Nonprofits looking to start using social media as a marketing tool will find a wealth of sound advice online, but putting the pieces together into a solid strategy? That's the real challenge. No one simple strategy will work for every nonprofit group. (In fact, trying to give step-by-step ''one size fits all'' directions for using social media is ...

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 can be viewed by anyone on the Web  is often more effective than just having a ...

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. It gives the information you need to use an essential tool (language) more ...

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, by relying solely on Facebook to manage it? The fact is, for non-members of the site, ...

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 software in your organization. For just about any type of “brand name” software you can ...

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 boxes are opening wide. Consider this: Rapleaf alone has created over 50 million ...

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 Facebook, it may seem there's a bewildering array of applications to choose from. Michelle ...

New features and other enhancements have been added to Facebook since Wild Apricot's Beginner's Guide to Facebook for Non-Profits, and nonprofits are learning more about making the best use of the popular social networking site. We've talked about setting up a Facebook account and Profile, and a bit about Groups. Let's take a quick look now at ...

''Welcome to the age of the crowd,'' wrote Jeff Howe in The Rise of Crowdsourcing (2006). In coining the term crowdsourcing, Howe pointed to the rise of the open-source software movement; to the success of user-created Wikipedia; and to profitable businesses like MySpace and eBay ''that couldn't exist without the contribution of users.'' Howe put ...

  Tim Fullerton is the Online Communications Lead for Oxfam America, an organization committed to creating lasting solutions to poverty, hunger and injustice. In the following interview, Tim and I talk about the use of social networking sites MySpace to reach out to people, build a community and recruit new activists and donors. ...