Rapid Response Pays Off, Consulting Group Finds
When people sign up to receive online newsletters and other information from a charity, they usually get little more than an acknowledgment from the organization for at least a month. Cutting that lag time can produce fund-raising benefits for nonprofit groups, according to a new background paper…
By Holly Hall
Contributor
Bits: Mal Warwick Associates To Acquire Donordigital
Mal Warwick Associates, a fund-raising consulting company in Berkeley, Calif., has announced that it intends to acquire Donordigital, a consulting company in San Francisco that specializes in online fund raising. For more information: Go to http://www.malwarwick.com or http://www.donordigital.com.…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Pop-Up Box Prompts Donors to Share Views
A simple pop-up box has given the University of Pennsylvania a window into the minds of its online donors. After donors make an Internet gift to the university’s annual fund, a screen comes up with their receipt, along with a pop-up box that asks if they would like to say why they made their…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Web Site Seeks ‘Filmanthropists’
SnagFilms, a new Web site that gives viewers free access to full-length documentaries online, offers a new distribution method for filmmakers whose work often languishes beyond the reach of moviegoers — and gives film buffs another way to support causes highlighted in documentaries. The site, which…
By CANDIE JONES
Contributor
Bits: eBay Giving Works Passes $150-Million Mark
United Way of America has sold its employee-giving campaign software, United eWay, to CreateHope, an online-giving company in Washington, to start a new company, Truist. United Way will be the largest shareholder. For more information: Go to http://www.truist.com. eBay Giving Works, a program that…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Microsoft Site Offers Donation Guidelines
NGO Connection, a new Web site created by the Microsoft Corporation, brings together information about the company’s grant making and software-donation program with case studies that show how nonprofit organizations have used technology to improve their operations. The site is scheduled to be…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Baseball Appeals Test Donations by Text Message
Baseball fans with mobile phones who watched the Washington Nationals play the Houston Astros last week were invited to support Children’s National Medical Center’s work to fight pediatric diabetes by sending a text message to make an instant $5 donation, which was then charged to their…
By CANDIE JONES
Contributor
Effort Links Charities With News-Media Sites
A new Internet service, Good2gether, seeks to connect people and causes by distributing nonprofit information to high-traffic Web sites, such as those run by newspapers and television stations. Information from the service currently appears on The Boston Globe’s Web site, Boston.com. Nonprofit…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Ford Foundation Official Warns About Dangers of Alternative Investments
As endowments increase their allocations to alternative assets, skeptics have generally focused on two risks of such investments: their high fees, which eat into returns, and their tendency to use lots of debt, which can spell disaster when investments drop sharply. Now an investing expert at the…
By Ben Gose
Senior Editor
Mich. Hospital Offers Online Wish List to Donors
An online effort to assist entrepreneurs in developing countries served as inspiration when a hospital foundation in Grand Rapids, Mich., decided to expand its Internet fund raising. Officials at the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital and Spectrum Health Foundations say they looked to the successful…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Ex-Supreme Court Justice Promotes Game Project
Sandra Day O’Connor does not play video games. But she believes in their potential. In her keynote speech at the Games for Change conference in New York this month, the retired Supreme Court justice discussed her latest project, Our Courts, an online interactive digital game and civics curriculum…
By Alison Stein Wellner
Contributor
Red Cross Experiments With Disaster Blogs
As flood waters inundated large swaths of the Midwest, the American Red Cross used two blogs to get information out to the public. The organization used blogging software to create an online newsroom that brought together information about shelter locations and feeding programs, news alerts, and…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Bits: Microsoft Donates to the National Fund for Workforce Solutions
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is holding a workshop entitled “Amassing a Grass-Roots Army to Engage in Election 2008" in Washington on June 17. Another workshop, “Intelligence, Media Monitoring, and Tracking the Buzz,” is scheduled for September 30. For more information: Go to…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Grants Awarded to Test Ideas for Healthy Games
Games continue to capture the attention of the nonprofit world as potential tools for change. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is giving more than $2-million in grants through its Health Games Research program for a dozen studies that explore how video games can motivate people to take steps to…
By Alison Stein Wellner
Contributor
New Site Promotes Nonprofit Research
IssueLab, a new organization in Chicago, is using the Internet to try to win greater exposure for research conducted by nonprofit organizations. “Our efforts are evenly split between providing a platform for organizations to archive that work, and pushing that work back out to journalists and…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Text Messages Tested as Solicitation Tool
The Mobile Giving Foundation, in Bellevue, Wash., hopes to bolster charitable giving via text messaging by bringing charities and cellphone companies together to reach wireless users in the United States. “Mobile has not been available to nonprofits up until now,” says Jim Manis, founder of the…
By CANDIE JONES
Contributor