During my time off this holiday season, I caught up on some online (and offline) reading. As a result, I was able to read several unrelated posts that helped me put the future of nonprofit technology in perspective.

Over at the Wild Apricot Blog, I read Soha El-Borno's post in a series about online fundraising tools for nonprofits, which emphasized what we hear all the time: think about your objective first, then apply the tool that's best for your goal, rather than investing time and resources on a tool just because it's new and "cool".

Soha's blog led me to this post about the development of the PayPal widget -- with the help of a blogger with a dream -- which can be easily customized, embedded, and shared. I also remembered this article about how the charitable sector is adapting and applying social media tools faster than the the business sector.

And -- bear with me on this one -- I happened to catch up on a very old but very interesting discussion about folksonomies vs taxonomies, which led me to think about the effects of online discussions and online collaboration in general.

This all got me thinking about the obvious, really: the future of nonprofit technology is YOU: those who work with online communications and fundraising for the nonprofit sector. You should be (and are) leading the development and application of online tools, not following trends. You know best what you need, what your staff needs, what your donors, constituents, clients and volunteers need.

Not only do we know our own needs, but, thanks to Web 2.0, we can discuss, compare, and refine our ideas with our peers in ongoing and open formats. These public conversations lead to online collaboration and serious development by hackers and vendors alike to produce the tools of our dreams -- and sooner than you'd think, since more vendors and developers are opening their platforms to customized applications.

So, in the spirit of the New Year and resolutions, I want to ask you what you want to be able to do with technology for your organization this year?  What will help you achieve your mission in 2008?

In other words, start with your dream, and -- with the help of public conversations and peer collaboration -- your tool will follow.