I was just at Independent Sector, running a session on the "Trials and Triumphs of Nonprofit Technology." Without a doubt one of the biggest problems nonprofits face is costly and inefficient data silos. A recent dotOrganize survey found that on average respondents maintained more than four different databases or repositories of data. Too often these systems don't connect or talk to each other at all, resulting in nonprofit staff like you spending time re-entering data or not being able to use it efficiently. This is time spent not working towards your organization's mission.

It shouldn't have to be this way. While this is truly a complex problem, there is increasing recognition that inefficiencies and inadequate use of valuable data comes at a huge cost to nonprofits. While not a panacea, APIs - application programming interfaces - are one way in which data silos can be opened. APIs allow one application 'request' information from other computer programs, and to allow data to be exchanged between them.

To find out what some of the major nonprofit technology vendors think about APIs we brought them together and let them hash it out in the Great Open API Debate. You can listen to the podcast and read our favorite quotes in the next post. Then we asked you, people who work in or with nonprofits, to send in your opinions on data silos, open APIs, and on what the vendors said.

I hope that this will get you thinking about why APIs matter (in the context of silo busting) and some ways in which they may be relevant to your work. Many thanks to all our contributors and participants in the debate!