This article is part of a series on the most useful free technology tools for nonprofits and philanthropic foundations. Guidestar is a website with the primary purpose of posting the tax forms of nonprofits. Although you may not pay much attention to it, donors and funders do. Guidestar is the leading source of information about U.S.

Have you done any research lately? don't mean a fancy poll, but just a survey, or even some brief interviews with the people you serve. Most nonprofits could benefit from doing more survey research -- free, of course. got to thinking about this because I was working on a marketing plan for a very small church daycare center.

This chart, which is specific to the use of technology within the nonprofit sector, comes from the excellent study, "Nonprofit Technology Survey 2008" from the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management. There is a lot of room for growth in terms of blogging, social networking, and Web interactivity. But I just want to start with the correct premise.

As we all look forward and adopt new technologies like e-newsletters, facebook, Twitter , etc., it is worthwhile to remember that direct mail is still the king in the nonprofit world for fundraising and other purposes, such as newsletters. Here is an excerpt of an article shared by one of my colleagues. No sales, no income. Geography Saturation.

Most nonprofits spend most of their time and get most of their results from grassroots marketing. posters, fliers, yard signs, events -- that type of thing. With so many media outlets available, the general audience has its attention fragmented in multiple directions. There's MySpace , Twitter, Facebook , YouTube, etc. So what do you see?

How many of you have taken Andy Goodman’s storytelling seminar ? Pretty mind-blowing, huh?  Andy unlocks the secrets of good story-telling, decoding a formula for narrative going at least back to Aristotle’s Poetics. There are easily thousands of non-profit communicators who have passed through Andy’s program.  Not for lack of trying.  They are.

I am completely biased in this post because of my own studies in journalism. That said: Newspapers are downsizing. Jobs are being cut. The journalism field is in the midst of a re-invention. Despite the landscape and view people may hold when they think of today’s journalism, enrollment in journalism school has INCREASED ! Get ready. Cliche?

By my most recent count, there are 106 fundraising blogs out there. My definition of "fundraising blogs" is deliberately broad -- these are blogs that are touch on fundraising in some way, at some time. That's a lot of talk about fundraising. More than a normal person can (or probably should) read. But I do. The Agitator. Endless Plain. forimpact.

I can guarantee you this: A lot more people hate the US Air Force than hate your nonprofit organization. For that matter, a lot more people love the Air Force. And that means people say all kinds of things about the Air Force in blogs and other social media places. And the Air Force is doing something about it. And here's the cool part.

Let's face it: People have short attention spans. Especially when it comes to the Internet. We're all clicking around furiously trying to nab the quickest, most-reliable answers to our questions. And, often, we're just browsing for things to entertain our instant-gratification-seeking minds.) Effectively. And, oh yes, quickly. Funny-we did, too.