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A new report out from the Nonprofit Technology Network and M+R Strategic Services concludes that NP's have a lot of work to do when it comes to making a presence on social media sites. The 2011 'eNonprofit Benchmarks Study" found that NP's had only around 110 Facebook fans and 19 Twitter followers for every e-mail subscriber. Small organizations will need to be apart of social networking in the near future and there looks to be great potential for growth. Working with a small-consulting firm, I found that utilizing social media is a quick and easy way to inform clients on up-to-date news and activities.

young hacker is holed up alone in his apartment. His face is lit by a laptop screen, monitor split between a live video stream and a text editor filled with code. Fueled by Ramen Noodles and caffeine, he codes away through the night, monitoring the latest hashtags on Twitter, never a few seconds behind the newest exploding meme, instantly transmitting the latest news to others in his social graph. ((This is a scene that is played out in the rooms of countless hackers and their "lean startups" around the world. Only for the past few weeks, it could have just as easily described an entirely new, organic, philanthropic phenomenon: Hacktivism. Hacktivism is the use of hacking and the startup mentality to tackle and support social good causes.

In getting ready to fully utilize social media and online tools for his upcoming campaign, Obama is holding a town hall meeting at Silicon Valley. Facebook users have been sending in their questions for the President and more than 36,000 users have said they will virtually attend the meeting held today that will include Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerburg. Obama will surely utilize social media tools alike Facebook and twitter to get his message out there for next years campaign. This is a great example of participatory government in the context of online social media.

"Chinese Hackers Bring Down Change.org in Response to Ai Weiwei Campaign. Chinese government-sponsored hackers took down Change.org with a DDoS campaign after the site registered over 100,000 signatories on a petition in favor of the imprisoned Chinese artist. Ai Weiwei had been known for his role in the construction of the Beijing Olympic stadium and as China's leading digital activist and a pioneer in the use of blogging and Twitter in China."

"The argument for the internet being a wild, wild West of geriatric porn and kitten antics and Twitter wars is a good one, but there is at least some sense of an overarching "etiquette" when it comes to navigating the web and social media. Speaker John Boehner broke one of the rules tenuously keeping the web from descending into anarchy and goatse .gifs by adding his own editorial stance to a re-tweet concerning health care law......."

Far too many NGOs are relying on Facebook and Twitter to get connected with donors, and its time that we try to break out of this two-party system. There are millions of potential donors, volunteers, or just concerned people to rely only on the "usual suspects." I personally find the team focus for fundraising to be the most interesting, and probably most-effective for getting people involved and raising large amounts of cash. Make it highly visible, and make it competitive, and people can have a lot of fun doing the right thing.

Imagine this. You log onto Everycharity.org (or whatever it ends up being called). A website opens: Instead of looking like it was designed by PhD candidates in MIT's accounting program, it's as visually seductive and appealing as iTunes.

Government officials have now started using facebook and twitter accounts. It helps people feel more connected and allows them to communicate outside the typical 8-4:30pm, M-F. An issue that arises is it can be an exhausting job for anyone, because it's 24/7. Once the newness of the accounts wear off, they might not be updated as much.

Did you know? FUN statistics. * 35% of mobile local news consumers feel they can have a big impact on their community (vs. 27% of other adults) * 65% feel it is easier today than five years ago to keep up with information about their community (vs. 47% of nonmobile connectors) * 51% use six or more different sources or platforms monthly to get local news and information (vs. 21%) * 75% use social network sites (vs. 42%) * 15% use Twitter (vs. 4%)