Samenfeld Consulting

2012 NTC Feature

It’s already February, and the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference is only two months away! One of the best parts of the conference is the opportunity to connect with other nonprofit technology professionals, so you can share your experiences and knowledge.

We want to make sure you make the most of the social and networking events at the 2012 NTC, so this week we’re filling you in on the NTC Connect Track and other opportunities to connect with the NTC Community.

NTC Connect Track

To make it easier for you connect at the NTC, we’ve introduced a new event track comprised completely of Birds of a Feather sessions: meetings of like-minded folk about a specific interest or topic. These session will focus on social networking without a formal agenda, presentation, or takeaways. Think of them as a chance to sit around and chat with your favorite nptechies.

>> Learn more about the NTC Connect Track! 

Discussion Tables Lunch

Tuesday, April 3, 12pm

To get conversation started on the first day of the conference, we’re inviting you to take part in our Discussion Tables Lunch. Tables at this lunch will feature a theme to bring together like-minded people for conversation and learning. Themes will include region, organization size, and job type.

Keep your eyes open for a list of topics on the myNTC agenda!

NTC Social

NTC attendees love to meet up to socialize and share over a meal or coffee. To make it easier for you to find like-minded folks for your social events, we’re inviting you to tell us what meet-ups you would like to see. Based on the interest we see, we’ll plan and schedule social events – and add them to the NTC Agenda. We will schedule events and outings that have sufficient interest and a volunteer leader, so fill out the NTC Social survey and give us your 2 cents.

>> Submit your ideas for small group dinners, coffee meet-ups, outings around San Francisco, and nightlife excursions here!

Ignite

If you think Powerpoint presentations have to be slow and serious, think again. NTC Ignite is back for another evening of fast-paced presentations that are both entertaining and educational. The NTC Community would love to learn about your passion or fascination. There’s only one catch: you're limited to twenty slides which advance automatically every 15 seconds, for a total of five minutes of presentation time. The format keeps you on your toes, and your audience engaged.

>> What are you passionate about or fascinated by? Submit your ignite sessions here!

Looking for information on pre-conference events, ride and room shares, and other social networking opportunities at the 2012 NTC?  You can find more information and news here.

We're excited to announce that the Technology Leadership Academy is returning in 2012. Even better, thanks to the generous support of Google and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we're able to offer the Academy at no charge to qualifying organizations.

The Academy gets at the very heart of what NTEN does. We believe that with improved tech leadership, nonprofits like yours will provide more and better programs, inspire more communities, and involve more volunteers to share their time.

> Apply by February 24th!

With improved tech leadership, our sector will be stronger, more responsive, and create more impact than ever before.

That's what the Academy is all about. You'll learn from top nonprofit leaders like Kivi Leroux-Miller, Laura Quinn, and Dahna Goldstein. By the end of the course, your organization will be prepared to use technology – in every department – to deliver impact, not just efficiency.

> Learn more and apply today!

We hope that you'll apply.

This week, our members are releasing new fundraising tools, hosting workshops, and even awarding grants. While we’re encouraged by some statistics our members released regarding nonprofits and technology, we’re also thrilled that anyone could like us this much:

Thank you so much for all your help in the NTEN Champions Fundraising Campaign, Corey Pudhorosky!

Have more news to share? Drop us a line or include your links in the comments!

Charity Dynamics released statistics that made everyone here at NTEN excited! A survey of their clients indicates that nonprofits are going to focus on social media and mobile strategies in 2012. We can’t wait to see, hear, and learn from all the innovative ways nonprofits implement their plans.

On February 9th, Health Equity Initiative is offering a workshop for nonprofits. If you’re interested in new media and health care, you may want to register for their workshop: Evaluating Outcomes of New Media-based Public Health and Health Communication Programs!

The CTK Foundation is asking you to nominate a “Hero with a Heart,” and give them a chance to win $5,000 – a simple thanks for the hard work that they do. Nominate your hero with a heart today!

