NTEN Milestone: Our 1500th Member!

In case you hadn't noticed, NTEN's been growing: in content, services, community and membership. In fact, we are very happy to announce today our 1500th NTEN member for 2008, Claire Murray, who joined NTEN over the weekend.

Welcome, Claire, and thank you to all our members, newly joined or with NTEN from the beginning, in 2000, when membership was a proud 150 in count. In 8 years we've grown by 10 times our original size!

Q&A Session With Chris Brogan: Wrap Up

Flickr Photo: alexander drachmannWe started the week off here at NTEN with a Q&A session with Chris Brogan, who answered questions from NTEN members about engaging people through social media. In case you missed it, you can see a transcript of the questions in the materials section (and if you're a member of NTEN, you can get the recording) here.

Chris commented a few times on how impressed he was by the questions you all asked him -- demonstrating yet again that, in many ways, the nonprofit sector is a leader in harnessing the power of social media to engage and energize communities and individuals online.

Here is a summary of take-aways from the session:

NTEN Member Online Round-Up: Resources, Reflections, and Announcements

LOLnptechNTEN members were sharing lots of great tips, checklists, and resources online last week.

Colin Delany, of e.politics, shared his Social Marketing "cheat sheet" for using Web2.0 tools for engagement and fundraising purposes.

If you're a do-it-yourself kind of nonprofit when it comes to designing your web site, you might want to check out Kivi Leroux Miller's "10-Point Basic Website Checklist for Nonprofits".

For anyone plagued by email delivery statistics (or curious about what your organization should be considering when it comes to email messaging), take a look at NTEN member and NTC speaker Bill Pease's helpful tips.

Marnie Webb provides a couple of posts about integrating Twitter into your communications practice: first, she brings Twitter into the virtual tool chest she's building for her readers, then shares a list of Twitter resources that can help you maximize your Twitter-effectiveness.

Speaking of Twitter, Rose Vines is the back-channeling star of the NTEN community. Fortunately for us, she shares her tips for using Twitter for good (documenting and sharing).

In other news, NTEN members are . . .

NTEN Member Online Round-Up: Post-NTC Style

AdamNicholson's NTENny DisplayI'm composing this weekly round-up differently this week, for two reasons: 1) there's a LOT of buzz in the blog- and twitter-spheres from and about NTEN members because of last week's conference, so I'll be truncating the summaries; and 2) I want to take this opportunity to share my thoughts about the conference and the NTEN community -- and thank everyone for the great experience.

First up, here's an abbreviated round-up of the 08NTC-related posts from members:

Google Announces Special Benefit for NTEN Members

At the close of his session at the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference on Thursday afternoon, Google Adwords Evangelist Frederick Vallaeys announced a new partnership between Google and NTEN.

"Due to our similar goals in supporting the non-profit community, particularly through technology, Google Grants and NTEN are partnering to enhance their impact on non-profits. We would like to invite all qualifying NTEN organizations to apply to Google Grants and we will expedite the review of those that apply."

How cool is that? Very.

If you don't already know about Google Grants, they allow qualified nonprofits to use Google Adwords for the low, low price of free.

To take advantage of this offer:

• If you're not yet a member of NTEN, join today!
  
• Then, apply for the Google Grant at http://www.google.com/grants through Google's easy online application. Please spend some time reviewing the site to learn more about the program, eligibility, grant details, etc.
• Finally, send an email to grants-nten@google.com to help Google identify you as an NTEN member, which should hasten your application through the process.