nonprofits Archives - Tendenci - The Open Source AMS Blog

2021-09-082024-05-15

As featured in Associations Now – Tech Talk: What Can Open Source Do For You

A few days ago we were featured in Associations Now. Learn more on What Can Open Source Do For You, as our president Nicole Davis talks about Tendenci and the global community of developers behind the code.

From the article Tech Talk: What Can Open Source Do for You

The capability of choice. Because you have direct access to open-source code, you can modify it to your needs. The result: a customized platform unique to your organization, without the price tag of a custom-built solution. From there, it can be modified to integrate with other platforms, including those recommended by the original open-source developers. “Every client is unique, and thus they each have unique needs and desires for their websites,” Davis says. “The choice is in their hands.”

Enjoy and cheers to softwares built on community!

We want to help your organization succeed on the web.

Give us a Call at (281)497-6567

2013-12-272013-12-27

Facebook Donate Button for Non-Profit Organizations

Rather than redirect your visitors off of your Facebook page in order to collect a donation, you can now collect a donation on your Facebook page.

Currently it’s available to only a select few.
Charities with a donation button as of December 22 2013

All Non-Profit organizations should take advantage of this opportunity, no matter what your size or how long your organization has existed. In fact, non-profits benefit more if the purchase is made through Facebook, mostly because 100% of the transaction is transferred. Facebook covers the convenience fee that most traditional payment gateways require.

You can sign up for the Facebook Donate button now, but this does not guarantee that you will be accepted.

Once a visitor donates to your organization, their credit card information will be recorded as well as the item that they purchased. It is possible to remove your payment method information from Facebook but it does require some extra clicking.

Donations are currently limited to users located in the United States with their preferred currency set to the US dollar.

All visitors will receive a receipt to their primary Facebook email address which include information in regards to tax deductions.

Collecting credit card information is the goal. Removing the friction and focusing on incentives is the strategy. Amazon One-Click purchases, Apple’s iPhone TouchID, and Google Wallet are some of the other services in this race.

So what does this mean for the traditional website? Is it necessary? One might evaluate the value that can be provided by a traditional website vs a Facebook page.

Once again it is very important to recognize that a Facebook page and traditional website are not mutually exclusive; you can have both. As I stated earlier; you should take advantage assuming your customers pay with the US dollar.

I like to think that it’s less a matter of if you’re going to want a website and more of a question of when you’re going to need a website. If you’re just getting started, then I would start with a Facebook page first. It’s quick, it’s easy, it covers the basics and it’s free.

The basic needs of a non-profit organization are awareness and an avenue in which to donate. Facebook gives that to you. Once you’ve grown large enough, now you can start to consider more robust events, more reporting, and access to your member data.

Currently, I don’t believe there is an easy way to export member data but I could be mistaken. If your non-profit is a smaller version of a parent non-profit then you might require access to export your member data in order to share it with your network.

You might also want to offer more to your members such as discounts on events, job postings, or resume listings. Or maybe you want your own domain where you have more control over your organizations brand. A place that offers a subscription service; allowing you to more easily get into the inbox of your members. You might just be looking to collect more information via a custom form.

In summary, a Facebook page with it’s new donate button is a great place to start and is also a great extra resource to leverage once your website requires more features.

This blog post is intended to get you started. If you have more insight I would love to hear it. Thank you in advance.

2013-08-122014-11-02

Digital Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations – HiMA Luncheon

Thursday was a great day of learning with the Houston Interactive Marketing Association luncheon!

Schipulites hanging out with Kurt Podeszwa Camp Director at amazing Schipul client Camp For All!

Speakers on the panel included:

Kurt Podeszwa, Camp Director at Camp for All,
Gena Hyde, Regional Director of Communications at National Multiple Sclerosis Society
Justine Randle, Online Media Coordinator at Houston Food Bank
Moderated by Monica Danna, ePhilanthropy Manager at St. Luke’s Foundation

Some top take aways from the presentation:

1. Missed Opportunities on your Website!

You are missing huge opportunities to connect with your audience (be it volunteers, other organizations, or donors) if you are not using your website as an interactive tool.

