Tim Fullerton

Now that I’ve been back from DC for a couple of days, I thought I’d post a quick review of the Nonprofit Technology Conference. This was my first year at the conference, but it was pretty much what I expected. A pretty interesting mix of experts in communications, web development, bloggers and technology providers coming together to discuss how nonprofits use technology to further their message.

Day 1

The first session I attended was one on eNewsletters. This is always a tough topic, but one that is vitally important to all nonprofits. It was interesting to hear the panelists all say the same thing. Make the newsletter fun an interesting to read. This is always tough for nonprofits, as we all want to make every supporter know everything about what we do. While it might be against our nature to make things fun, it will go a long way in increasing the readership of eNewsletters. They also stressed the need for dynamic content. Overall the session was pretty interesting and told me that most nonprofits have a ways to go before we see compelling eNewsletters. For some good examples, check out the link here.

Up next was a panel I participating in on how nonprofits are using YouTube to broaden their audiences. My favorite (other than the Oxfam one) was one done by Amnesty International. If anyone says you can’t make an amusing and engaging video about a serious situation, this video proves that wrong.

Day 2

On Friday morning I attended a fundraising session, which showed that email is still the best way to raise money (something I highly agree with). The session showed that creating different and unique appeals can help raise money. It also showed that using segments of your list is a much more effective way to raise money than to blast your entire list. While I didn’t learn much new in this session, it helped to solidy a lot of what I already thought, which is useful in itself.

Finally in the afternoon I added a session on social networks and how they can help nonprofits. They did something in this session I have never seen at a conference before: they brought beer. Since it was 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, this seemed to make sense and brought a laugh out of the attendees. Again, nothing earth shattering here except if you’re not on social networks, you are missing out as an organization.

Overall I really enjoyed the conference. If I had one negative to say, it is that there were too many consultants speaking and not enough people with real-world examples of how they had used certain tools to further their message. That being said, I hope to be at next years NTC in New Orleans!

There has been a lot of chatter recently about a new site called Twitter. Basically what it does is to allow people to send short messages to the site that people can read. At first I was at a complete loss as to why we need such a technology. I mean, do I really need to know you’re currently watching The Daily Show? But after some thinking on this issue it hit me. This is the perfect tool in times of a natural disaster. In developing countries, cell phones are the mode of communication, where not many people have access to the internet. This would be a perfect way to upload short bits of information on what happening on the ground. This is something humanitarian organizations are always in dire need of - updates from the ground. This makes the people affected also the newsmakers. Imagine if the people caught in Hurricane Katrina had this kind of info, or the people affected by the tsunami. This could take user generated content to a whole new level

Today I went to GetActive’s homepage and found that it is no more. With it’s aquisition by Convio complete, the site has a brief message saying they were bought out by Convio and then you are redirected. All GetActive staff are now official working for Convio. GetActive will continue to exist only on the backend for its clients who have yet to switch over to Convio. While I believe the future is bright for the new Convio, it’s sad to see GetActive cease to exist. Luckily most of the employees are staying on, which is the important part.

I’ll be writing periodically on the merger, so stay tuned for more updates.