Archive for November, 2008

Best Practices for Managing a Database

“After people, data is your most important asset.” — John Kenyon

Left unattended, databases will turn into piles of mush. Therefore, develop data entry policies and procedures, and train everyone who enters data.
Excel is not a database, and is one of the leading causes of dirty data. It is difficult to enforce data entry [...]

Filed in Advancement Services, Databases 4 Comments so far

NTEN’s Donor Management Software Satisfaction Survey Results

NTEN has released the results of its donor management software customer satisfaction survey. Over 1,000 respondents rated a variety of systems, including custom databases.

The report focuses on 15 systems that each received 10 or more responses. (The five that received the most responses were The Raiser’s Edge, OnDeposit, GiftWorks, CiviCRM, and eTapestry.) Both GiftWorks and [...]

Filed in Advancement Services, Donor Databases, Fundraising, TechSoup Comments Off

Vodaphone Wireless Innovation Challenge

The Vodafone Americas Foundation has launched the Wireless Innovation Challenge.  This is a new competition that seeks to identify and fund the best innovations using wireless related technology to address critical social issues around the world.

Three winners will be awarded prizes of $300,000, $200,000 and $100,000 for unique, late-stage wireless innovations that offer the best [...]

Filed in Mobile Communications, TechSoup Comments Off

CASE Online Fundraising Survey

It’s been three years since CASE last ran its survey on online fundraising. We’re in the planning stages to launch an updated survey early next year. Prior versions focused primarily on email appeals. This time we’re planning a broader look at how CASE member institutions are raising money online. [...]

Filed in Online Fundraising 5 Comments so far

Internet Brand Justice & Safety Dept.

I recently received the following email:
Dear Robert L. Weiner Consulting,
We are a domain name register center in China. We have something important need to confirm with you. On the Nov23,2008, We received an application formally,one company which self-styled ” Robert L. Weiner Consulting Development Co.,Ltd. ” wanted to register ” [...]

Filed in Web 27 Comments so far

A Few Good Donor Management Tools

TechSoup and Idealware have published A Few Good Donor Management Tools. The article provides a roundup of a dozen donor databases based on interviews with six consultants, including moi.

Filed in Donor Databases, Fundraising, Software No Responses yet

Relationship mapping software reviews

After reading several listserve discussions of the use of relationship mapping tools for prospect research, the WellStar Foundation’s David Broussard decided to get serious about the subject. The result is a website called Relationship Map Reviews. The site describes relationship mapping as
a visual representation of relationships between individuals, organizations, companies, and other entities.
As [...]

Filed in Prospect Research No Responses yet

What do nonprofits want to know about email marketing?

ANSWR (Aggregated Nonprofit Software Resources), a project of Aspiration and TechSoup, aims to “provide a unified marketplace of knowledge, resources, and services, designed to meet the specific technology demands of nonprofit organizations” — a one-stop shop for learning about how nonprofits can use technology. They’re building a site that will combine “user-contributed content, [...]

Filed in Email Marketing, Online Fundraising No Responses yet

What Obama Can Teach You About Millennial Marketing

Writing in Advertising Age, Peter Feldman says Barak Obama’s campign “shows pitch-perfect understanding of the keys to appealing to the youngest voters.” I learned about the article from TargetX’s Email Minute newsletter, which provided the following summary:
Barack Obama’s appeal to young voters has not gone unnoticed by the advertising industry. Long identified as a [...]

Filed in Social Media, Web 2.0 No Responses yet

Major Spammer Haven Shut Down: Spam Volumes Drop by Two-Thirds

The Washington Posts’s Security Fix blog reports that spam volumes declined by 2/3 after an ISP that was hosting spam operations was taken offline. The story:

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Filed in Spam, TechSoup Comments Off

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