NASCO Institute 2009 Handout

Andy Wolber
	Email andy@mnaonline.org
	Phone 313-394-1991
	Twitter http://www.twitter.com/awolber
	TechGuide http://techguide.npowermichigan.org
	Slides http://www.slideshare.net/npowermichigan
	Bookmarks http://www.delicious.com/npowermichigan
Introduction
	"Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker guide to working smarter, faster, better." http://www.lifehacker.com/.  Link to the book on Amazon.com: http://j.mp/4scqPx. 
	"Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working from GigaOM's Web Worker Daily." http://www.webworkerdaily.com/. Link to the book on Amazon.com: http://j.mp/4teZly.
	URL shorteners enable link shortening (obviously). More importantly, they enable tracking: http://j.mp/
	Resources http://www.drop.io/andywolber
Some Basics...
	"A Guide to Managing ICT in the Voluntary and Community Sector" http://j.mp/1d5Huz
	Scan for viruses, spyware and malware
		Do a complete system scan for viruses using http://housecall.trendmicro.com
	Protect against viruses and malware
		If you do not already have current anti-virus software, install Microsoft Security Essentials at http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/. This may be installed on all up-to-date Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 systems.
	Configure OpenDNS.com
		OpenDNS improves security by providing web content filtering and anti-phishing. Follow the instructions at https://www.opendns.com/start/ to configure DNS for your computer, router or DNS server.
	Defragment your hard drive
		Download and install Auslogics' Disk Defrag program from http://j.mp/4ofVX8. Install and use this program to defragment your hard drive. The program typically completes defragmenting your files much more quickly than Microsoft's built-in defragmentation software.
	Backup 
		Small and mid-sized nonprofits commonly used tape or external hard drives for backup purposes. New alternatives, such as Mozy Pro (http://mozy.com/non-profit) and JungleDisk (http://www.jungledisk.com/) provide affordable, off-site, automated backup over the Internet.
	Network Attached Storage
		Synology (http://www.synology.com/)
		QNAP (http://www.qnap.com/)
	Purchasing at a discount
		http://www.TechSoup.com/products provides discounted software (and a small amount of hardware, such as the Flip videocamera) to registered nonprofits. Be sure to check the vendor restrictions!
		http://www.giftsinkind.org/
		http://www.cdw.com/content/segments/nonprofit.aspx
		http://www.ccbnonprofits.com/
	Remote access to a computer for free:http://www.logmein.com. Note that this does require software installation and the computer to be on. (For on-the-go troubleshooting of another person computer, consider http://www.zolved.com/remote_control.)
	http://www.getdropbox.com simplifies file syncing across multiple computers and mobile devices.
	http://www.xmarks.com/ syncs bookmarks between browsers on multiple computers.
Meetings
	http://www.MeetingWizard.com/ streamlines the process of scheduling a multi-person meeting.
	http://www.tungle.com/ enables calendar syncing, with the intent of making it simpler for others to schedule a meeting with you.
	http://www.FreeConferenceCall.com/ provides free conference calling. The dial-in number is typically a long-distance number, so the parties involved in the conference each pay whatever long-distance fees they would typically incur by dialing that number.
	Idealware.org provides a variety of reports of software and tools relevant to the nonprofit sector. A typical article is their "A Few Good Online Conferencing Tools" at http://j.mp/lPQnl.
	http://www.DimDim.com/ and http://www.Yugma.com/ both provide free web conferencing tools for small groups (up to 15-20 participants). Paid versions typically support up to 50 participants at a cost of around $250 annually.
Google Apps
	The Google Apps Education Edition is available free if you have fewer than 3,000 users. More information on all of Google Nonprofit offerings at http://www.google.com/nonprofits/.
	Support for setting up Google Apps is available online: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=22229&topic=22241#148995. 
	Video explanations of Google Apps can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleApps. 
	For additional tips, take a look at the book Google Apps Hacks by Philipp Lenssen.
Website
	Link to participating organizations' websites: http://LinkBun.ch/g8jo. Note that Linkbun.ch enables you to share a SINGLE link that opens a page with LOTS of other links. It's a great way to share a list of resources with one link.
	Dreamhost provides free hosting for approved nonprofits (see http://j.mp/DreamhostFree). They have a very easy-to-deploy process for setting up Wordpress and several other content management systems.
	Many small nonprofits use Paypal to accept donations. The process for setting this up is online at https://www.paypal.com/nonprofits
	Overview of many other alternatives and resources at TechSoup: http://blog.techsoup.org/node/530. (The TechSoup blog is in transition. If this link doesn't work, see resources available about online donations at www.Idealware.org, as well.)
	Website traffic information
		Google Analytics provides useful information about your website traffic: http://analytics.google.com. Even better, it is free.
		"50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics" posting at Network For Good's website: http://j.mp/21PZWL.
	Email
		Email remains the most effective way to drive traffic to a site. Useful analysis of email campaigns and tactics found in the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, online at http://www.e-benchmarksstudy.com/
		Training on various online campaign strategies at http://www.fundraising123.org/training/
		Vertical Response provides some nonprofits with free email campaign tools: http://bit.ly/4nxmHs
		http://www.ConstantContact.com is also widely used. (They also just entered the event registration market.)
	http://www.AllForGood.org is an aggregator of volunteer opportunities
Social Media
	Solid research and case studies of social media adoption from Forrester Reseach. Book is titled Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. More info here: http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell. 
	The Case Foundation resources and example site: http://j.mp/3gVTse
	American Red Cross guide: http://j.mp/2FKJsn
	Widely read nonprofit blogger, Beth Kanter (http://j.mp/NxTzk) posted a great video showing advanced RSS feed manipulating "Filtering Your Feeds: Marshall's Yahoo Pipes Screencast". Her main blog is at http://beth.typepad.com.
	Twitter
		http://www.FutureTweets.com/ enables scheduled Twittering.
		http://www.coTweet.com/ enables multiple users and multiple accounts to use Twitter.
	http://Ping.fm/ simplifies publishing your posts to multiple social networks.
	http://www.posterous.com/ can aggregate postings FROM multiple sites and/or simplify posting TO multiple social media sites. It also enables simple posting from email.
	SMS
		http://www.Textmarks.com provides ad-supported text response or broadcast services, or paid-versions are available.  Try sending "npowermi" to 41411, for example.
		Sample of how these type of apps are evolving on campuses: http://www.mbusreloaded.com/.
	Social media policies
		Top 10 Guidelines: http://j.mp/HHfRa
		Social Media Governance policy examples: http://j.mp/3z9mDS.
	Private, Twitter-like collaboration available at http://www.yammer.com, http://www.present.ly, and http://j.mp/Socialtext.
Databases 
	www.HelpSpot.com example software available for purchase or hosting (http://j.mp/HostedHelpSpot).
	Low-cost, integrated membership management, event and website software as a service: http://www.WildApricot.com
	Hosted database platform
		http://www.SalesforceFoundation.org provides up to 10 Enterprise user licenses to nonprofit organizations for their online database service.
		http://www.SalesforceFoundation.org/resources has links to most of the key resources you'll need to learn more or leverage Salesforce for your nonprofit.
Mashups
	http://www.flickr.com/map provide geographic mapping of shared photos.
	http://www.mapalist.com takes addresses from a Google spreadsheet, then maps them using Google Maps (or Google Earth).
	More mapping resources in this article from CNET: http://j.mp/aBoGc.
Great resource for Web 2.0-type apps: http://go2web20.net. 
On-going resource bookmarking at http://www.delicious.com/NPowerMichigan