NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.

social network

Ning: An Affordable and Effective Platform for Non-profits to Run a Social Network

Ning has gone a long way since they were featured on the Netsquared blog back in March 2007. Besides offering many more features than they had back then, there are now more than 500,000 social networks on Ning.

We recently got interviewed by the folks at Ning along with the folks from the ASPCA Online Community about our use of their platform in TuDiabetes.com and EsTuDiabetes.com to run our social networks for people touched by diabetes.

FriendRank and Fundraising?

Google has apparently applied for a series of patents that will enable it to a put a value on how connected you are, within your social network. Akin to the "pagerank" system used by the search giant for valuing the popularity of websites, "friendrank" would help identify individuals who are particularly influential within circles of friends.

9/9 Net Tues. SF: How Nonprofits Can Create Video Campaigns for Social Networks w/ Involver

The next Net Tuesday San Francisco on September 9th will feature Nikki Serapio, the Director of Community Marketing for Involver. Involver facilitates companies and organizations building, launching, promoting, managing and monitoring video campaigns on social networks.

Chirag Shah, Special Projects Manager at Kiva.org, will also be on hand to talk about Kiva's experience using Involver.

If you don't live in the Bay Area, an audio recording of the speakers will be available on the NetSquared Podcast (thanks to David Collin) and a video will be posted on the NetSquared Blip TV Channel (thanks to Ross Chapman) after the event.

If you do live in the Bay Area, RSVP on Meetup, Facebook or Upcoming!

YourCause.com

Via Kristen Nicole's post, YourCause: Connect with Others to Make a Difference on Mashable:

Suggestion if you run a social network project

There are many people out there trying to create social networks around social change. I applaud this effort, but if you are one of them, I'd like to suggest that you do the following if you haven't already:

1. Write down what your project will provide that the "Facebook Causes" app doesn't.

2. Email Project Agape (which created the app) and ask whether they have any short-term plans to add the functionality under #1.

3. If you aren't going to provide something really, really, really big that Facebook Causes doesn't, consider moving on to another project.

iMentor - iPower eMentoring Platform

Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch): 
An online social network designed exclusively for non-profits, iPower allows any organization to add mentoring to what they do or to enhance their mentoring programs. Now in use with over 1,500 participants, iPower is preparing for national roll-out.

Board Collaboration for PAPIE

Supporting organization: 
Palo Alto Partners in Education
URL: 
http://pieboard.nexo.com
Location: 
Palo Alto
Project Description: 

Palo Alto Partners in Education (PAPIE) is a primarily board-driven organization with only 2 staff and a budget around $2+ million. We raise private funds to supplement public funds for all the public schools in our school district.

Challenge:

We needed a tool to ensure communication and collaboration amongst the board members, staff and volunteers. We also wanted to keep a history of documents, activities, decisions, etc. to ensure continuity due to volunteer turnover year-to-year. The tool had to be easy to use and very accessible. It had to be flexibly private, meaning that it needed to allow proper permissions for each person - ensuring that only the proper person(s) could see or do what was appropriate. It needed to combine a website and email communications to reduce duplication of effort.

Solution:

www.nexo.com

Nexo allows us to create a free group for PAPIE. We have a highly customized, private website that any authorized person can add to, change, or read. We also get an email group integrated with the website so that updates, alerts, news, etc. are easy to distribute (even automatic if desired) to the group. We also can have live chats on the site if desired. We have multiple pages and multiple sub-groups (board, marketing committee, development committee, etc). The site essentially defines our own social network.

The website allows us to share blogs, files, pictures, videos, calendars, events, to do lists, budgets, plans, press releases, contact information, RSS feeds, etc.

Impact:

Not only has nexo improved communication, collaboration and participation, but a by-product is that we have a back-up for our most important files such as board minutes, budgets, etc. These used to just be stored on one computer which is scary for many reasons. The site also makes is much easier to transfer knowledge from year to year since new  leaders/volunteers have the roadmap from the year before.

Social Networking for Social Change: LinkedIn and WiserEarth on the Net2 Podcast

San Francisco's February Net Tuesday was packed. Oz Basarir talked about WiserEarth, a wiki/social network for environmental nonprofits, and Dave Sanford spoke about how LinkedIn, a professional social networking tool, can be used by nonprofits.

Our SF Net Tuesday podcaster, David Collin, posted his interviews with Dave and Oz, as well as recording's of Dave's presentation and Oz's presentation on the NetSquared Podcast.  Enjoy!

An Encyclopedia of Net2 Resources on TechSoup

If you read this blog, you probably already know that NetSquared is a project of TechSoup, but in case you don't know, TechSoup has a separate web site from NetSquared, and over the last few months they have written a slew of awesome articles about how nonprofits and NGOs can use the social web for social change.   They are all worth bookmarking so check 'em out:

Ten Ways to Use Web 2.0 to Change the World by Marnie Webb

Seven Blogging Tools Reviewed via Idealware

How to Record, Edit and Promote Your Nonprofit's Podcast by Karen Solomon

Exploring the World of Wikis by Brian Satterfield

What Can Social Networking Do For Your Organization? by Brian Satterfield

Thirteen Tips for Effective Tagging
a compilation of two articles, one written by Alexandra Samuel an the other by Ruby Sinreich

RSS for Nonprofits by Marnie Webb

Mapping an End to Hunger in New York City by Brian Satterfield

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