Avatars representing survivors, caregivers, their families and the millions of passionate supporters engaged in fighting cancer worldwide will take center stage virtually, July 19-20, when the American Cancer Society conducts its fourth annual Relay For Life® event in the Second Life virtual world.

In a world of TripAdvisors, Yelps, and Epinions, I rarely feel short of other people's input on my decisions. Where to go to dinner? I  check out Zagat or Yelp. Going on a trip? TripAdvisor to the rescue. Buying a new gadget... well you get the jist. Reviews and opinions abound in the public sphere on all these topics, but in large part have never been available before about the nonprofit community.

Citizen Schools and the Public Learning Media Laboratory have launched a survey to gather detail about specific Web 2.0 and social networking technologies that nonprofits are using.

This follows a survey the groups published in March, called Web 2.0 & Social Networking Nonprofit Survey (PDF).  That survey found:

If you haven't already watched this video on YouTube, I recommend you do if you're a nonprofit manager considering how to create one for your orgnaization.

Not only does it have a nice message about saving the world one girl at a time, but as a former nonprofit manager trying to come up with sticky viral campaigns, I think this video does a great job. And the part I like best about it, is that the message is clear and simple.

For those of you at organization's grappling with a jump into social networking sites like Facebook, our pals over at the Wild Apricot blog have some helpful primers on how to maximize your presence. This time around, they've got a great "how-to" on setting up a nonprofit page on Facebook.

How does that differ from having a Group on Facebook? Well, they've got the answers. And, if this is your first foray into the wild and wiley world of Facebook, they've got a beginner's guide for nonprofits and some specifics on Facebook applications that can sassy-up your page too. Check it out!

If you haven't already gotten on the YouTube bandwagon, they're working hard to give nonprofits little reason not to jump into video. Added a few days ago, is a new video from YouTube's dedicated Nonprofits in Activism Manager, Ramya. She highlights the services and benefits the YouTube Nonprofit Program is expanding for it's nonprofit users.

Better late than never, so the saying goes. This "live discussion" with author and social marketing guru Seth Godin was posted by The Chronicle of Philanthropy a couple of weeks back.

The outcome of the conversation between Seth and the varied nonprofit org participants revealed some true nuggets of wisdom on how nonprofits can better use marketing (both on- and offline) to harness new audiences and rejuvenate the existing ones.

The questions ranged from tips on nonprofits entering the world of social networking to using cell phones to send text messages about action campaigns. Godin has a fun, to-the-point style in fielding them with zingers like this:

The ultimate spam is cell phone spam. If you send me an unanticipated, impersonal, irrelevant ad on my cell phone, I will hate you forever. On the other hand, if I sign up, if I raise my hand, to hear from you with alerts, then it’s hugely effective.

You have to be vigilant that your team doesn’t cross the line. Just because it’s important to them doesn’t mean it’s important to me!

Our pals over at the Wild Apricot blog posted this about Idealist.org offering nonprofit organizations FREE (yes, I said FREE!) online job postings during the month of June. If you've not used Idealist.org before, you need to GET ON IT! It's where I've found, literally, my last three nonprofit jobs and where I've posted umpteen number of job openings for organizations I worked with. I still get a daily digest email with jobs all over the country to match the search query I requested (not that I'm looking).

You can learn more about it with Idealist's cute and informative YouTube vid too:

As someone who's worked on the media/communications end of the nonprofit world for a few years, I know how difficult it can be to even catch the coattails of new media technologies and the way they influence how we communicate with our constituents. Even more difficult is staying on the cutting-edge of those technologies.

Blackbaud announced yesterday that it is acquiring Kintera in an all-cash purchase price of approximately $46.0 million. Via press release: