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.

Check out this short interview Kim Hart of The Hill conducted with TechSoup CEO Marnie Webb. Marnie's been in Washington this week talking about how best to leverage the new broadband stimulus grants on behalf of underserved populations.

... Webb admits she is naive to the ways of Washington. As she meets with non-governmental organizations and agency officials, she has to stress that she is not looking for financial help. TechSoup did not apply for any money in the first round of stimulus grants. She's thought of talking to the staff of her district's representative, who happens to be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but she knows she'll have a hard time getting an audience.

"I have to say, 'No really, I'm not asking for money - this is not a sneaky way of asking for more funds,'" she said over coffee this morning.

Webb says she essentially wants to offer TechSoup's services to help stretch the $7 billion in stimulus grant money as far as it will go.

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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.

Free Range Studios, the "Creative Agency with a Conscience," has announced its annual YouTopia Grant (formerly known as the Gratitude Grant). Free Range Studios will be donating their services to one lucky nonprofit and one socially responsible business. Past recipients of the YouTopia Grant include Sustainable Table for whom Free Range Studios created the award winning viral video, the Meatrix, now viewed over 20 million times and translated into 43 languages.

Free Range Studios also walks the talk. From the day Free Range Studios opened its doors it has been a socially and environmentally responsible company. Free Range Studios uses Triple Bottom Line accounting, renewable energy including wind power, and most recently Free Range Studios became a B Corporation.

Some of you may be familiar with the ongoing Adobe-TechSoup Show Your Impact Contest from this year and the last. You may have submitted your entries and you may have even been one of the winners.

Well, now is your chance to tell us how Microsoft donations have helped your nonprofit or public library fulfill your mission and impact your communities. Microsoft has joined TechSoup for a similar partnership to highlight, promote, and award nonprofits and public libraries which have used Microsoft-donated products from TechSoup to work better. The full details can be found here, along with guidelines for submitting your story, and a gallery of submissions.

The key categories for submissions are:

1. Stable and Secure Technology
2. Optimize Mission Delivery
3. Transformations to Maximize Impact

You might have a your tale about how Microsoft-donated products through TechSoup helped your organization go from a tangled mess of tech inefficiencies to build a stable infrastructure so your staff could better focus on doing their jobs. Maybe your donated products helped your nonprofit upgrade to a new donor-database, create an interactive and engaging Web site, or develop effective outreach materials that helped reach new supporters and increase your impact.

Tell your story and possibly win a $5000 cash grant plus more than $25000 in donated Microsoft products. Only organizations in the United States and Canada are eligible to participate and the donated Microsoft products must be been received through TechSoup. Learn more about who can enter. Submissions are now OPEN so share your experience from now through the May 29 deadline. Once submissions have closed, we'll invite you back to vote for your favorites. Stay tuned for more!

We blogged a while back about the unique and somewhat humiliating fundraising technique employed by NTEN's Holly Ross in order to raise scholarship funds to bring people out to San Francisco for this year's Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) that just wrapped up today.

They reached their goal so yesterday at the morning plenary, the video-vengence aired on two 30-foot screens for the packed house at the San Francisco Hilton. She promised that if NTEN met its fundraising goal for the scholarships that she would shake it and sing it in her very own version of Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and share it with the world at NTC.

She kept her promise and it's certainly worth checking out. My toddler thinks it's the greatest thing ever (and it seems like hers enjoyed the moment of stardom as well).

TechSoup Global's NetSquared project is doing some amazing work, particularly on the use of mobile technologies and social change around the world. Here's a quick snapshot of some of the projects they're working on now:

Case studies:

Amy Sample Ward has posted the first in a series of NetSquared case studies on their site. They cover all 21 Featured Projects from last year's N2Y3 Mashup Challenge. Last year's Mashup winner — Ushahidi — is the topic of the first case study.

You can track all of the posts by using this link for the N2Y3 case studies here. This year's "Featured Projects" are here.

A panel of 5 judges, selected by Microsoft, will choose three winners, to be announced at the N2Y4 Mobile Conference. Winners will receive cash awards of $15,000 (first place), $10,000 (second place), and $5,000 (third place).

N2Y4 Registration is Open!

If you're an NetSquared Conference veteran, you already know what a valuable and important this event is. If you're a newbie, don't waste a minute more and get yourself registered today. Leading the pack with innovative ideas, amazing grassroots social change, and barn-raising tech solutions, the N2Y4 is not to be missed. It will be held in San Jose, California from May 26-27. Limited tickets are still available, so get yee registered today!

It's that time of year again! What time, you ask? Well, time to get out your most awesomely-designed (yes, I did type MOST awesomely-designed) campaign materials and enter the 2009 Adobe Show Your Impact Nonprofit Design Contest!

Adobe and TechSoup have joined together again to award four $1000 cash grants plus Adobe software to nonprofit organizations that demonstrate outstanding or innovative use of Adobe products to increase their impact and further the missions of their organizations.

If you're not familiar with this cool contest, check out last year's winners. We highlighted one of them here on the TechSoup Blog too. And we'll be hosting a free webinar with Evergreen — a 2008 runner-up for their materials promoting woop (worm poop!) — this Thursday, March 5 at 11 a.m. Pacific. You can register to learn how to create successful marketing campaigns using Adobe tools in time for the contest in April!

Contest Timeline:

• Submit your entries between April 1 and April 15, 2009 (submissions must be in by midnight Pacific on the 15)
• First round voting on submissions (open to all) is from April 16 – 30, 2009
• Finalist voting will be conducted by a panel from Adobe and TechSoup Global with winners announced on May 27, 2009.

This contest is open only to organizations located in the US and Canada that have requested donated Adobe products through TechSoup. (See contest details for specific eligibility requirements). One important thing to note is that even if your organization wasn't eligible last year, you may be eligible this year with Adobe's new and expanded special donation program that allows many more nonprofits to receive their products. Check it out!

For full contest details and to see last year's winners go to the Show Your Impact site. Your submission could win your organization a $1000 cash grant, plus your choice of one of Adobe's Creative Suite Premium software packages.

The New York Times reports that Larry Brilliant will be stepping down as executive director of Google.org and taking on the role of chief philanthropy evangelist at Google.

Brilliant explains the move in a blog post and gives some clues about the new direction that Google's philanthropy department will be taking. "During our review it became clear that while we have been able to support some remarkable non-profit organizations over the past three years, our greatest impact has come when we've attacked problems in ways that make the most of Google's strengths in technology and information." He's referring to projects that have leveraged Google's programming capabilities like Google Flu Trends, RechargeIT, and Google PowerMeter.

Brilliant's indication seems to be that Google's philanthropic focus will be more on collaborative projects like these and less on direct grants. Some people are cynical: as the New York Times article quotes Siva Vaidhyanathan, "The habits and ideology of the company will lead the philanthropy rather than the needs of the communities or the planet."

Nathaniel at Change.org is more hopeful. "More than anything else, Google unlocks the power of information," he says. "It's not hard to understand how that core capacity could be the driving force behind their entire philanthropic strategy." Nathaniel discusses the changing world of philanthropy, and highlights the importance of cooperation between nonprofits and for-profits — not just monetary support — in effecting scalable change. Of course, none of this will impact Google's free and discounted services for nonprofits (previously discussed).

For more on Google and philanthropy, check out Jim and Becky's excellent article.