Great blog post over at Futuristic Play which details an exchange between Andrew Chen, the blogger at Futuristic Play, and Ben Rattray of change.org. Actually, it’s more of a posting of an e-mail that Ben Rattray sent to Andrew Chen regarding the future of Facebook apps. It’s a good introduction to the problems faced by would-be Facebook developers. You can summarize the problems as:
Too many apps for limited attention capacity of Facebook users
Too many invites from other apps lower adoption rates for all apps (including your own) by Facebook users
Useful apps have a tougher time getting users than social or “fun” apps
I’m not sure the useful vs. fun distinction makes much sense because it doesn’t really explain Causes. It’s very clear the head start that Causes had has been very difficult to erode. As of 5/7/2008, Causes is down to under seven million installations from a peak of ten million. The question is: Is Causes’ user base eroding because of this useful/fun distinction or is it simply eroding because of where we are in relation to the Giving Season? We can’t really say for sure. Read more…
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You might want to check out brightkite. Basically, it’s a location-based web site that allows you to check in your current location. That sounds pretty boring and much like other location-based web sites like plazes.com or mologogo until you find out that it also integrates with Twitter and basically allows you to take a peek at geocoded Tweets. I can actually see who is on Brightkite in my neighborhood or even within my block. And even better, search for Tweets in my neighborhood. As a treat, if you happen to live in my neighborhood, Sunset Park in Brooklyn, I will share my list of best ethnic food hangouts in Sunset Park such as where you can get paletas, and the best Bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwich) in all of NYC (the ones in Manhattan are horrible), not to mention decent grilled pork chops.
From a nonprofit perspective, this would be excellent for nonprofits that work within set geographical limits. I suggest using brightkite to keep in touch with volunteers and remote staff in that manner.
brightkite is invitation only though. Luckily, I’ve got five invites I can send out. Who wants one?
Update (4 PM): Sorry, everyone, I’m all out of invites now! Sad faces all around I know…
Update (5/7/2008):I’ve got THREE more invites from Brightkite. Post a comment below to get them!
Update (5/7/2008): Geez, those Brightkite invites go quick!
Update (5/9/2008): It looks like Brightkite simply gives me 3 invites a day if I’m all out of them. Keep coming with requests and I’ll send you invites as I have them available. It could take a couple of days but so far I think Brightkite is kinda fun!
The blog had 600 podcast downloads last month and I figure that’s time to consider upgrading their quality. I’m trying to understand if it’s worth it to buy a real microphone to do the podcasts. Right now, I do podcasts over the phone so it always end up sounding kinda tinny. There’s nothing wrong with that if I’m interviewing people outside of New York but I’d like to start interviewing people here in the Big Apple and giving them a nicer warmer sound in the process. What do you think? If you have any recommendations on good condenser mics under $100, please post in the comments section.
How do you feel about the quality of Non-Profit Tech Blog podcasts?
I think they're great -- no need to change (67%)
I can understand what is being said (33%)
I have a tough time understanding what is being said (0%)
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I interviewed Greg McHale yesterday. good2gether is a fairly novel concept in that it tries to marry newspaper web sites with nonprofits by providing context-sensitive links to nonprofits from related news stories. So if you’re reading about homelessness, a special section would open up that would point to different nonprofits that deal with homelessness in the area that that newspaper serves you are located while you are reading the story..
I came away from the interview thinking that good2gether should at least be tried by nonprofits. After all, it’s free traffic and free to join. As you listen to the podcast, listen closely around 16:15 as it discusses the only “fee” that a nonprofit would encounter should a nonprofit decide to put up their own sponsorship links using their good2gether links. I don’t think this is much of a problem for most nonprofits and indeed, it should make nonprofits consider their sponsorships more strategically.
“Well over 3.5 billion mobile phones are in use around the world and organizations are harnessing this technology to help overcome humanitarian challenges,” said Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation. “Modern telecommunications, and the creative use of it, has the power to change lives and help the UN solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. It can connect families separated by disaster, help emergency relief workers respond more quickly, empower health workers with data to help combat disease and epidemics, track the impacts of climate change, and even help in the resolution of civil conflicts.”
Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use examines emerging trends in “mobile activism” by looking at 11 case studies of groups active in the areas of public health, humanitarian assistance and environmental conservation.
The lawsuit was filed on April 22, 2008 and the plaintiff is Scott D.H. Redman. Digging further turned up this PDF document of the filing.
The plaintiff’s claim is that Convio keeps sending receipts with credit card expiration dates on them to donors in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. I don’t have any idea what the merits of this suit are but it looks like a fairly small violation to me.
I’m wondering now how widespread this practice is and what kind of effect this will have on the way donations processors are going to send receipts for tax purposes to donors. Does your nonprofit show credit card expiration dates on donations receipts?
UPDATE (4/28/2008): To make it less ambiguous, I inserted “credit card” in front of expiration dates. Thanks to Peter Gulka for the suggestion! Also, I hear from my source in Blackbaud that they do not display credit card expiration dates or show five or more credit card numbers in any of their Internet products. Can anyone confirm that the other donation processing systems don’t show credit card expiration dates? Jon? Stacie?
UPDATE (5/5/2008): Kintera also confirms that it does not show credit card numbers or expiration dates in any of receipts they send.
Scientific American announces the launch of malariaengage.org, a new social networking site devoted to stopping the spread of malaria. The founder is Tom Hadfield, who sold his previous online property, soccer.net for $40 million at the tender age of 17.
The site encourages people to donate $10 or more to help support seven different research projects in Tanzania, such as developing plants like lemongrass to repel mosquitoes. But Hadfield sees MalariaEngage.org as more than a fundraising tool.
“MalariaEngage.org increases the return on investment of donors by connecting them directly with researchers working on malaria prevention treatment,” said Hadfield.
“It’s about more than about giving money — it’s about creating connections. By encouraging individual participation and involvement, we will create international communities of common interest. This is the essence of social networking.”
What’s really interesting is that Zazengo.com is actually behind malariaengage.org. Zazengo.com has finally launched as well and seems to be a Ning-like white label social networking tool for causes and nonprofits.
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Do you like the 4/19/2008 redesign of nonprofittechblog.org?
Neutral (29%)
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I don't like it. (24%)
I like it. (24%)
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Total Votes: 21
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I decided to redesign the site once again to accommodate the growing sidebar content on the page. Sidebar content is all that stuff on the right-hand side of the blog that helps readers navigate the site and partake of additional news feeds.
However, I really liked the way the site looked and thankfully, the original designer, Will Wilkins, who made the old Moo-Point theme made something that looked similar to it but with added columns for more sidebar content. The new theme is called “IAMWW w2 DnD”. I think the site is a lot cleaner looking as a result and there’s even some popup goodness. If you click on the top right link that says “Browse”, a little popup display pops up and you can see all my posts listed by category on the site.
Because the comments section underneath a post is so much less cluttered, that meant I can reintroduce the post ratings system that we used to have on this blog in 2006. Go ahead and rate away!
I also am doing some SEO management for the blog now that I found out a little bit more about the meta description tags and how they should be unique for each post.
Also, if you do decide to click on a title for the post, you’ll eventually see a “related items” section that will automagically find similar posts on the blog.
I hope you like the changes! Feel free to add comments — I’m open to tweaking the design further.
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According to sources, Network for Good charges 4.75%, while FirstGiving charges up to 7% in transaction costs to the charities. In other words, only $0.93-0.9525 of each dollar of a donation actually reaches the charity. Network for Good, in fact, doesn’t actually get permission from charities, but rather has an opt-out program if charities do not wish to have Network for Good collect donations for them. According to the FAQ’s on the Network for Good’s website, they send the money on to the charities through electronic funds transfer or a paper check on the 15th of every month.
So, in other words, the Network for Good is taking 4.75% and then holds the money for up to 31 days before moving it on to the charity. Network for Good is itself a non-profit, but those fees and the benefit of that negative float provide serious financial benefits to Network for Good far above the cause to whom the donor actually wanted to provide money to.
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