Continuing my recent theme of sharing the advice NTEN members have for nonprofits who are wary about jumping into the seas of social media for their causes, I want to point out Michele Martin's post on her blog, The Bamboo Project.

It offers initial steps an organization can try within the comfort zone of its own network: its staff.

Evolving Tools for Your OrganizationIt makes sense that the best reason anyone has for learning and using a new tool is that it makes his/her life easier or better.

When organizations look at social media tools as a new obstacle rather than a tool, they're naturally going to be wary of them. If they can turn those perceived obstacles into useful components of their professional lives, they'll end up leveraging them for their causes with confidence -- and maybe even gusto -- rather than with fear.

Michele not only explains which tools (blog, wiki, a social network) an organization can employ internally, but great applications for them like project management and staff training resources. Check it out!

Perla Ni, former publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, has launched a new site that aims to be the Zagat guide for Nonprofits. Great Nonprofits has already been profiled in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, where Ms. Ni says, "When's the last time you bought a book from Amazon and didn't read the customer reviews? This site provides that: peer reviews, from honest people, about whether [the charities] are making an impact."

Customer and peer reviews have contributed greatly to the success of Amazon and Ebay, but have been arguably less successful detached from actual products: according to Alexa, epinions.com has a traffic rank above 2000, whereas Ebay and Amazon are both in the top 50. It will be interesting to see if the focus on nonprofits will enable Great Nonprofits to succeed.

Currently, Great Nonprofits has a limited number of reviews on fewer than 100 organizations, but Ms. Ni is aware of the challenge ahead: "This is going to be a long process. It takes time to build people's awareness of this, especially in the nonprofit sector, where you're serving people that are hard to reach."

Perhaps you can help them grow.

Read/WriteWeb is running a series this week on how nonprofits use the web and the tools available to them. The first in the series, titled "Is the Web Still a Windfall for Non-Profits?" invites comments from nonprofit organizations. Other articles in the series include "Non-Profits on Facebook and MySpace" and "Firstgiving".

Google officially launched its nonprofit outreach program today for its Google Earth product. I was at the launch party where nonprofit groups such as NTEN member Earthwatch Institute and the Goodall Institute (with Jane Goodall videoconferenced in from London) described how they use Google Earth. We already described how a small nonprofit, Appalachian Voices, uses the tool to fight against mountaintop removal for coal mining. Mary Ann Hitt, Appalachian Voices' Executive Director was there for the launch.

Lots of us use surveys to collect data about our field and our clients. But if you're using paper, you're doing it the hard way! Join us for this webinar to learn how a very small investment in technology can revolutionize your survey collection:

> Survey Says: Data Collection in the Field with Wireless Handhelds

Does PDA = Public Displays of Affection? In this instance, yes! STOP AIDS Project has converted it's paper-based Behavioral Risk Assessment to WiFi Palm devices. Data can be instantly recorded and updated via WiFi, or uploaded later when in range of a WiFi connection. Entry that used to take weeks, and reporting that took months is now instantly accessible via web reports. The best part? It's all affordable. We'll demo the technology and walk through the associated tools and costs. When you leave this webinar, you'll be ready to run your own wireless community survey.

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Join us on June 7 at 11:am Pacific:

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