Periodically we here at TechSoup like to share what we're reading. The latest blog gem that I've added to my feed reader is Cause Global, a blog which covers social media for social change and the people involved in using technology tools to make the world a better place.

Hi everyone

Please feel free to come by at BeerCamp Copenhagen 2008: http://beercamp.pbwiki.com/

Regards,

Allan

If the more you communicate, the more impact you can have, the more you potentially can create more support for your cause, get donors, etc, should funders look at nonprofits who are communicating more in a more favorable light?

And should every facebook event post, every myspace friend, be counted towards that communication quota?

Or are nonprofits in new media investing program money in something that has yet to show a serious $$ per person return? 

Are funders even looking at communication as something worth supporting?

What is your experience?

Engaging the youth!

What does it take? Whether you're on the board, on staff, or a volunteer, this is on every nonprofit's mind. And if you're looking around yourself at all, you're attempting to plan ahead. Developing support for your nonprofit means communicating. A lot.

What about making people laugh?
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=529102816568&ref=nf

Hello NetSquared. Joe, Eric, Christine, and I wanted you all to be among the first to know about the latest web application from Social Actions. This one is a biggy. It would never have come together without the support and connections we made at N2Y3.

Below is a excerpt from the launch announcement, called AdWords-Style Widget Recommends Related Ways to Take Action

Photo by PixelFarmer - Zen Mutt (a rescue dog)

The NpTech Tag Summary went on hiatus to give some space to rethink, reinvent -- again.  Conversations are getting
more distributed and it is getting increasingly difficult to use
tagging to discover, aggregate, and summarize them.  I'm moving beyond
monitoring
the NpTech tagged items and meta feeds to incorporate nuggets from
micro media sources, nptech bloggers, friend feeds, and networks.

Hi Net2, Wow, I can't believe it's already been two months since the NetSquared Mashup Challenge. Since you gave Social Actions the huge honor of a third place finish at the conference, I've been keeping extremely busy and have officially brought two consultants on to help: Joe Solomon (of the KnowMore Firefox Extension) and Christine Egger (my co-presentor at N2Y3). I'll be posting a video update for all of you shortly with details on much of the work we have been doing and have planned.

For now, Christine, Joe, and I would like to invite you to a conference call about the work we've been doing for the last few months.

Here are the details

Please RSVP to this event >>

Join Social Actions founder Peter Deitz as well as Platform Liaison Christine Egger and Lead Scientist and Evangelist Joe Solomon for a 1.5 hour conference call about Social Actions and the future of micro-philanthropy. Peter, Christine, and Joe will each take 10-15 minutes to present their work on Social Actions since the NetSquared Mashup Challenge in May 2008.

We will then open the conference line for a Q&A about Social Actions and the social action platforms we're trying to help. Of course, please bring questions as well as ideas for where the project and the sector should be headed.

How to get there:

On July 30, 2008 at 2:00pm EDT (New York time), call:

+1 616-597-8000 from your U.S. phone or Skype

Access Code: 1002410#

Please RSVP to this event. We want to know how many people to expect. Thanks, Peter

Social Actions Labs is where we'll be building applications this summer that combine 19 social change and fund raising platforms like Care2, Change.org, and Kiva.org -- and present their actionable opportunities in highly useful & innovative ways.

We just started a wiki and are inviting the community to contribute their ideas for web applications and mash ups!

Imagine a Wordpress add-on that recommends actions based on the content of the post.
Imagine a Firefox Extension that alerts you to relevant social actions as you browsed the web.
Imagine a widget that lists actions that have nearly reached their goal -- only a few extra signatures or donations needed.

We want your ideas for connecting people to social actions. We'll be building 3-5 web applications this summer -- and will be choosing the community's most rock star ideas to take to the next level.

Check out the Social Actions Labs Wiki to see the 20+ ideas so far contributed by Beth Kanter, Amy Sample Ward, Tom Watson, and others.

Thanks for sharing!

- Joe Solomon, Social Actions Labs Lead Scientist and Evangelizer

Earlier in the month I taught a Nonprofit Blogging 101 workshop at the 2008 Making Media Connections Conference.  At the beginning of the session, I asked folks what their burning questions were.  Below are their questions, and my quick answers.  What questions and answers would you add?

 1. How do we decide if our organization should have a blog?

Answer these questions:

1. What is the goal you want to achieve?
2. Who is your target audience?
3. What are the communication tools you could use to achieve that goal?

If a blog is one of the tools you think would meet your goal, ask yourself:

Thank you kbaird for the photo!