See What’s Out There

If I was a nonprofit CEO or IT director, and I wasn’t totally over invested in Exchange Server and I didn’t have more than 100 people, I would go with Google apps for email and shared calendaring. Google apps allow you to have web-based service at your own domain running on Google servers and for free. Google, in partnership with NTEN, just announced that they have extended the additional features of Google Apps for education to all 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations.

For all of you folks struggling with servers and infrastructure, some advice: Buy less servers and Microsoft and spend the money you will save on more bandwidth.

Here’s a note from Google that was in the most recent NTEN Connect newsletter.

Jess Daniel, Google

IT infrastructure is hard work for any organization. Having worked at a nonprofit prior to coming to Google, I know that the combination of long-standing legacy systems and limited resources certainly doesn’t make things any easier. Now that I’m member of the Google Apps team, I spend my time working on simple but powerful communication and collaboration tools for organizations. And so it’s with special satisfaction that I share this bit of news: Google has extended the Education Edition of Google Apps to registered 501(c)(3)s.

You may already be familiar with Google’s standard suite of free hosted services, including private-label email, calendaring, and online-document sharing. But the Education Edition offers a number of value-added admin features at no additional cost, including email migration tools, phone support for critical issues, and extensibility APIs. (Ads are also optional, in case you’re curious.) There’s no need to take my word for it, though: if you attended NP.IT recently — the Google-NTEN midsummer mixer — you may have bumped into a few nonprofits with their own Google Apps success stories.

At the end of the day, enabling good works through Google Apps — in any capacity — both inspires and humbles us. We’re excited to offer this worthy sector a low-investment, feature-rich IT choice. Find out more or apply for an account.

We are proud to say that the evaluations from our session at NTEN’s nonprofit national technology conference were amazing - even though the session was so packed we had 20 people sitting on the floor. Two-thirds of our panelists were in the top 10 of all evaluations (Steve Daigneault / Amnesty International and Tim Fullerton / OxFam America) and the overall evaluation of our session was very high.

Funny thing… the #1 presenter at the entire conference, based on evaluations, wasn’t even there! He was participating via SecondLife as an on-screen avatar. Barry Joseph from Global Kids did a presentation about “Games 4 Change” without even showing up. You can read more about it on Barry’s blog.

Like MySpace, YouTube knows that there are a lot of people motivated by their political views. And like MySpace, YouTubers have been doing their own political videos, interviews, vlogs, mashups, etc. And like MySpace, YouTube is seeking to formalize this interest into a channel, to ride the political wave until November 2008 and make their sites a destination for the politically active.

Last week, YouTube launched Citizen Tube - YouTube’s political vlog. They are pointing out videos on YouTube that have interesting political messages, doing interviews with candidates and the like. Funny thing, the video that is on this page today is the AVAAZ video that won the NTEN - See3 Video Contest.

Here’s YouTube’s explanation of why they launched Citizen Tube:

There was a lot of buzz about See3 at the annual nonprofit technology conference this year and the buzz continues. See3 has been featured in the Nonprofit Times and the Chronicle of Philanthropy in recent days. Here’s an excerpt from the Chronicle:

The widespread adoption of broadband opens up new possibilities for charities to use video to communicate with supporters, but for charities to make the most of those opportunities, they need to break out of the “video project” mind-set, said Michael Hoffman, chief executive officer of See3, a consulting company in Chicago.

Most charities’ only experience with making videos has been creating them for a special event, like an annual fund-raising dinner, he said.

“You may have four days of shooting in that budget, but those four days are random days, so what can you get?” asked Mr. Hoffman. “You can get talking heads talking about your program.”

A more effective strategy, he said, is to start building an archive that documents what your organization does every day. That archive could include video — shot either by professionals or trained staff members, photographs, and audio recordings of speeches and lectures. The information could be used and reused for different purposes.

“We were making the dinner video,” said Susan Rosenberg, director of communications at American Jewish World Service, in New York. “We had one video that we had made six years ago that we showed three times, and spent a lot of money making it.”

But the organization has begun taking a new approach.

American Jewish World Service provides grants to organizations that fight poverty, hunger, and disease in developing countries and offers its supporters volunteer opportunities working with the groups. Late last year, the charity, working with a professional camera crew, filmed 20 groups that it supports in El Salvador, India, and Uganda.

The organization plans to use the footage for a video it will show at its annual dinner, but also to create short informational pieces for its Web site, fund-raising appeals, and grantee profiles that the groups can use to promote their work.

Just before the Passover holiday this month, American Jewish World Service sent donors a fund-raising appeal featuring a young girl in Uganda who lost her parents to AIDS and now receives services from one of the groups the organization supports, along with volunteers talking about what their service has meant to them.

It was the first solicitation created with the new footage. Ms. Rosenberg said that it’s too soon to know how much money the video brought in, and that the eventual figure might not be the most important measure of its success.

“Whether we raise a lot of money from these first videos is not the test for me,” she said.

“We are hoping that this is an engagement tool, that this is a way of talking with our supporters much more directly and bringing the work that we’re involved in much closer to home.”

The full article is available online to subscribers or non-subscribers for the next few days here.

Our fearless leader Katrin Verclas, the Executive Director of the NTEN, the nonprofits and technology association, was on ABC News and got a whole 7 minutes to talk about nonprofits and technology. It’s a big topic, but notice how much time she spent on web video! Unfortunately, Katrin neglected to mention DoGooderTV, but we know that next time she will give DoGooderTV, which hosted the NTEN - See3 Nonprofit Video Contest, a big plug.

You can watch the video here.

To all attending the NTC next week, See3 Communications invites you to join us at our Movie Night, Wednesday, April 4 at 8pm.

We will be screening Hacking Democracy - This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnerability of computers - which count approximately 80% of America’s votes in county, state and federal elections - suggesting that if our votes aren’t safe, then our democracy isn’t safe either.

Joining us for a lively Q&A after the screening is Bev Harris - the featured protagonist of the film. Her efforts were pivotal in exposing the vulnerabilities of electronic voting systems.

Look for your special movie ticket inside your bag at registration, or stop by our booth.

Your ticket also includes a raffle for year’s subscription to Netflix.

We look forward to seeing you at the conference and at the screening. Food and beverages will be served, courtesy of NTEN.

The NTEN - See3 NTC Video Contest is in full swing. We are watching the returns come in and, as you might guess, the folks pumping their video online are doing better than those that aren’t. Some bloggers have picked up some of the videos and are driving traffic to the voting. Some of the finalists have the videos on their home pages and are telling their in-house lists to go and vote. This is like anything online, if you want it to work for you, you have to work it.

Vote now in the DoGooderTV - NTEN, See3 NTC Video Contest

Here’s another video finalist for your enjoyment:

We’ve selected the finalists in the NTC Video Contest – a competition designed to honor videos and animations that mobilize people for social change and promote nonprofit work. This contest is sponsored by See3, hosted by DoGooderTV and part of NTEN’s most excellent effort to advance the nonprofit sector’s technology use.

Cast your vote to pick the winner - and the recipient of an all expenses paid trip to New Orleans for the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference.

Watch the finalists’ videos and vote on DoGooderTV right now.

Here’s one of the finalists for your viewing enjoyment: