“First, it is always a mistake to upload a video to your website without thinking about the ramifications, both in terms of bandwidth, as well as performance. If you have a standard hosting account, or even a VPS (Virtual Private Server) do some back-of-the-envelope calculations to make sure you won’t end up with sticker shock at the end of the month.” — Nov. 29, “We want video!” posted by Michelle Murrain, Idealware Blog
Ed Note: This article, which originally appeared Sept. 9 at TechSoup, is courtesy of Idealware. Idealware provides candid information to help nonprofits choose effective software. For more articles and reviews, go to www.idealware.org. Do you want to create letterhead for your nonprofit, or lay out a monthly newsletter or report? Send thank-you cards to donors? Create an invite for your next event? All these tasks fall under the umbrella of page layout. If you have a complicated project or need a polished result, it probably makes sense to hire a freelance designer. Professionals in that field have an eye for design and a broad
The assignment seemed simple enough. Find out about “open sources” and write about them for our July issue. I knew they had something to do with technology, but that’s about it. I was concerned because when it comes to me and technology, let’s just say I have issues. And, when it comes to nonprofit technology issues, many of you might be in the same boat, so I suppose I seemed the perfect choice to write this story. I use the Internet to shop, e-mail, do research, read the latest news and feed my insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip. That’s it. No MySpace
Not all social networks are created equal. And nonprofit organizations need to know the differences between them before they can get one to work for them. A social network can be a useful tool for a nonprofit, providing an arena for meeting potential supporters and contacts. Also, it provides individuals or organizations an outlet for spreading their messages to broader audiences. But before nonprofits can use social networks effectively, they have to understand the options, said Steve MacLaughlin, director of Internet solutions at Blackbaud, during the session “What Social Networks Should Be Doing for You” at The Blackbaud Interactive Internet Symposium held on
There are lots of tools available to enable nonprofit organizations to accept donations, sell merchandise, collect membership dues and register people for events online, but which ones are best and why? To answer that question, Idealware — an organization that offers product comparisons, recommendations, case studies and software news to help nonprofits make software decisions — asked a number of experts from companies like Compumentor, ONE/Northwest and Community IT Innovators for their recommendations, which it published in the whitepaper “A Few Good Online Payment Multitaskers.” The experts report that organizations that want software that supports several typical kinds of payments without a lot of
Blogging can be a cost effective, credible way to show your organization’s voice to — and interact with — your constituents, and to start a two-way conversation that elicits their comments and thoughts. Laura Quinn, founder and director of Idealware, provider of reviews and information on nonprofit software, says while she’s somewhat skeptical of the Web 2.0 craze — social networking sites, wikis and other online communication tools that stress online collaboration and sharing among users — she thinks blogs in particular are typically very useful for nonprofits. For one thing, they’re a fairly inexpensive way for organizations to proliferate updated content. Quinn