Make sure you are easy to contact through your website by providing contact forms!

2. Constructing your Social Media Strategy

What social media outlets should you be posting on?

The answer for this will be different for every organization. Think about who your audience is and where they “live” online, that is where you want to focus your social media strategy.

What social media outlets should you be paying attention to?

All of them! Just because you are not active on a network doesn’t mean people aren’t talking about you. Even if you aren’t participating keep an eye on your non-primary networks so you can be aware of your online reputation.

What about all this privacy stuff?

Super important! Review and update your privacy policy frequently as the regulations are frequently changing.

3. Email Newsletters

Do you have different audiences?

If the answer is yes then you should be thinking about how you target your newsletter. Don’t overwhelm your contacts with information that isn’t relevant to them.

Have multiple options for opting out of email communication, maybe someone doesn’t want to receive your monthly newsletter but really wants to stay posted about upcoming events. Give them the option to make that choice.

Thank you to HiMA and all of the awesome panelists!

2013-01-232013-06-10

Tendenci Open Source Donor Management Roadmap

Tendenci has come a long way since it was started in 2001. I didn’t have a choice back then so thus began (at the time – we are now open source) a proprietary system. But we work mostly with Associations and Non Profits. They/You (and I can attest first hand after volunteering with several nonprofits over the years) don’t want proprietary – you want OPEN SOURCE!

So what is our roadmap for Tendenci, now completely open source, for donor management?

I have to say we weren’t feeling the urgency on the donor management part until recently. Why? Because Blackbaud (Nasdaq BLKB) acquired Convio and removed the only viable option. And now they are shutting down Common Ground. Not cool. (Side bar: Word is Convio used to advertise “Common Ground, because we’re not Raiser’s Edge.” If that is true or not, it’s still funny and was always a comment that came up at NTEN or Techsoup meetings over the years.)

Tendenci is written in Django and Python and will remain open source. We are adding a basic GPL CRM with modifications for donor management first. More importantly we are integrating Tendenci with the Salesforce Foundation and the Non-Profit Starter pack through their open source connectors and well documented API.

The team at Tendenci is working feverishly to get full Tendenci-Salesforce integration done because we need it too!

Overview of the Nonprofit Starter Pack from Salesforce.com Foundation

Advocacy in the Cloud from Salesforce.com Foundation

We are prepared and qualified. We have a former employee who now works at Salesforce, we use Salesforce ourselves, and quite frankly they seem to care about the non-profit world. We at Schipul are “all in” as they say as are Tendenci powers the majority of our clients are non-profits.

What can you do now to get ready?

If you want to get ready to fully integrate your Tendenci site, hosted with us or self hosted with the open source community version, a good jumping off point would be to read up on the great work the Salesforce Foundation does for Non Profits. Sign up with the Foundation to get your free licenses even if you just want to play around with it.

I’ll try to keep everyone more up to speed on our roadmap, it’s been a crazy year. But make no mistake, we are building an open system that will reduce the costs of advocacy and non-profit associations and foundations by a factor of 10 compared to Raiser’s Edge. There is hope. (Programmer? – join us on github! http://github.com/tendenci/tendenci ) And in case you can’t tell, I’m excited about this!

2012-04-042013-06-10

Thanks to the programming giants who walked before us

Giants. Giants I tell you.

Yes, I’m excited about Tendenci going open source. But first – THANK YOU to the giants who walked before us to make this possible.

As a programmer, granted I haven’t been in the code much the last 5 years doing the whole “running the company thing”, but I haven’t forgotten how important it is to give credit where credit is due. We just pushed Tendenci 5.0 live on github yesterday. As far as I know, Tendenci is the only “open source CMS system built specifically for nonprofits” and I could add “written on the Django framework and Python.”

That is what makes open source so cool. As David Geilhufe told me today when we bumped into each other at NTEN, “welcome to the open source community. it took you a while but you got here.” David’s right.

