Future:Media:Change

The Personal Democracy Forum has just made it easier to decide what tech firm to hire for your organization’s e-mail marketing, mobile messaging, online fundraising, or CRM, by publishing “Who to Hire: the PdF Political Technology Guide.”

The ubiquitous calls to help Haiti by texting “Haiti” to 90999 last month, and the $41 million raised by the effort, may have opened your organization’s eyes to the possibilities of mobile messaging, but what are reasonable expectations for more run-of-the-mill mobile campaigns? To answer this question, M+R and MobileActive.org have released 2010 Nonprofit Text Messaging Benchmarks. Here are the highlights of that report.

We have a lot of snow in DC. Yesterday I saw people in snow shoes walking own the street. The grocery stores are empty and I haven’t seen asphalt for at least a week now. Trying to dig yourself out of the snow mess can be a major challenge, so the good people at PICnet devised a smart way of using crowd sourcing to help Washingtonians beat the winter.

If you’ve ever wondered how your non profit can get involved in mobile fundraising, this guide will give you a step by step breakdown of all the areas to consider.

People have texted millions of dollars in donations to victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Is this the new model for philanthropy? Timothy Ogden, editor in chief of Philanthropy Action, explains the technology and the future of charity work in the information age.

By Kate Ausburn

On Tuesday January 12th, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake devastated the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The earthquake has destroyed the nations capital of Port-au-Prince including the Parliament building, the United Nations national headquarters, the hospital, the prison and many homes and businesses. Tens of thousands are dead and millions displaced in an event that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described as the worst humanitarian crisis in decades.

Photo by IFRC.

The United Nations, who lost 46 staff members in the earthquake and have hundreds more still missing, are …

A news station in Mobile, Alabama was the victim of an “Epic FAIL” with their new Twitter billboard. Guess what happened? Nothing. We all had a good laugh, but in the end aren’t we fearing fear itself when it comes to nonprofits’ reticence to fully embrace social media?