Bits: A Software Site Shuts Down; Popular Online Forum Is Revived; and iGive Gifts Top $1-Billion
The Nonprofit Software Index, a Web site that described software programs designed for charities, shut down last month “due to resource constraints.” The site had been maintained by William A. Kleintop, a professor at Seton Hall University. Marshall M. Burkes, Internet services administrator at the…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A New Source of Technology Help
Community technology centers, which originally were founded to provide technology access to people in low-income areas, have started to provide technology assistance to local nonprofit organizations, according to a new report published by the Community Technology Centers’ Network, in Cambridge,…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Foundation Uses Internet to Help Hunger Groups
Alan Shawn Feinstein says that he will donate $5 to anti-hunger groups for each person who visits his foundation’s Help the Hungry Web site by the end of the year, up to a total of $1-million. Since 1998 the Feinstein Foundation, in Cranston, R.I., has given away $1-million each year to anti-hunger…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Federal Program Awards $12.4-Million
The Technology Opportunities Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce has awarded grants totaling $12.4-million to 25 nonprofit organizations and state and local governments. Since 1994, the program has awarded grants for innovative projects that demonstrate how information technology can be put…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Using Radar Technology to Track Migratory Birds
The same doppler-radar technology that meteorologists use to forecast the weather is helping the Nature Conservancy, in Arlington, Va., identify where songbirds rest during their migratory flights, thus indicating where the group should focus its conservation efforts to preserve the birds’ habitat.…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Web Site Links Donors and Teachers
A New York charity is using the Internet to carry out its motto: “Every teacher a grant writer, every citizen a philanthropist.” DonorsChoose’s Web site matches donors with public-school teachers who have innovative ideas for student projects that aren’t covered by school funds. Charles Best, a…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
The Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network, a national organization for individuals, charities, and businesses that provide technology assistance to nonprofit groups, will hold two regional conferences this fall. The group will meet October 31-November 1 in Chicago, and November 19-20 in Boston.…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A Patent Example of Competition
Kintera, a company in San Diego that leases software that helps nonprofit organizations raise money online, has submitted 13 patent applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The company says it is only trying to protect its intellectual property. But some in the nonprofit world…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest’s revamped Web site features a list of election-year dos and don’ts for nonprofit organizations, examples of successful nonprofit lobbying efforts, and a new service that allows visitors to e-mail their advocacy questions to the Washington organization’s…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
E-Mail Promotion Powers Bikeathon
Riders who sign up for the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, a two-day charity bikeathon, agree to raise at least $1,000 for cancer care and research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in Boston. This summer participants in the August ride got an electronic boost for their fund-raising efforts.…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A New Resource for Disabled Students
Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, a nonprofit organization in Princeton, N.J., hopes that its new digitally recorded textbooks will make reading assignments and research a little easier for students who have physical or learning disabilities. This week the organization will introduce its new…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Bits: Grants Aid Technology Projects, Fund-Raising Tips for Groups That Help Animals
The United Negro College Fund, in Fairfax, Va., has received $25-million worth of software from the Microsoft Corporation, in Redmond, Wash. This gift brings the total that the fund has raised for its Technology Enhancement Capital Campaign (The Chronicle, April 4) to $118.9-million in cash,…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
California Group Starts Site to Aid Poor
Two years ago the Children’s Partnership, a public-policy organization in Santa Monica, Calif., released research findings that identified a lack of useful information on the Internet for people who are poor or are members of minority groups, have limited literacy skills, or do not speak English.…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Lighthearted E-Mail Drive Raises $80,000
Grist Magazine describes its environmental coverage as “gloom and doom with a sense of humor” -- an irreverent approach that the online publication successfully applied to its first e-mail fund-raising campaign. Based in Seattle, Grist publishes a daily e-mail digest that summarizes the day’s…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
New Donation Site Helps U.K. Charities
A new giving site allows donors in the United Kingdom to make online contributions to any charity in the country -- regardless of whether those groups have an Internet presence of their own. GiveNow.org is a joint project of the Charities Aid Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Kent, England,…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Nonprofit Groups Shine in Web-Site Honors
Nonprofit organizations made their mark at the 2002 Webby Awards by taking top honors in eight categories. Given by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, an association for online-communication professionals, the Webbys honor Internet sites in 30 categories, such as activism,…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor