Blackbaud, a provider of services designed specifically for nonprofits, has launched Blackbaud Labs, a testing ground for projects in the pipeline. Google famously maintains its own "labs", essentially a place where they can get free alpha-testers to fulminate over their not-yet-ready-for-primetime products.

The newer Blackbaud Labs currently features two products: a demo of Infinity, their Rich Internet Application (RIA) development platform; and a mash-up of Infinity with Microsoft's Virtual Earth API, which allows mapping of CRM data. The mapping demo features a pretty nifty screencast, highlighting both the potential and the developmental nature of the project.

Peter Gulka, of the Blackbaud User Society, seems pretty excited about the possibilities of Blackbaud Labs, but adds that he would really like to see Blackbaud offer an SDK or a free API. "What could we come up with on our own?" he wonders. "We're a smart bunch and I would love to see a developer community like SourceForge pop up here." Given the blazing successes of development communities for Facebook, Salesforce, and others, the potential for more great community-developed nonprofit resources seems high. You can let express your opinion in the Blackbus Labs Forums.

Nobody chooses images to enliven screencasts quite like Beth Kanter. She can almost make you forget you're learning. In the first of a series co-sponsored by NTEN and Salesforce, she covered the integration of Google Adwords with salesforce.com. Now, she delves deeper into the uses of salesforce.com with her new screencast, "Salesforce Campaigns for Nonprofits".

By turns engaging and informative, the screencast begins by defining what a Campaign means in salesforce.com, before moving into a brief tutorial, highlighted by the very real uses of Campaigns by the Cascadia Building Council. The 13-minute presentation concludes with a series of tips and best practices from Idealist Consulting's Rob Jordan and NTEN's Holly Ross.

Go for the music and pithy speech bubbles. Stay for the expertise.

Annaliese Hoehling, NTEN Membership and Outreach Manager

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