studio 501c

Jim Fruchterman, technologist for social change, wins MacArthur genius award (oh, and by the way, he has a blog)

One of the 25 MacArthur Fellows announced yesterday was James Fruchterman, social entrepreneur and founder of Benetech, a nonprofit that creates "new technology solutions that serve humanity and empower people to improve their lives."   Benetech's innovative projects have focused on literacy for people with disabilities, landmine detection, and human rights.

When visiting Benetech's web site, I was delighted to discover that the homepage features a link to the latest post in Fruchterman's blog, Beneblog.  Beneblog is an example of what I have called a business-lunch blog.  In a simple, conversational style, and in posts that range from short to long, Fruchterman discusses interesting happenings in the life of the organization, for example, national media coverage and job openings.  He also comments on current events that are related to the mission and work of the organization.

nonprofits, nota bene:  A business-lunch blog is a practical strategy for many social sector organizations.  Every blog takes time, but it needn't take an extraordinary amount (the archives show that Fruchterman publishes as little as three times a month).  Blogs rank high in search engine results, making them a good way to raise awareness of your organization.  For more ideas on how your nonprofit can connect in a more personal way with clients, members, donors, volunteers, and  the general public, see my earlier post, "a blog can be like a business lunch."  And if you do publish a blog, consider featuring the latest post or two on your homepage. 

Congratulations, Jim Fruchterman. (For more on Jim, check out Global X and Jim Korn, two bloggers who know him.)
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nonprofit makes it easy to donate, offset carbon emissions anywhere, any time via text messaging

From Springwise, a new favorite, I learned of a wise move from the World Land Trust, which is allowing consumers to use text messaging to donate small amounts to offset carbon emissions: "Every time a consumer texts 'WLT CARBON' to number 87050 (within the UK), World Land Trust will offset 140 kilograms of CO2 through its Carbon Balanced Program. The program regenerates rainforest, which not only helps remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but also provides habitat for endangered species....Users can create accounts that keep track of their sms donations." The cost to the consumer, on top of regular texting charges, is 1.5 GBP or $2.84 U.S. dollars.

Says the World Land Trust, on a page about the offsets, "We want to make it as easy to offset unavoidable emissions as we can, which is why we have created an sms service to provide offsets by using a mobile phone. So whether it is flight to Paris, a birthday party or a weekend away, now you can offset emissions anywhere and anytime."

I don't know much about text-messaging fundraising, but this campaign seems a bit different from efforts to raise money through SMS for victims of the tsunami, Katrina, and 9/11. Those campaigns offered a great convenience to donors wanting to respond immediately to a sudden disaster. This one is positioning itself as a long-term campaign to encourage regular giving of small amounts as consumers become increasingly mindful of the effect of their activities on the environment.

If you have ideas about other circumstances in which text-messaging campaigns would be appropriate or if you know of successful campaigns, please share your thoughts in the comments section.

welcome to studio 501c

This is a resource for ordinary people doing extraordinary things -- social entrepreneurs and nonprofit staff and volunteers, i.e., those who work hard every day to make positive change.  I'm a nonprofit professional, too, and I'm interested in the ways that the Internet, personal technology, and other tools can help advance the goals of those in the social sector (which, by my definition, encompasses the nonprofit sector, but also goes beyond it to include those in the private and public sectors who are pursuing social innovation). 

As a result of my interests in personal tech and communications, I often find myself telling friends and colleagues about a Web site for tracking down the address of a prospective donor, or an easy way they can keep up with the issues their nonprofit addresses or a free Web-based calendar, task, and contact management application that can help individuals and teams be more productive.   I hope to do the same thing with this blog -- to share information and tips from time to time that will help people accomplish their social-change goals more effectively.

I won't pretend to be definitive or even authoritative.  In fact, much of the advice here will be pretty basic, as I find that even many brilliant leaders in the social sector know little about RSS, blogs as communications tools for nonprofits, or all that Google can do for them!  (Watch for more info on these tools in future posts.)

I'll just share what has worked for me, as well as what others with far more knowledge and experience are recommending.  I plan to review what experts in personal tech, life hacks, productivity, cool tools, and nonprofit tech are publishing, and then share the best of it here, adding ideas for how nontechies in in the social sector can apply the tips to their particular concerns. In that sense, I hope studio 501c will be a time-saving filter blog.

I also hope that it will offer a practical perspective to current discussions on how nonprofits can use the Internet and technology to further their missions.  These discussions, though well intended, sometimes become unrealistic, especially when they involve nonprofit techies talking with other nonprofit techies.  With studio 501c, I'll aim to address the everyday concerns of nontechies in nonprofits and other social-sector organizations.

I hope that you can help with this effort.  Please post your ideas, advice, and experience in the comments section of this blog so that we can all learn from each other.

Cheers,
Celeste W

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