I mentioned a few weeks back that Causes was releasing new fundraising tools for their platform. Well, the details of those applications are now available – and include integration with Facebook’s Timeline!

Microsoft announced the winners of the Imagine Cup Grants program, a three-year, $3 million competitive grant program for student technology and social entrepreneurs. Teams in Croatia, Ecuador, Jordan, and the United States were awarded $75,000, software, cloud computing services, solution provider support, and access to other Microsoft resources.

Anything we missed? Share your links in the comments!

If you've been been putting off accepting the growing reality that people read the messages your organization sends on mobile devices, stop right now. Just stop it.

ComScore reports that nearly 90 million Americans use their phone to read email – and that number grew by 28% over the past year. Mobile is no longer something we need to worry about at some point in the future. To ensure that we're getting our messages out effectively, we need to address it right now.

Fortunately, it's pretty easy to get started.

We all have different communication styles. Often, they clash. It's an issue we all deal with in our workplace to some extent. Yes, even at nonprofits. 

I recently attended a workshop during the EDUCAUSE Institute New IT Managers Program, where we took one of the myriad of tests that help determine your primary communication style. For this particular test, explained in much more detail here, the different styles were:

• Thinker (Structure, logic, organization, problem solving)
• Feeler (Expression, human interaction, projecting feelings)
• Intuitor (Imagination, theory, envisioning, speculation)
• Sensor (Doing, competing, getting results)

The DoGooder Nonprofit Video Contest is back and calling for your best 2011 nonprofit videos!

Are you a nonprofit? Did your organization create impactful videos in 2011? Do you want your organization to be recognized for making great videos and maybe win some incredible prizes? Perfect.

The 6th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Contest is taking submissions starting February 1st. The contest is presented by YouTube and See3 Communications and generously sponsored by Cisco and us, NTEN. We're seeking out and celebrating the best videos that nonprofit organizations have created to advance their missions using this powerful medium to create meaningful change for the better.

So what do the winning nonprofits get for participating?

The four best videos will each receive:

• $3,500 in prize donations
• An additional gift of up $3,500 (US) worth of Cisco products to help each winning org harness the power of human and technology networks to multiply their impact on the people and communities they serve.  
• Free registration to the 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference, provided by NTEN. 

This year's contest features a special category for all orgs, regardless of size: "Best Video Storytelling" will celebrate videos that employ narrative and tell the real, human stories of people, organizations, and issues.

The winning videos will be announced at this year's Nonprofit Technology Conference and featured on YouTube's homepage on Thursday, April 5th.

You read that right: the winning videos will be featured on the YouTube homepage.

At the end of last year's contest, the winning videos received almost 1 million new views after being featured there for just one day.

For nonprofits, video is a great way to share your mission, get out a message, and tell the stories of the people and issues you support. The medium educates, inspires, and moves people to action. The DoGooder Awards recognizes nonprofits that see the importance of this. This contest is meant to show nonprofits of all sizes they can win by making video part of their communications strategy.

Organizations are more video savvy than ever. Last year's contest had nearly 1,400 entries from 821 organizations in 4 countries. There were 24,000 votes cast by the public and a surge of views on YouTube for the entrants. That's encouraging, but 2012 is a new year and the contest organizers want to make sure as many amazing nonprofits enter as possible.

Here are some details to get you started:

• Submissions for Best Small, Medium, and Large nonprofit organization as well as Best Video Storytelling must be videos made between January 1st 2011 and February 29th 2012 . Each nonprofit can submit as many videos as they would like, but the contest encourages only the best work from each organization.
• Entries cannot exceed 10 minutes in length and are limited to nonprofits from the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. See contest rules here.
• All nonprofits are welcome to enter their video. There are no specific types of missions we are looking for. The contest is about recognizing nonprofit organizations for outstanding use of video to create meaningful positive change.
• You can submit your videos from February 1st until February 29th. Tell your friends at other orgs to submit as well! 
• Starting March 14th, voting is open to the public, so be sure to share the word (Email, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, etc.).  
• Important: Your organization MUST be a member of the YouTube Nonprofit Program. If you're not already, make sure that's the next thing you do after you read this post (it's quick, easy and free to eligible orgs). If you're picked as a semifinalist in the contest, YouTube will make sure your organization's application for membership is approved in time to be eligible for public voting. 

