I blogged a few weeks ago about Social Actions, a new project to aggregate data from social sector directories about the wide variety of ways people can get involved with causes they care about. Like a lot of new ideas in social media, you can't quite grasp how cool Social Actions is until you see how people are using it.

Joe at Social Actions just told me about their new Twitter application. To sign up, simply type in a cause you care about and your Twitter info. Every 24 hours, Twitterfeed will check for new postings in your cause and, if there is a new one, post it to your Twitter account.

As of this week, donations of Crystal Reports 2008 are now available at TechSoup Stock. If you haven't already upgraded to 2008, today's your lucky day.

Forums host and longtime friend of TechSoup Sasha just let us know about an interesting case study on the Land Trust for Tennessee. According to the case study, Kendra was using FundRaiser Professional donation management software, but wanted more flexibility in reporting. She eventually settled on using Crystal Reports in conjunction with FundRaiser Professional. The result has been more customizable, easy-to-read reports, and better communication throughout the organization. "Some of our board members have picked up on donations made by people they know, and been able to thank them personally," Kendra said.

For more information on fundraising and reporting, check out An Introduction to Grant Reports.

There's been a lot of buzz around the nonprofit blogosphere about mobile giving. mGive in particular, who offers mobile giving services through an alliance with the nonprofit Mobile Giving Foundation, has received much attention from nonprofits looking for new ways to raise money quickly and easily. According to Mobile Giving Foundation CEO Jim Manis, he and others developed the technology as a part of Katrina and tsunami relief efforts, to great success.

We had a great webinar and online event

You probably already know about Social Actions, a new project to aggregate data from numerous social sector directories like Kiva, GlobalGiving, and Idealist. Social Actions has been mentioned on our blog a handful of times and took third place at NetSquared this year.

Just this morning, Social Actions unveiled the Related Ways to Take Action widget for adding links to social causes on blogs or other Web sites. The widget works a lot like Google AdWords, suggesting causes based on keywords that appear in the site. I had fun trying URLs for various sites and articles to see what kind of recommendations Social Actions would come up with. Although there's the occasional oddball, most of them are pretty good.

When it comes to fundraising, you may not be in your target audience. Many of us who work in nonprofits have different values, lifestyles, and budgets from the people we're reaching out to. As Jeff at Donor Power Blog says, "Your most effective fundraising will most likely feel a bit off to you." Katya at Nonprofit Marketing Blog agrees, saying that truly effective social marketing taps into the values of the audience first, and not necessarily those of the nonprofit. It is with these facts firmly in mind that I take a deep breath and present SocialVibe.

TechSoup Stock is always growing — adding new partners and donated or discounted software and services to its long list of technology products available to nonprofits. Some of you may have noticed that another new product was added in June: Acteva.

What's Acteva? Well, the Acteva Plus event management solution is available to nonprofits and public libraries in the U.S. and Canada and tackles everything from event registration, to processing payment for paid events, and handling ticketing.

Sometimes when you come across something online, you just know it's a gem that needs to be shared. This is one of those items. Chris Brogan put together a really comprehensive list of 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice on his blog about community and social media. It's chock full of good advice, day-to-day practice, tools to streamline your processes, and an abundance of comments with even more good tips from the peanut gallery.

There's been an interesting debate taking place around the nonprofit blogosphere lately about the role social networking Web sites should play in nonprofit marketing. Michael Gilbert warns nonprofits not to become leeches who treat social networking sites as merely another revenue stream.

I recently got to interview NOZA CEO Craig Harris. He told me about how nonprofits can get the most out of the NOZA donor database, but we also talked a lot about fundraising strategy in general. Craig kept returning to two key points. First, if individual donors account for 83 percent of the money donated to nonprofits, then individuals and not foundations should be at the center of any organization's fundraising strategy. Second, communications with donors should be about building long-term relationships with them, not soliciting one-time gifts. The bottom line is that donors must be respected as partners in carrying out an organization's mission.

Anne Keenan at EchoDitto gives a great example of an organization that discouraged her from donating by treating her like an ATM. When she was presented with a large donate button moments after signing up for the MoveOn mailing list, "All of a sudden we’d skipped from flirting to something a little more intimate, and I felt icky and strangely violated." I think that the romance analogy is quite apt. By spending more time flirting with potential donors and less time trying to get into their wallets, you can send them the message that their wallets are worth the extra effort.