Last week saw the launch of The List of Change, a new ranking of the top English-language change and cause-related blogs – providing a very handy way to find some new sources of news and information of interest to nonprofit marketers and fundraisers.

The ranking is based on each blog’s Technorati Rank, Technorati In-Links, Bloglines Subscribers, Alexa Points, Google PageRank, and Yahoo In-Links, which are combined to give a score out of 100.

> Read the full post

> Visit The List of Change

The “Twitterverse” is going supernova, exploding with the power and energy of more than five million people worldwide reaching out for a way to stay connected. Unique website visitors to Twitter.com from the U.S. alone have clocked in at more than 17 million. So who are these millions? They’re not just teenagers and college students. A recent study pegs their median age at 31. And you know those folks that make something go “viral”? Yeah, well this is them. They’re more likely than any other online segment to share information and links online.

Contents summary:

1. Beware of the bandwagon
2. Staff strategically
3. Build your base
4. Return the follow
5. Keep the conversation moving
6. Tweet it forward
7. #Tag it!
8. Hijack popular #hashtags
9. Target your tweets
10. Engage, don’t broadcast
11. Tweet on the go
12. Actors and athletes
13. Ignore “rules” about tweets per day
14. Think “value”
15. Be patient

> View the full guide (pdf, 10 pages)

Ever wonder how your email list stacks up against other nonprofits?

M+R Strategic Services and NTEN are excited to announce that we’re releasing a new eNonprofit Benchmarks Study
for 2009. We’ve analyzed online messaging, fundraising, and advocacy
data from 32 leading nonprofit organizations to provide you with
reliable new data, answering questions like:

• How is the financial crisis affecting online fundraising?
• How do my targeted emails, appeals to non-donors, phone call alerts, and more compare to those of other nonprofits?
• For state-based or local groups, what’s a good email response rate?

> Download the free report (registration required)

There are two reports—the first 48-page Consumers Guide includes an overview of common features in donor management system, comparisons and summaries of all 33 systems we reviewed, recommendations for which systems best meet common nonprofit scenarios and a directory of consultants who can help you in this area.

The second 85-page document provides detailed reviews of twelve systems—Common Ground, Donation Director, Donor Perfect, DonorPro, eTapestry, Giftworks, Mission Assist, Neon by Z2, Orange Leap MPX, Sage Fundraising 50 and Total Info. For each each system, we walk through the functionality offered for each of 127 criteria.

> Download the reports

• Who’s coming to nonprofit websites, why, and how satisfied they are.
• Why highly satisfied visitors to nonprofit sites are 49% more likely to donate and 38% more likely to volunteer than are dissatisfied visitors, and what nonprofits can do to make visitors more satisfied.
• How the election in 2008 impacted giving to non-political charities and organizations.
• Why online donors give more than people who donate through other channels, and how to increase the likelihood that visitors will donate online.

> Download the free report

Social Networks for Nonprofits: New White Paper
Here’s an excerpt:

As you consider how social networking will play a role in your organization, consider what motivates your constituents to join your community. We’ve developed a list of eight reasons people participate in social networks.

1. Social Needs: Participation in the social network fills a basic human need to create relationships and connect with others. Example: A traveling nurse maintains connections with friends back home via Facebook.

2. Emotional Support: The social network provides the space for emotional reinforcement from peers in the network. Example: A mother of an autistic child shares daily parenting challenges with other parents via online discussion groups.

Download the white paper here.

Nonprofit Social Network Survey Results
In this research, we discovered that social networking has become an integral part of nonprofits’ online strategies. In this online survey conducted in March, 2009, 980 respondents representing nonprofits of all sizes and from multiple vertical segments indicate that nearly three-quarters (74.2%) have a presence on Facebook, and 30.9% have one or more social networking communities on their own web site.

Here’s a sneak peek at the survey report:

From the survey, we learned that commercial social networks, especially Facebook, are popular, but average community sizes remain small, and presence is relatively short. Responding nonprofits are allocating small but real resources, staff and budget to their social networks. Survey respondents prefer traditional marketing channels to promote their social networks but are experimenting with new social media channels. For now, there is very little real revenue generated on these communities via fundraising and advertising. A minority of nonprofit survey respondents, about one third, have built and manage their own house social networks, using software from a wide variety of social network software vendors, with no clear leader among these vendors. The members of house social networks are as yet, with just a few exceptions, still relatively small as well.

Download the survey report here.

Idealware has published a report comparing leading free and open source content management systems:

WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Plone are all free and open source systems that can help nonprofit build and manage websites – but how do they compare? This 60-page independent Idealware report provides both an introduction to the topic and a very detailed comparison of the four systems.

The report also includes our new directory of the consultants and firms who help nonprofit create websites and implement these Content Management Systems.

> Download the report for free

Distributed fundraising isn’t a new thing. Many organizations have been engaging their supporters – like staff, volunteers, program participants, or current donors – to fundraise on their behalf for decades. Traditionally, this is done through walk-a-thons and similar events where individual supporters seek sponsors from their own networks of colleagues, friends, and family. In fact, distributed fundraising is often informally called “team” or “a-thon” fundraising.

But the definition of distributed fundraising is evolving, and now includes the use of online tools to facilitate fundraising by supporters. These tools let supporters participate in broader campaigns by setting up individual online donation pages that allow them to speak directly to their own friends and family.

Is online distributed fundraising right for your organization? We asked six nonprofit technology experts for advice on how to decide, and for information on tools that have worked well for their nonprofit colleagues. Pulling from their experience, we combined their advice below to provide information about a few tools that may work well for your nonprofit.

> Read A Few Good Tools for Online Distributed Fundraising

With the rise in popularity of open source software in the nonprofit sector, the choice between ‘community supported’ software vs. commercially-developed, vendor-hosted solutions is an increasingly common dilemma. Assessing the options and deciding the best path to follow can seem a bit like comparing applies with oranges.

Jeff Walpole at Idealware has posted a thorough and helpful look at the many factors for weighing the choice between open source and vendor-provided software solutions. This article focuses primarily on the technology management aspects such as Total-Cost-of-Ownership (i.e. “free” software is not really free); hardware and maintenance vs. monthly leasing fees; and the role of an active user/support community in the extended lifespan of software products.

> Read the article here

> Order it online