Tendenci 5 was a complete rewrite and took over 3 years to complete. I have said thanks to our programmers numerous times. But what giants’ shoulders did we stand on? Quite a few. Tendenci would not have been possible without the original committers on Django. So a RESPECTFUL tip of the hat to these trail blazers. #respect #thankyou

Adrian Holovaty
Simon Willison
Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Wilson Miner

And the list of brilliant committers goes on. Because it is a community. These people enabled us to give. I respect that.

To put it all together, Tendenci is a full web application. It is written on a framework called Django which is “the web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.” Django is written in a programming language called Python. Python was created by the amazing Guido van Rossum. I have never met Guido. But I know his brain is absolutely amazing and that our current business model would not be possible without Guido. Thank you Mr. Rossum. And thank you for everyone who contributes to the Python project.

We have a lot to learn still. And we are studying and learning as fast as we can. Any help is appreciated. But first and foremost, thank you to all of the programmers who walked before us and made our current path possible. ~Ed

2011-11-082014-11-02

Three Awesome Social Media for Nonprofits Tips

298508_282920165072633_196928427005141_954938_2087709913_n — Crowd at Social Media for Nonprofits

Judging from the packed house at the San Francisco stop on the Social Media for Nonprofits Conference tour; organizations are still looking for best practices and new ways to connect with volunteers and donors online. And for those Bay Area nonprofits lucky enough to attend the event, they got some fantastic advice that they could put to use right away. I am always delighted to attend an event with concrete steps attendees can use, and so as to not keep all the goodies for myself, here’s three things that really stood out to me for a nonprofit trying to connect via social media.

Tip 1: Don’t Try To Be Everywhere

You’ve no doubt run in to this – with so many different social media spaces out there, which ones should your organization be on? All of them, right?! No. It’s just not practical, and it also can make it difficult for your constituents to connect with you online if they’re not entirely sure where to go. A great example of this came from Christina Samala, the online community manager for the Story of Stuff [which, by the way, has a new movie out today – The Story of Broke]. Since most of their community is on Facebook, that’s where they spend most of their social media time. It wouldn’t make sense to take away from that in order to throw time at other outlets that the community isn’t engaged in. As Christina suggested; think of your organization as a person – how would that person talk and where would it hang out? Who would it hang out with? It sounds a little hokey, but it’s a great way to make sure your nonprofit is communicating with the right people and in the right way.

Tip 2: Volunteers are Where It’s At

I know. Sounds like a total “DUH” moment, right? But I was amazed to hear the stats behind volunteers and donations. Did you know that 2/3 of volunteers donate to the organizations they work with, and when they do they donate TEN TIMES that of a non-volunteer? Getting your volunteers engaged can have a huge impact on your organization. The three R’s for volunteer engagement, from Greg Baldwin of VolunteerMatch, are Recruit, Retain, and Recognize. A great way to do all three online is via the Johnson & Johnson &you widget. This is a neat little tool that will allow you to bring in your volunteer opportunities, events, and news and display them on Facebook or your website. (Innov8Social has a list of some other great tools to check out). And social media gives you a great way to recognize your volunteers and donors – you’ll be amazed at what a little shout-out will do for a volunteer’s spirits!

Tip 3: Close the Loop

This is a phrase Schipulites are well familiar with! It’s not just for letting someone know when you’ve completed a task – it’s also for letting your supporters know when you’ve reached a fundraising goal. Everyone wants to be part of a winning team, and when you set realistic and specific goals (like, “We want to raise $2,000 to buy a new computer for our classroom”) you’ll find that people are more likely to get involved and get you there. When you then share with the world your success, you’ll find that those who were a part of it will get hooked on that feeling – and will come back again and again. I think often nonprofits are always moving to the next goal and next event, and we sometimes forget to update on previous efforts. If you put out a call to action for donations or volunteer help, be sure to close the loop with your community and let them know a goal was reached and how it’s impacting others.

The Social Media for Nonprofits Conference may be coming to a city near you – so check it out online! And if not, don’t despair – slides from all the presentations are up online and following the hashtag #sm4np is a great way to virtually attend a future event. And we want to hear from you! If you’re working with a nonprofit – volunteer or staff – tell us, what are some of your favorite ways to connect online?

