Wednesday, June 25, 2008

While the age old Washington practice of coddling elected officials with large sums of cash is now looked upon with great disdain, the ethical advocacy efforts of nonprofits must not be placed alongside the actions of unethical and opportunistic lobbyists. A recent op-ed in The Chronicle of Philanthropy , by David Cohen and Larry Ottinger, provides ample justification for not drawing a parallel between the advocacy efforts of big businesses and the advocacy work of nonprofits. Aside from explaining the basic components of a proposed set of ethical principles for nonprofits, this op-ed also calls for increased numbers of pro bono lobbying and a more recent review of the original ethics code.

Cohen and Ottinger remind readers that: Public interest lobbying helps ensure that our government remains a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Posted by Andrea Wilson

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Rad, an online communications firm, shares several tips on how to improve your organization’s online profile:

1. Expand Your Circle of Friends: Use the search feature to recruit more users whom might be interested in your organization.

2. Profile Maintenance: Keep your organziation’s profile “fresh” by updating it once or twice a week with new facts, stories, videos, blog entries, photos, etc.

3. Casual Replies Win the Day: Messaging should not be wonky or preachy, a casual tone shall suffice.

4. Get to the Point: With hundreds of other organizational profiles competing to get their message out, shorter messages with links to more detailed information may be preferred to more lengthy descriptions.

5. Two-Way Communications: Asking members or friends to comment on various items posted to your profile and responding to their posts helps users know someone is reading their posts.



Posted by Andrea Wilson





Friday, June 13, 2008

Democracy In Action Conference

If your organization is a member of Democracy In Action, only three days remain to register for DIA’s very fist community conference. From June 26-27, member organizations will have the opportunity to participate in several breakout sessions stemming from three common tracks:

a) Online Tools & Strategies

b) Customization & Integration of the e-Customer Marketing Relationship (CMR) tool SALSA

c) Technical Support for Customizing SALSA and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

With a keynote address by Lawrence Lessig and guidance from nonprofit IT leaders such as the Center for American Progress, Watershed, Bullseye Interactive Media and many others, this conference will provide several opportunities to glean expert advice from online fundraising and advocacy experts. To register, click here.

Posted by Andrea Wilson





Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Grants for Clean Elections Projects


Molilize.org is seeking grant applications from groups with ideas on how to engage young voters and encourage clean elections. The deadline is June 15.

The group's statement said it is:

focusing efforts on empowering members of the Millennial Generation to develop innovative clean elections practices, emphasizing the creation of public finance reforms at the local and state level. These types of reforms are intended to give voters more control over the government by making politicians accountable to voters rather than wealthy campaign contributors