News/Blog

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  3 New Ways to Target Your Audience with Facebook Pages We’ve talked before about how nonprofits are using Facebook to connect with their supporters online, figuring out ways to work around the “closed door” model of the popular social-networking site. For example, setting up a nonprofit Facebook Page that... 13 hours, 50 minutes ago by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, online community, Social networking, Facebook, Non-profit Communications

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  What's Turning Off Your Donors? "As a donor to charity, what do we nonprofits do that irritates you? What’s caused you to stop giving to a charity?" Marc Pitman asked the tough questions on LinkedIn , a social-networking site with a business/professional focus where the demographic... 09-02-2008, 10:31 AM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: General non-profit interest, Fundraising, nptech, Best practices, accountability, Non-profit Communications, Donor management

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  44% of Donors Check Out Your Nonprofit Online When your nonprofit sends out its next fundraising direct mail appeal, how many potential donors will be heading to the Internet before they decide if they want to donate? The number of people checking out your organization online may be higher than you... 08-28-2008, 12:19 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: General non-profit interest, Fundraising, nptech, Best practices, E-mail marketing, Non-profit Communications, websites, Donor management, research

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  Wild Apricot Updates August 2008 The most recent Wild Apricot update was released on August 11th — see more in our July blog post and on the Wild Apricot release history page . The update went without much trouble. The biggest challenge was to reconcile our HTML code changes with some... 08-25-2008, 11:07 AM by Chief_Apricot to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Wild Apricot, nptech

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  6 Sources for Free Map Graphics No budget for custom graphics — yet you need a map for your website or presentation, to help show your membership reach or the areas in which your organization does its work? No problem. The internet offers a variety of free map graphics, many of which... 08-25-2008, 10:59 AM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Google, images, websites, maps

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  Tech Support for Free and Open-Source Software This is the third part of our series on free and open-source software and the resources to help your organization make the most of what FOSS has to offer. When you need to know the meaning of a word, you flip open a dictionary. It’s a trusted authority.... 08-20-2008, 12:55 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, nptech, Volunteers, online community, training, open source

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  A Closer Look at Facebook Events Facebook is fast becoming a popular way to publicize an organization's event, invite guests, and track who plans to attend. Facebook Events may be just what your group needs -- but could you be shutting out some of the people who might support your event?... 08-18-2008, 2:16 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Web 2.0, online community, Social networking, Facebook, case studies, Non-profit Communications, event managment

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  Does Open-Source Software Fall Down on Usability? This is the second part in our series taking a closer look at free and open-source software : the real costs, the barriers, and the trade-offs; the best FOSS alternatives to “brand name” software; and the resources to help you make the most of it. One... 08-15-2008, 9:34 AM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, Usability, nptech, open source

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  An Introduction to Free and Open Source Software As more cash-strapped non-profits, businesses, and individuals turn to free or open-source software to stretch their budgets, the open-source movement is booming. There may be no better time to talk frankly about the realities of using free or open-source... 08-13-2008, 11:07 AM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, online community, open source

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  Statistics for Good A great deal of reliable statistical data has long been available to the public eye — but it’s often been a challenge for resource-strapped nonprofit organizations to track down the information you need for policy development or to support your fundraising... 08-11-2008, 12:14 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, nptech, database, research

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  Techsoup Site Security Breach: Visitors Urged to Take Precautions Techsoup.org , one of the best non-profit resources online, has suffered an SQL Injection attack. The site was taken down promptly when suspicious activity was identified, but Techsoup account holders and anyone who has visited the site in the past few... 08-07-2008, 2:02 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: General News, Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, nptech, Web 2.0, Best practices, websites, security

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  Email-to-Snail-Mail Online Postal Services Has this ever happened to you? The printer jams, just as you’re trying to rush out a newsletter. Or you come up short on stationery and stamps, a few letters short of your mailing list run. Or you’re on the road with only a web-enabled phone at hand,... 08-05-2008, 11:21 AM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, nptech, Web 2.0, E-mail marketing, Non-profit Communications

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  Does Your Nonprofit Need an Email Newsletter Service? Why would your organization want to pay for an email marketing service, instead of simply using Outlook and your regular email server to contact your members? There are a number of compelling reasons why even a small e-newsletter subscription list might... 08-01-2008, 3:27 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Marketing, E-mail marketing, Non-profit Communications, membership

