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This site has a wealth of data on how NPO's use, or fail to use, technology.

Thanks to technology, email accounts, social networking sites, and cell phones are now prime marketing real estate. In order to strike the right balance between marketing to the masses and generating revenue, organizations should do two things right away. First, establish communication guidelines that reflect the organization's vision, mission, short and long-term objectives (collectively, the brand)-not what the business Joneses are doing. Second, ask constituents what matters to them.

Data and mapping resources. 

In today's world, we live our lives on the internet. We communicate, learn, find loved ones, get our news and buy products all online. But, 90% of volunteering happens offline.  Traditional offline volunteering has a lot of hoops to jump through.

Another foundation assisting nonprofits in being more efficient

The head of California's state office of technology sees social media as a "force multiplier" and is aggressively expanding the state's mobile presence this year, aiming to double the number of mobile apps offered in 2011. Adrian Farley, the acting director and chief technology officer of OTech, told OhMyGov.com in an exclusive interview that the state of California, one of the earliest adopters of social media in government, had been very fortunate in experiencing almost no cultural pushback in attempts to integrate social media into official public communications. 

The Cautious Patient Foundation is dedicated to minimizing the amount of people that die per year from medical error. Here, an organization that shares CPF's values can apply and recieve grants that help patients and healthcare providers to communicate better by using technology. This is an excellent example of NPO's using the internet to spread the word about their mission and gain funding

Yet another journalist's/expert's opinion on how to best use facebook for a non-profit, including the importance of goals

Gives good tips on how an organization should use facebook. Some of the good tips promote communicating to the fan-base as well as encourage fan-to-fan communication. One of the most important things about NPOs and Facebook is to have a purpose with your page. This article strongly condemns having a page "just to be on facebook" and says that having a strong purpose makes facebook that much more successful.

"It's important for any digitally-minded non-profit to be on Facebook because of the sheer number of active users. So, great - you set up a Facebook account for your organization. Now what?" Note:  "Eight of the world's top ten brand use the Buddy Media Platform (sponsor of "The Facebook Marketing Series") to power their social marketing on FB."

 News Release by Tiffany Brown, Public Affairs Section, Lansing: Recent news coverage prompted by a press release issued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has brought speculation and caused inaccurate information to be reported about data extraction devices (DEDs) owned by the Michigan State Police (MSP). The MSP only uses the DEDs if a search warrant is obtained or if the person possessing the mobile device gives consent. The department*s internal directive is that the DEDs only be used by MSP specialty teams on criminal cases, such as crimes against children. The DEDs are not being used to extract citizens' personal information during routine traffic stops. The implication by the ACLU that the MSP uses these devices "quietly to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches" is untrue, and this divisive tactic unjustly harms police and community relations.

This article talks about how technology is improving our ability to respond to disasters around the world. Specifically it talks about how technology like SMS and twitter allowed rescue efforts to happen quicker and more efficiently. I think it's cool how with all this new technology we have the ability to save more lives and do more in times of disaster. Families were able to communicate with those in Haiti more than they would have been able to before this technology was available. Also, that with tools like SMS, donations were able to be set up for non-profits to assist in recovery efforts. People are probably more likely to donate if they can do it with something as simple as sending a text message, and organizations will be able to receive the money quicker. Cool article.

This nonprofit organization has a fascinating function to the businesses and and it has delivering a change to businesses and community as well. The Nonprofit organizations are businesses designed to make change, and not in the monetary sense. This Nonprofits derive their operating revenues from foundations, government grants, membership dues, and fees for services they provide.

Using this new program allows non-profits to connect with their donors better. It also gives donors a personalized URL so that they can track their interactions with the organization and be in communication with the organization.

Although this article speaks mainly about protecting yourself on a network I think it applied very well with this class. It offers many good tips and points as to precautions to take to protect yourself. These precautions are important to consider especially if any work at your non-profit or public place of employment can be completed outside of work at at perhaps a local "hot-spot". This leads me to wonder how safe the new cellphone hot-spots are.

This article discusses the changes being implemented into the nonprofit sector in the technology area. New technologies are being used to assist in accomplishing the organization's mission statement as well as using funding to its greatest potential and maximizing funding coming in. "In a release, Kristen Fulks, Blackbaud principal consultant and another co-author of the paper, said that 'We think it is very important to share fundraising technology trends with the nonprofit community, yet the fundamentals familiar to any fundraiser still apply,' she said. 'With the ever-demanding challenges of the economy and other influences, it is even more critical to get donors engaged faster, rather than just using technology for technology's sake.'"

I found this article to be interesting. In the past few elections we have seen the use of social media soar. I think this is a great opportunity for an average person to be able to get the opportunity to ask questions that are meaningful to the general public. Prior to YouTube and Facebook it would seem nearly impossible for a question that we have to be answered by the President of the United States in a live news conference. Technology makes this possible.