A couple interesting factoids appear in the April 14th Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Newspaper of the Nonprofit World: Results of a survey, Direct Marketing for the Nonprofit Sector report that only 1% of the respondants cited the ability to be able to contribute online as a factor in giving. Five percent cited requests from fundraisers as a reason to contribute, and two percent cited employer involvement. Among the less effective techniques were infomercials, email, telemarketing, and telethons. The survey, by a company called “Formula PR”, perhaps not surprisingly, found an increase in those who responded to direct mail.

A new edition of PC Annoyances, from O’Reilly, entitiled, surprise! PC Annoynances Second Edition. Here is a sample chapter from the book, convering eMail problems. It includes tips on OutLook, OutLook Expess, Eudora, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, attachments, spam, you-name-it. Great stuff. Entry level.

I’ve been swatting away at a revised version of our web site using Macromedia Contribute. This is an easy way to update existing web sites.  I use this to do monthly updates for our local consulting group as well. A revelation, yesterday, however, with Contribute; The program does not keep more than a single copy around of a particular file. That is, if you edit a web page, it downloads a local copy for editing, and then when you make your changes and post those changes to the web site it deletes the draft on your local disk. 

I suppose this wouldn’t be a huge problem, except as I was creating my revised web site, I was trying to hoe out the folder on the web server, and I deleted all of the newly posted  revisions as well as all the old stuff, and I ended up with…nothing.  

This violates the unwritten law of backups, which is, “if you don’t normally back things up, at least have two copies of everything that you aren’t backing up stored on different machines.” So, I lost a couple hours work.

Other than that minor problem, I like Contribute very much. Being graphically challenged, I used a template that came with the program. Contribute doesn’t require you to use html code, and in fact, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t allow you to get at the code.  The templates look OK, better than anything I could come up with on my own, and for my business purposes, (and maybe 90% of all other businesses and non-profits), they are good enough.

Not bad for a $135.00 program.  

Alternatives: NetObjects Fusion which is what I’ve used for a million years, and which appears to be chugging along. Microsoft FrontPage which comes with several versions of Office, so maybe you already own it.

Database 101

There seems to be a lot of mystery about databases.

Here is a brief introduction with definitions.

www.efax.com

Welcome to Tech for Non Profits. As the banner says, non-profit organizations (NGOs) need technology as much as for-profit businesses. As consultants to non-profit clients, we are interested in finding hardware and software for office networks that provides outstanding value both for the money invested but also for the time required to get them working.

Upcoming discussions  this month may include “cheap router hell”, ongoing database evaluation, and more on videoconferencing and voice over IP. Also, I received a new Dell 2800 server, which, although built like a tank, looks very, very nice.

Comments and suggestions are appreciated. And drop by the Microdesign Consulting web site.

http://network.gouldacademy.org/

http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/table.shtml

An excellent listing of all kinds of computer applications which lists alternatives both for Windows and for Linux. 

Going Public: An Organizer’s Guide to Citizen Action

by Michael Gecan

Excerpt:

The dynamic of the relational culture is created by leaders who initiate and deepen and multiply effective public relationships. These leaders know, consciously or unconsciously, that their ability to act depends on the number and quality of relationships that they and their colleagues can muster and sustain. They see themselves as recruiters, talent scouts, and trainers. They look for other leaders, not passive followers or adoring dependents. Their bottom line is not profit and loss, or clients served, but expanding pools of reciprocity and trust among people who can act with purpose and power.

Excerpt:

Start on time and end on time. Recognize yourself and one another. Hold yourself accountable (“South Bronx Churches has thirty-five leaders here today!”), so that you can demand public accountability from others and hold them to it. Take the power you build and test it against the power of others. Bring energy, joy, and irreverence to the public square, not just ideology, self-reighteousness, and rote reenactments. Don’t be deterred with others won’t engage. Flow around the obstacles. Persist in unexpected ways.