Since launching in 2006, Wild Apricot's mission has been to help
non-profits, small associations, and other member-driven organizations
with their technology challenges through our software, and also by
sharing useful information through this blog. The blog has evolved
over the years to reflect the trends of the time and the interests of
the community. When our beloved "Curious Apricot" Rebecca Leaman
joined us at the beginning of 2008, she brought a dedication to
unearthing the latest web technology news and putting it in a context
that non-profit leaders could understand and act on to make their
organizations better. We subsequently added additional blogs: "Behind
the Scenes at Wild Apricot" chronicles our membership software
development; and our most recent addition, "Association Ideas," is
focused on helping volunteer-driven association leaders with their
technology challenges. We also have a Wild Apricot News page where we
post occasional stories about our media coverage and other happenings
with the company.
As we created each of these blogs, each had a slightly different
purpose – in theory – but lots of overlap in practice. We soon realized
we'd created a lot more complexity, both for ourselves and for our
community. For example, which blog would you look to for a discussion
about website development best practices for your organization? Well,
it could be any of them! We've also realized that the non-profit and
association communities have a lot in common, as far as their interest
and experience with Internet technology goes, and could benefit greatly
from more "cross-pollination" in this area.
As a result of this, after some careful consideration, we've decided
to fold our other blogs and have just one: the Wild Apricot Blog,
covering a range of technology subjects of interest (we hope!) to
non-profit and association leaders. The blog will include a bit more
content about Wild Apricot software and news than it has in the recent
past, but we'll definitely continue to look beyond our own walls to
help you simplify life for yourself and your members, volunteers, and
supporters.
Also, as near as we can tell, Rebecca spends every waking minute
investigating new technology and blogging about it, but she actually
has a lot of projects on the go besides Wild Apricot. As a result we've
been talking to her about dialing back her posting frequency, to help
her protect her sanity and get some occasional sleep. But don't worry,
Rebecca-fans, she's not going away completely for a while -- she just
won't be blogging at the same frenetic pace as she has in the past.
You'll also start to see some new Apricots (including myself)
contributing more regularly.
We're very proud of the body of work that Rebecca has created on
this blog, and we want to continue providing valuable information for
this amazing community of readers, commenters, and social media
sharers. We definitely appreciate any comments you have and hope to
continue hearing from you as we go forward.