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The New York Anti-Violence Project (AVP): "empowers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and HIV-affected communities and allies to end all forms of violence through organizing and education, and supports survivors through counseling and advocacy." This great organization's website however, was not reflecting the richness of the organization's work.
Sometimes, this means that the shiny new toys which larger companies play with seem to be an absolute necessity when it comes to their own small non-profit website. This is completely understandable. We live in an upgrade-right-now world, where even our web browsers seem to update on a daily basis, often times without us knowing it. We try to help organizations avoid the shine of the latest fad and focus on raw efficiency gains. That's why a Web lesson learned from the good folks at Etsy (fellow B Corporation!) struck a chord with me. When Etsy implemented the "infinite scroll" in their A/B testing, their findings were really quite interesting. What's an infinite scroll you ask? It's what happens when you're looking at search results on sites like Google Images, where as you scroll to what seems to be the bottom of the page, and then all the sudden, wham, more results start to appear. The vertical scroll is infinitely long! Okay, back to the lesson at hand. What Etsy ended up finding is that while the infinite scroll is definitely trending strongly in web design communities, it's not a tool that you can blindly apply to any website and expect it to actually improve user satisfaction. In fact, in the case of Etsy, it seemed to cause users to avoid taking the preferred route through the Etsy website. What does this have to do with non-profit websites? Quite a bit. Here's a few important lessons we can learn from the Etsy case study on the infinite scroll.
RSS can be a little confusing. I try to remember it like this: it's a no-nonsense way to push content from a website, or pull content into a website.
We discussed the unique opportunity our team has in today's environment to take some important steps forward on new products that we've planned for many years. We've agreed that our Soapbox Engage service's integration with Salesforce, and the tools we've created to help organizations fundraise more effectively online, are key to our clients' success in 2013. Based on these building blocks, we're excited to work with our clients, partners, and friends to continue expanding our services for the sector. This plan dovetails nicely with our existing commitment to further evangelize about the Salesforce Foundation's Nonprofit Starter Pack, a service that enables organizations to utilize the Salesforce service more appropriately for charitable organizations. All of our new products planned for 2013 will have deep integrations with the Salesforce service, benefitting the more than 10,000 organizations currently using Salesforce.
The third payment processor Soapbox interfaces with is Braintree, an option lesser known in the nonprofit space. And, while we're not looking to endorse any single provider, Braintree is worthy of consideration for some very good reasons:
So, to help you short-list what you shouldn't miss in 2013, here's a little cheatsheet we've compiled about the events we make sure to attend each year.
In an increasingly virtual workplace, these physical locations are tougher to come by, and remote workers can feel more disconnected from their peers. While a recent study pointed to the benefits of remote work, we've found that long-term virtual work can sometimes to lead to a sense of isolation for workers of small teams that yearn for higher engagement opportunities. Until teleportation becomes a reality, here's four strategies that we've found increase employee satisfaction and productivity.
Looking back at those early days, I'm incredibly humbled by the impact open source has had on my life and in our communities. Now, older and slightly wiser, I'm excited to continue down that same path. Our company's flagship offerings (Non-Profit Soapbox and Soapbox Engage) heavily leverage open source software, giving us the headspace and time to focus on shaping software to best serve our community. At the same time, I continue to find fulfillment in life by using my experience as a backdrop for evangelism of the open source communities that help us deliver services to those who need it most. While this has recently lead to many hours on planes and trains far away from loved ones, I feel nearly compelled (in a good sense) to work alongside the incredible people building the hammers and nails the world needs to craft more effective and equitable software.
Yesterday, our fellow B Corporation member Arabella Advisors, wrote a great blog by Ginger Elsea about Why Foundations Should Care About B Corps. She laid out the fantastic case for why foundations that are looking to increase their investing portfolio's diversity should invest in B Corporations. As she wrote, "As more foundations pursue impact investing—channeling funds to for-profit businesses that also advance a social mission—B Corp certification can serve as a useful starting point in identifying such businesses." We're big proponents of "if you're going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk", so her words definitely ring true to us at PICnet. What about taking this a step further though? What if foundations not only invested in similarly socially-conscious organizations, they also did business with these well-aligned businesses as well? With the parent non-profit organization of B Corporation, B Lab, continuing to certify and play a watchful eye on the B Corporation community, foundations have a partner that can assist them in finding the best companies to provide them needed services and products.
