Twelve groups are sharing in an amazing $327,000 raised from thousands of voters in the first-ever Ploughshares Fund online Peace Primary. The Vermont-based TrueMajority garnered the most votes and came away with the grand prize of a $100,000 grant from Ploughshares Fund. Every other group experienced a fundraising boost at this critical time, and most came away with new members and new donors.

Peace Primary final results:

1. TrueMajority
2. Refugees International
3. American Friends Service Committee
4. Union of Concerned Scientists

I think it's an "innovative" idea to allow the nonprofit technology community to vote on the Netsquared Technology Innovation Awards, as a lead up to this year's Netsquared Conference which takes place in May. I'm seeing a trend in announcing one's votes, so in that spirit here are my 10 picks (in alphabetical order):

New York-based nonprofit communications guru and consultant Nancy Schwartz has assembled a stellar collection of recent blog posts on the topic of nonprofit marketing as part of her contribution to the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants.

The ACLU of of Northern California has just launched the fascinating Tracked in America online audio documentary website that presents stories from the history of U.S. Government surveillance.  In podcast format, the site tells the compelling stories of 25 individuals who've been the targets of government surveillance. Accompanied by an educator manual, Tracked in America's innovative presentation of oral histories allows for easy adoption into classroom curricula.

During the past few months I've been researching the role of mobile phones as an emerging tool for participation in civil society.  The result is a series of Strategy Guides published by MobileActive that are designed to equip organizations around the world with the know-how to deploy effective mobile campaigns for a variety of types of activism and advocacy. The first Guide in this series (published today) focuses on using mobile phones in electoral and voter registration campaigns. Other Guides will focus on advocacy, fundraising, and mobile organizing.  This first Guide looks at uses of mobile phones in electoral monitoring (case studies in Thailand, the Philippines, and Montenegro), voter registration (U.S.-based Rock the Vote, MobileVoter, and Voto Latino), and candidate and political party support (case studies in Spain and U.S.).  The Guides are a joint project of MobileActive, Green Media Toolshed, and NTEN, and are made possible with support from the Surdna Foundation, a leader in supporting civic engagement and the use of technology in nonprofit organizations.  My personal thanks to everyone who spent time helping me with research and fact finding. You can grab MobileActive Strategy Guide #1 at http://www.mobileactive.org/guides/.

Idealware presented the first in its new Webinar series today on the subject of "Choosing a Blogging Tool."  The Webinar was presented by Idealware executive director Laura Quinn and was based on their report on the same topic.  The Webinar (and report) talks through the features, prices, pros and cons of the seven most common

I enthusiastically recommend Idealware's new in-depth blog report which reviews and compares the seven tools most frequently used to create a blog. Which are easiest to get up and running, or to tailor to match your site? Which has the best comment moderation features? Reporting functionality? This report will give you all the details and recommend a tool for you. This report wa

The Golden Gate Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (of which I'm a Board Member) is presenting a terrific morning program on Friday, June 30 in San Francisco, which includes two sessions specifically focused on technology and fundraising.

• Robert Weiner will be presenting on "10 Common Mistakes When Selecting Software and How to Avoid Them."
• Madeline Stanionis of Donordigital will present on "Raising Money With E-Mail."

I hope you can join us. Registration costs are $50 for AFP members and $90 for nonmembers. More info and registration right here.

Joe Trippi, the pioneer of Internet political campaigning with Howard Dean's 2004 presidential bid, shares his views on the next frontier in campaign technology for mobilization and fundraising in a May interview in Newsweek which is published on the MSNBC.com website.  "I think text messaging is going to be more important than ever.  Look at the success of the pro-immigration campaign.

Another excerpt from Madeline Stanionis' outstanding new book on online fundraising has been published, this time by the good folks at TechSoup.org.  The excerpt is entitled: Learn key writing components to help capture constituents' attention and this is another "required reading" for anyone conducting online fu