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  How to Make Your Own Custom News Page RSS is a very powerful technology , useful for anyone to gather and digest many information sources in one place — and even more useful for nonprofits to get their information out to their members and supporters. If you were to put all of your most important... 07-29-2008, 4:55 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Web 2.0, Google, Widgets, Non-profit Communications, websites, RSS, spreadsheets, tables

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  Wild Apricot Updates July 2008 Our next Wild Apricot release is just around the corner — scheduled for early August. Here’s what you can look forward to seeing: Authorize.Net payment option. If you have your own merchant account via Authorize.Net payment processor, you can now use... 07-28-2008, 12:14 AM by Chief_Apricot to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Wild Apricot, nptech

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  Next Generation File Sharing Comes Out of the Box Online file sharing service Box.net made Webware’s list of the 100 best Web 2.0 applications for 2008 for three very good reasons. The award's not for its file storage capability, nor for the ability to access and share your stored files online — although... 07-24-2008, 7:58 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Web 2.0, Widgets, collaboration, websites, online storage

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  Top 12 Mind Mapping Tools for Web or Desktop The trick to effective mind mapping is finding the right tool for the job — whether that tool is pen and paper, as Guy Lewis used to unravel his personal life, or dedicated software, as Patrick Lynch used to explain Wild Apricot’s features to his colleagues.... 07-21-2008, 12:33 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Web 2.0, Non-profit Communications, collaboration, open source

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  Get a Quick Word Count Few of us can accurately guess the number of words in a block of text, just by looking at it, even with years of practice. Fortunately, a 'ballpark estimate' is usually good enough for most purposes. There are times, however, when your word count does... 07-17-2008, 6:30 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Web 2.0, Blogging, office

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  Free Toolkit for Selecting Donor Management Software Selecting a donor management system is a big decision for any nonprofit. The right software can go a long way to helping you manage those vital donor relationships — but moving to any new system calls for an investment of time and money, and the software... 07-14-2008, 1:24 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, Fundraising, nptech, database, Donor management

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  Award-Winning Youth Helpline gets Web 2.0 Right People born since 1980 — the first generation to grow up in a wired world — have a whole new set of expectations about communication. Nonprofits who want to reach this audience need to rethink the traditional outreach methods and learn to understand how... 07-09-2008, 4:45 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, nptech, Web 2.0, Best practices, case studies, websites

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  4 Ways to Put a PowerPoint Presentation on Your Web Site If your organization makes PowerPoint slideshows for special events, meetings and conferences, you've probably put a lot of time and effort into creating each one. Why not get extra mileage from those PowerPoint presentations by putting them onto your... 07-07-2008, 10:45 AM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Web 2.0, Widgets, Non-profit Communications, websites, Microsoft, open source, SWF, PowerPoint

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  How to Check Your Website on Different Browsers Cross-browser compatibility has long been a frustration for website designers. What looks fine in one browser may be more or less “broken” in another, with sidebars shifted and elements overlapping... But does it really matter, how your website looks... 07-02-2008, 1:11 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, Usability, nptech, Web 2.0, Best practices, Google Analytics, websites, open source

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  What's Your Rapleaf Reputation - and why should you care? We all know that the Internet is a very public space -- but do we always act that way? The separate compartments of social networking sites, once isolated in their own little boxes, have created an illusion of privacy where none may exist -- and now those... 06-30-2008, 12:43 PM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: General News, Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, nptech, Web 2.0, online community, Social networking, websites

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  Wild Apricot Updates - June 2008 On June 26th, we released our regular update — Wild Apricot version 2.34. The biggest enhancement is what we refer to as the Integrated credit card payment option — yes, we have been working on that one for a while! PayPal is still the payment processor,... 06-26-2008, 7:18 PM by Chief_Apricot to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, Wild Apricot, nptech

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  Facebook Applications for Your Non-Profit Page So you've signed up your nonprofit group for a Facebook Page -- now what? It can be challenging to know what to put on your Page to make the best use of the space, especially if you're setting out to build a new page from scratch. And if you're new to... 06-23-2008, 9:35 AM by Rebecca to Wild Apricot Blog Filed under: Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, nptech, Web 2.0, online community, Facebook