Start thinking about which creative, compelling, and interesting video your nonprofit wants to submit, then plan to rally your supporters to vote in March. Good luck!

Flickr photo: Dom de OliveiraIf you've ever implemented a technology project at a nonprofit, you know it's true: technology is 90% psychology. Success rarely hinges on the hardware and the software; technology hinges on the humans involved.

These days, technology has forced its way into every single aspect of our organizations. While we used to use change management strategies to help soothe the fears of those who would reject the new database, now we need something slightly more radical: entirely new organizations.

I'm a long-time fan of Maddie Grant, so I was excited to see her and co-author Jamie Notter tackle this very topic in Humanize. Their premise is quite simple: to succeed in today's world you've got to throw your old models out the window.

Like the proverbial frog in the frying pan, the temperature has been rising, and you've felt it. Even if you've managed to stave off the social media hounds in your nonprofit so far, you've seen other signs:

• Those twenty-something staffers who look dumbstruck when you inform them you don't know GDoc from Doc Holliday.
• Staff don't leave their desks for lunch anymore. Instead, they watch last night's Daily Show episode.
• The use of "status update" isn't the exclusive domain of project managers anymore.
• When the Internet goes down in your office, more than half your staff assume there's no way they can work without it and try to go home.

Things are changing. Is your organization?

Humanize is a call to action for leaders ready to embrace the new ways of reaching, convening, and conversing with our staff and communities so we can better go about our business: changing the world. It's not a practical guide or how-to manual. It's a great read that will get you thinking, and more importantly, set you into motion.

I'm probably not your typical nonprofit leader in this regard. I head a technology organization, so I'm likely more aligned with the premise of the book than most. But I found that I was still challenged by the ideas that Maddie and Jamie present.

If you're a nonprofit leader, I'd love to know what you think about some of these gems from the book:

There is just one problem. Best practices are evil. (page 34)

This resonated with me for two reasons.

First, I frequently hear other nonprofit leaders cite best practices as evidence of their sound decision making, when in fact what WAS a best practice five years ago may not be useful today. I think it gives decision makers a false sense of security.

Second, I think relying on best practices (defined as what's always worked) leads to the trap of incrementalism: next year, we'll set the goal 1% higher. The problems we're addressing in this sector don't care about incrementalism. In the last decade, poverty rates in the Midwest did not increase incrementally, they DOUBLED. Best practices aren't going to solve that.

A decentralized [organizational] culture works best when the different parts have a clear and shared understanding of key organizing principles. (page 130)

In a traditional, top-down organization, only the top of the pyramid really engages with questions of vision, mission, and strategy. The top makes the decisions, wordsmiths the language, then bestows it on the bottom of the pyramid.

Today, we need decentralized structures to succeed. The people who used to be at the bottom of the pyramid have to be empowered to represent the vision, mision, and strategy in their work, and then bring their experiences back to the leadership. The pace of change is too quick to wait for the next regularly scheduled strategic planning retreat to get feedback from your staff.

The challenge here, besides the new model, is that a decentralized, flatter organization ends up requiring more from leadership than the traditional hierarchy. If you're going to empower the edges of your organization to represent you in social spaces, at meetups, and through emails in ways they never were before, they can't simply memorize your mission statement: they have to truly understand your strategies.

Today's leaders are going to have to do more than distribute the strategic plan in nice binder.

