SSC Toolbox Social Source Commons Blog

Nonprofit Tech, Tools and Social Media

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Author Archives: Matt

How Can We Make SSC Toolboxes More Valuable for You?

Toolboxes on Social Source Commons are great. We love them. Users love them. They’re selling out shows on Wednesday nights. Amazing right? Well, I know that I’ve always had tweaks and changes that I’d like to make to the toolbox interface and I’m thinking that beautiful users like yourself might as well. We love SSC […]

Data: Your Most Important Tech Asset

As much as we love tools here at SSC, we find that many nonprofits focus too much on them when thinking about their technology strategy and infrastructure. While tools are an important and necessary piece, it’s important that an organization focus on the more crucial piece of the technological equation: the data. When thinking about […]

Wall Street Journal Data Transparency Weekend Tools

Recently, a group of coders gathered together in Greenwich Village to put together tools to promote privacy, security and data transparency. This was the The Wall Street Journal Data Transparency Weekend. Aspiration was excited to be involved in such an important movement happening in tool development. You can see photos from the weekend on Flickr […]

Facebook Page vs. Group Post Updated

Hi Folks, just wanted to let you know that we’ve updated our Facebook Page vs. Group blog post to match current, April 2012 reality, knowing full well that it will change after I hit “Publish” 🙂 Take a look at our updated chart below and click on it to get more details from the post

Matt’s Tools for Putting Together an HTML Email Newsletter

Continuing the email newsletter support that started with Why HTML Email Newsletter Editors Suck, I put together a toolbox on Social Source Commons of tools that I use at Aspiration to create our HTML email newsletters. The Custom Description Text of each tool tells you a little bit about why I use the tool and […]

Why HTML Email Newsletter Editors Suck

One of the biggest complaints we get from nonprofits as they mature in their online communications is that creating properly-functioning formatted (i.e. HTML) emails in their email blaster is a pain in the @$$. The trouble is that having regular email blasts as an organization is seen as a baseline measure of organizational online competancy […]

Managing Multiple People Doing Online Communications

Social networks were not invented for ease of organizational use. Individual accounts… Attached to personal networks… New Year’s Photos seen by all… Cats and Dogs LIVING TOGETHER. Many a sticky situation has arisen from the organization using tools designed for individuals to try to get actual work done. Then trying to add a couple more […]

Using Closed vs. Open Web Site Tools as a Nonprofit

Recently, we had a conversation with an organization who was getting pressure to use a closed tool called Jimdo rather than the open-source tool, WordPress for their web site. Jimdo seemed easier and quicker and they wanted to know what we thought about it. Here’s a couple points that we brought up with them: Using […]

Engaging Network Hubs

One of the best ways to take advantage of social networks is to realize that they work just like in-person social networks. Well. Maybe not JUST like in-person social networks. There isn’t much handshaking going on, but the underlying strategies and mutual back-scratching of in-person relationships and network-building are still there. One tactic to broaden […]

A Template for Calendaring Your Messaging

One of the best practices often overlooked by many “I’m spinning too many plates on long skinny poles” nonprofits is calendaring out the messaging your organization is going to send ahead of time. Akin to flossing, calendaring your messaging ahead of time is something that organizations think that they should do but don’t see the […]

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