likely to achieve success. And when startups see themselves as benevolent, their founders are motivated to work harder because they feel they’re helping people.

Convio has released the results of its second Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study.

The key findings are:

Are you interested in learning how to better manage technology projects in your nonprofit or as a consultant to nonprofits? Aspiration and Idealware are hosting a Nonprofit Technology Project Management event in Oakland, California on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 20  and 21.

Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects will examine the tools and best practices that help nonprofits achieve successful technology solutions — whether Web sites, packaged software implementations, or custom applications.

Usability News, published by Wichita State University, reports on a research paper by A. Dawn Shaikh, Doug Fox, and Barbara S. Chaparro called "The Effect of Typeface on the Perception of Email." The purpose of the study was "to investigate the effect of selected typefaces on the perception of the email creator’s ethos and gender. In addition, the perceived personality of the email document was evaluated." 

The study rates perceptions of email senders' knowledge, professionalism, maturity, and trustworthiness, and the quality of the information presented based on the font used. The study suggests that "there is a relationship between typeface selection and the reader’s perception of an email. 

Wondering how to add PayPal to your Web site? Browse the Web anonymously? Optimize your RAM? Head to WonderHowTo.com, a directory of how-to videos culled from various sources around the Web.

Featuring videos covering a range of topics, the site also offers a great selection of technology how-to's on everything from networking to programming. Users can submit, rate, and comment on these videos.

Here are just a few you may find useful:

According to a new Salon.com article, chances are that your nonprofit office is filled with vampire appliances, plugged-in electronic equipment and chargers that continue to consume electricity even when they're turned off, adding to your electric bill and spewing CO2 into the air:

Looking to get a grip on Dreamweaver 8? Brush up on your Excel skills? Learn more about InDesign? If you work at a nonprofit in the Bay Area, you should look into taking a class from CompassPoint, a nonprofit organization that offers training, conferences, and more to other nonprofits.

The NTEN Blog reminds you that February 22 is the deadline to apply for a CTC Vista volunteer for the summer of 2008.

CTC Vistas are Americorps paid volunteers help organizations that use information and communications technologies to meet the needs of at-risk and low-income communities. Since its inception seven years ago, the project has placed more than 250 VISTA members in over 100 nonprofit organizations. To learn more about this program, read TechSoup's article Vistas of Equal Access.

Nonprofits interested in social networking and technology fundamentals will want to look into two new Webinars from NTEN:

Friends for a Cause: Campaigns in Social Networks

January 16, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. PST; $25 for NTEN members, $50 for non-members

Everyone knows that spam can waste your time, introduce viruses to your computer, and potentially lure you into a costly, life-ruining Nigerian 419 scam.

And yet, no one could ever accuse spam of consuming nearly 100 billion gallons of water a year, or 100 million mostly old-growth forest trees — something nonprofit ForestEthics estimates the junk-mail industry consumes annually in the low-return business (by some estimations less than 3 percent) of direct mail, according to a new article in Salon.com.