Ownership means you don't have an excuse for not taking action. (page 141)

I've been reading a ton of management books lately. (No joke. I am now familiar with every platitude and twelve point checklist published.) A common thread is what to do with those un-motivated employees, the ones who have an excuse for everything and only do the bare minimum.

Most of these management books define the problem as a lack of ownership. As managers, we're supposed to somehow get these staffers to "own" their jobs by helping them see how their cog fits into the machinery that creates the change we're manufacturing.

The problem is, they don't even own the cog.

In the traditional top-down organization, staff get very little freedom to determine how they do their jobs. Many organizations go so far as to control how staff share with the world that they even HAVE a job. How many times have you seen a Twitter bio that includes the phrase: "My tweets are my own and not a reflection of my [unnamed] employer?"

If you want people to own their jobs, you have to give them the freedom to do it. Not only is it the right thing to do, it's the best thing to do. When staff don't have to run an email through four supervisors to answer a public inquiry, you're more responsive. And being responsive is extremely important nowadays.

I'm curious to hear from you. As your organization has felt the push of technology - social media and otherwise - what has it meant for how your organization is structured? What are you doing to humanize?

We are thrilled to announce the newest addition to the NTEN team: John Kenyon. It’s likely that his name rings a bell for you.

John has been with NTEN since the early days when we were just 200 members. He has worked to shape the nonprofit technology sector over his career of 20+ years of working with and educating nonprofits to use technology strategically. John authored the chapter “Effective Online Communications” in the NTEN book Managing Technology to Meet your Mission (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2009). The commitment and dedication John has to the nonprofit technology sector is tremendous -- from his work on the very first Nonprofit Technology Leadership Series to the one-on-one work he has done with many nonprofits.

NTEN is pleased to bring John’s enthusiasm and experience to the Educational Program Manager role to deepen and expand NTEN’s program offerings.

Please join us in welcoming John to the NTEN team in the comments, below or by tweeting @jakenyon with the hashtag #welcomejohn.

Evan Bailyn, our presenter for "Activating Your Base of Supporters", has more 112,000 fans on Facebook. In his just-released book, "Outsmarting Google", he details how he attracted more than 50,000,000 visitors in a year. That's a lot, so he's doing something right.

In our next webinar, he'll explain how to use Calls To Action to activate potential donors when they're most energized and willing to give.

By the end, you'll know which social media practices are a valuable use of their time and which should be avoided.

> Learn more and register today!

You'll learn:

• The 4 ways to identify donors online
• How to ask at the right time, when a person is most excited to give
• The common pattern of online donating behavior

Generally, big numbers don't impress me. Very big numbers, on the other hand? I say let's learn how to do that ourselves in service of mission.

A monthly roundup of our favorite nonprofit tech resources and other goodies. Read more posts on our blog.

1. Feeling overworked? Try saying "no" to projects every once in awhile. You'll thank us later.
2. A simple "no", for example, could have saved these companies a listing as one of the "20 worst-named tech products, ever". (Hint: English already has plenty of words.)
3. It's also important to say "no" to reality blurring. All those magazine cover models use Fotoshop by Adobé to some degree. The truth will out!
4. And then there are those Facebook friend requests that push the limits of decency.
5. If you do push things a little too far, or even make a simple mistake, an apology is still appropriate. (New for 2012: now with more scientific backing!)
6. Remember back when marketing was simpler? No? Check out these "Vintage Computer Advertisements from the late 1970s".
7. Okay, we've progressed in a lot of ways. Things change, we adapt. We mean, social media is only a few years old, and we're already shifting our strategies.
8. One thing we can say "yes" to, one constant: cats. Cats remain cute, even as HTTP Status messages. (You may recognize one of them as the star of NTEN.org's updated 404 page.)
9. So, after brushing up on the new Google Analytics features, giving the gift of charity, and pickling your website, why not stop by your local animal shelter?
10. We bet you won't be able to say "no".