One of the challenges that developers have had during the past few years is easily sharing their code and best practices with other organizations to help create an open source ecosystem around Salesforce. This is often due to barriers to entry that make it a bit difficult to easily export/import code into your Salesforce instance, especially for those of us supporting the Nonprofit Starter Pack. In short, it's not easy to collaborate within the Salesforce developer community as it is in other software communities. With the new Salesforce Tooling API, however, developers in the community can start to build tools for other developers that might make it a lot easier to share code and ideas. The Tooling API allows for access to key building blocks of Force.com development, including Apex classes, triggers, and VisualForce pages. This means that our developer community could effectively create tools that makes it easier to share their code, thereby increasing the flow of best practices within our community. It's enough to make this open source supporter giddy with ideas for the future.
Social communities have exploded over the past few years. In working with our clients in the Support Department as well as promoting my own after-work projects, I know it feels like you have to be everywhere at once. It seems that if you aren't taking advantage of every angle, then you are missing something. But just try to keep up with Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, LinkedIn, Feedburner, the new MySpace and on and on and on... not to mention your own website... it can be exhausting. So get smart about it.
If you're looking to import data into Salesforce for your nonprofit organization, there are a number of training resources you have at your disposal from Salesforce.com and the Salesforce.com Foundation.
After spending a fairly tedious two hours posting nine items to eBay, here is what I have been reminded of when writing content for the web: As many of you know, PICnet is a B Corporation, a socially responsible business with the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. We're grateful to be a part of an amazing group of businesses who are similar-minded. One of those businesses is PICnet-client Back to the Roots (BTTR). Back to the Roots was founded by two UC Berkeley students, Alejandro Velez & Nikhil Arora, who were inspired to make a product from used coffee grounds. What they came up with was a mushroom kit where, in as little as 10 days, you can grow your own mushrooms from your kitchen windowsill! Skeptical? I was too…until we experimented in the DC office and got fabulous results. I even made myself a mushroom and cheese omelet with mushrooms from the kit! One emerging approach we’ve witnessed in the nonprofit space is the manner of Salesforce adoption within organizations. Many organizations are taking a segmented approach to adoption with one department electing to use it and others not. Often the split falls between program and fundraising teams. There are obvious reasons for this. Legacy systems are involved that vary from department to department. The reasons inspiring adoption by one team will not necessarily apply to the other. Change is difficult for one department let alone an entire organization. And Salesforce adoption is often driven by a key champion within the organization affecting a single department first rather than the entire organization.
While the reasons for segmented adoption are clear, here are four compelling reasons why organizations would do well to push further to more comprehensive adoption and break out of their data silos:
Just in case your finger isn't jumping to click the link to complete the survey just yet, here are ten reasons why you should (drum roll, please)... |
Working at a company that helps organizations figure out how to stay focused when wandering the candy store that is Web technology can be full of interesting anecdotes. Mostly, it includes stories of accidental techies doing the best they can to make sense of this Web-3-dot-whatever world we're living in, and trying to find ways to best bring in more donation dollars to support their cause.
Each quarter, 
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We've all heard the legends about the water cooler discussion that led to the next big idea for an organization. Aside from all the 
Way back in 1999, when dinosaurs were roaming the planet, a friend of mine and I started off on a path that I've been lucky enough to keep walking for 14 years. As students of public policy, we were eager to use technology to provide individuals and organizations with empowering tools to advance the cause of building a more open and just society. From the beginning, we knew that open source software would be the necessary DNA running through our work's blood.
There are so many ways to promote your organization online today. Indeed, you may be returning to work with a raft of 2013 resolutions to do just that.
As a Project Manager at PICnet, I often give clients advice on how to optimize their web content for search engines. However, when posting some items to 
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