|
Social Source Commons Blog | ||
Nonprofit Tech, Tools and Social Media |
| ||
This week, Aspiration is facilitating the eAdvocacy Jamboree. It’s the fourth part in a series of Aspiration events in which we are attempting to communicate the best practices of online advocacy to nonprofits and political change organizations.
Looking at this from a Social Source Commons perspective, I thought I would make a few posts about the tools that are being discussed and used by our participants.
This is just a quick not to clarify the process for new account registrations. The account creation process is not automated. Instead, what happens is that an email is sent to me requesting a new account, and I set up the new account as soon as I see the email. I then email the person who requested the account back with the pertinent information (such as the password).
If you’re new here and are requesting a new account, please include a valid email in your request. I cannot send you your password without a valid email. Also, please be patient with the account request. I usually get to all requests within a day, but it normally is several hours after the request is made, especially if the request is made overnight (in San Francisco). There is no need to make multiple requests, as I will ignore any requests with duplicate ids.
Recently I learned about BoardnetWork–a web based tool nonprofits can use to manage their Board of Directors. Each board member logs on to this website and can access key board information, read board meeting minutes, access board training resources, and find out when the next board meeting. This seems very useful, however I wonder how many boards are actually using this type of software?
At Aspiration we use a software tool called Basecamp that works as a project management tool and has some of the same features as BoardnetWork in the generic sense. We provided Basecamp access to our board members so they can view upcoming meetings, read meeting minutes and important organizational documents, however they rarely access their Basecamp account. Do you use an online software tool to manage your Board of Directors and does your board like being able to access all your organizational documents online?
In the interest of my question above, I created a community toolbox called Board Management for Nonprofits. Please feel free to add a tool you are using to manage your Board of Directors or check out what is already listed there. Thanks!
We just rolled a new version of SSC live this weekend, and wanted to tell you about new features and new mischief…
We have added several features to better support Community Toolboxes:
In addition, there are now better “tag cloud” management features when browsing by tag; you can expand and shrink the cloud to change the number of displayed tags.
We also fixed a few bugs and usability issues folks had shared with us. Please keep that feedback coming, WE LOVE IT!
And now for the MISCHIEF! We got tired of staring at all the silhouettes of folks who hadn’t uploaded an image for their account, so we took the liberty of randomly generating images for folks who hadn’t set their own picture. If you’ve been living on SSC as a silhouette, you can see if you approve of your new image , and change it if you don’t. And if you hate us for taking away your sexy silhouette, just let us know; we’re glad to put it back the way it was :^)
Finally, we added a “History and Appreciations” page to help tell the story of SSC. Have a look and find out more about the folks who have helped bring the platform to life.
Thanks from the whole SSC Team!
Every so often I’ll come across a tool that is not in SSC and I’ll wonder how, with over 1600 tools in our database, it could possibly have been overlooked. A few months ago I had one of these moments with Microsoft Word, which was not in the database even though we had every other MS Office tool.
Today, I had this realization again with both Google Maps.
Read more »
On a daily basis, I sort through several blogs and articles in order to find new information to put on SSC. Most of the time I’m searching for new tools, but often I get good articles about how to effectively use tools already in the system, or reviews that compare two or more similar tools. I thought I would go through my favorite sites and mention why they are very helpful for finding new info for SSC. In part one, I will detail the sites and blogs that focus on technology for the nonprofit sector.
Since coming to Aspiration, a large portion of my job has been spent filling out the database of tools that we have on SSC. Mostly, this is done by me going through a series of blogs and bookmarking sites to see if there if there are any interesting new tools or information about existing tools in our database. It is not difficult to find software that is not in our database, but simply finding a new piece of software is not enough to justify my entering it into the database.
Read more »
My name is Heather Carpenter, I’m Assistant Director at Aspiration. My passion is nonprofit operations and I also write the Nonprofit Management and Operations blog on Aspiration’s website. I added software to my toolbox a while ago, however I really like to new community toolbox feature on SSC and just added the following community toolboxes:
1. 5 Tools Nonprofit Operations Managers Can’t Live Without
2. Good Financial Management Tools for Nonprofits
3. Good HR Management Tools for Nonprofits
4. Tools I use to Manage Events
I had trouble populating the “Good HR Management Tools for Nonprofits” so Zac Mutrux of Sarai who also works here at the Tech Center helped me with this list. I’m always interested in finding out what software other nonprofits are using to managing their operations, so if there is a good software tool you use to manage your HR systems, finances, or events, please let me know.
Thanks!
Heather
Continuing with our profiling of new Community Toolboxes, we move on to Amanda Hickman‘s Recycle-A-Bicycle Toolbox.
Amanda is a consultant in Brooklyn, NY. She also directs communications at Recycle-A-Bicycle, for whom she created this toolbox. I recently chatted with her over email.
It’s been a few weeks now since we added the Community Toolbox feature to SSC, and we’ve had some great toolboxes added to the site. I thought I would take some time to detail a few of the new toolboxes, and get some input from the creators of the toolboxes as far as what they are thinking with the tools they included.
First up is Rolf Kleef. He’s a freelancer at drostan.org in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and he created a killer Web development toolbox. I recently talked with Rolf over email about his toolbox.
|
Paper: Aspiration Manifesto |
|
|
Book:
Open Translation Tools |
|
|
Paper: Creating Participatory Events |
Recent Comments