Photos courtesy of Social Media for Nonprofits / Jim Vetter Photography

2011-07-142014-11-02

Lemonade Day Teaches Entrepreneurship to Kids at Houston NetSquared

Mandy Graessle shares Lemonade Day Stories with NetSquared_ — Lemonade Day's Social Media Director Mandy Graessle Speaks at Houston NetSquared

Houston NetSquared invited Mandy Graessle, the ‘Duchess of Loveâ€ and Director of Social Media Marketing for Lemonade Day to tell us what she has learned as she developed and implemented the nonprofit’s online web marketing strategy.

Lemonade Day is an awesome nonprofit organization that’s helping kids and their parents learn the skills to become successful entrepreneurs that our education system doesn’t teach. Last month, I had the opportunity to hear Lemonade Day’s co-founder Michael Holthouse talk at TEDx Houston on Entitlement in America. At TEDx Houston, Michael said: ‘If you know we should teach a man to fish instead of give a man fish’ why aren’t we doing that in America?â€ Last night, Mandy had the opportunity to share some of the reasons why this was such a momentous task with the NetSquared group.

Mandy shared some of the key challenges she faces trying to help market and promote Lemonade Day like how to get kids to register and participate, learn from each other online, and improve their program’s educational content that teaches kids how to be entrepreneurs. One of the tools Lemonade Day has created is a workbook with 14 lessons on entrepreneurship and business management. The workbook and resources are all free for kids who want to participate in the program.

After telling us about Lemonade Day’s web marketing campaign, Mandy went on to tell us stories of some of the kids who have built lemonade stands and the reasons why these kids were motivated to start their Lemonade Stand Businesses. She explained that Lemonade Day isn’t just about entrepreneurship’ the organization also helps kids raise money for things like a memorial in the community for a child lost to a tragic car accident and transportation for a young friend to his cancer treatment center. Lemonade Day enables kids to make a difference in their world around them.

Mandy concludes the NetSquared evening by telling us what we can do to help. Lemonade Day has a goal of registering 1 million kids in over 100 cities in the next 2 years. Most of the kids that can best be helped by Lemonade Day don’t have access to the internet as easily and don’t have email accounts and mobile phones. Lemonade Day relies heavily on volunteers who will go out to schools to teach and help register kids. If you can’ volunteer to go to a local school and spend 20 or 30minutes teaching one of the lessons from the workbook.

On Lemonade Day’s website you will also find resources and details about upcoming competitions, recipes for Lemonade, instructions for building a lemonade stand and more.

Connect online with Lemonade Day on Facebook, follow @lemonadeday on twitter, find videos on Lemonade Day’s Youtube channel, and share photos of Lemonade Day stands and competitions on their Flickr photostream.

2011-05-172014-11-02

Teaching community tech to the Alzheimer’s Association

In a world full of emerging technology choices, it can feel as though technology serves as only a distractionâ€¦ something used distances us from each otherâ€¦ something used to market to us. At the same time, these same technologies can be used for truly amazing purposesâ€¦ to empower us, encourage us and inspire us.

The closing remarks at the Alzheimer’s Association: Houston and Southeast Texas‘ Schlicting Professional Conference focused on these emerging technologies and their effects on dementia care services. The presentation spotlighted the many wonderful ways organizations and care providers can use technology to empower themselves, their patients and families.

It also took an honest look at the real threats unsafe and uneducated use of technology pose with the hopes that the audience would take pause and consider their own use of technology. Finally, with a quick exercise and highlight of useful monitoring tools, the audience was themselves empowered with a personal technology mission statement and the encouragement to share in the online world the gifts they are already bringing to patients offline.

For more about the ‘The Impact of Technology on Dementia Care Servicesâ€ Closing Remarks see the presentation below.

For about the Alzheimer’s Association: Houston and Southest Texas Branch visit:

The alz.org/texas site
The blog.alztex.org blog
You can also follow them on twitter @alztex and like them on facebook.com/alztex

Empowering Providers, Patients, and Families

The Impact of Technology on Dementia Care Services

View more presentations from JJ Lassberg