Organization: Women for Women International Organization Size: Approximately 70 DC/stateside employees; more than 100 field staff employees in eight countries in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East Name: Lauren Shopp ||  lshopp@womenforwomen.org Title: Multimedia/Online Coordinator Website: www.womenforwomen.org Facebook: facebook.com/womenforwomen Twitter: twitter.com/womenforwomen YouTube: youtube.com/womenforwomenintl Blog: wfwnotesfromthefield.wordpress.com 1. What was the very first social media tool your organization utilized, and...

Organization: Big Cat Rescue Organization Size: 125 exotic cats, 9 paid staff, 107 volunteers, 80,000 supporters Name: Carol Baskin Title: CEO Website: BigCatRescue.org Blog: BigCatRescue.org/Blog Facebook: facebook.com/BigCatRescue Twitter: twitter.com/BigCatRescue YouTube: youtube.com/BigCatRescue Posterous: BigCatRescue.posterous.com 1. What was the very first social media tool your organization utilized, and when? Care2.com Aug 14, 2000: my.care2.com/savethecats 2. What social media tools are you...

11/4 UPDATE: The interview below was conducted as research for the newly released Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits. Allison and the Pancreatic Acton Network is featured in Chapter 3: Facebook and Facebook Apps. Organization: Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Organization Size: 65 staff in at our national headquarters in Southern California, 5 staff in Washington...

11/21 Update: Foursquare now automatically forwards your old URL to your new URL, but you should still update print materials and e-mail signatures. Just a quick note to nonprofits! It looks as though Foursquare has dropped “user” in its vanity URLs for profiles. I can’t find confirmation of this change site-wide on AboutFoursquare.com or on Foursquare’s Twitter account, but...

Websites like Ustream.tv and Justin.tv allow individuals and brands to launch their own Web-based “TV” channels. Currently, these channels can not easily be viewed on the digital TV sets in our living rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms, but it’s just a matter of time. Think about that for a second. Nonprofits will soon be broadcasting their own live TV programs...

9/20 Update: Make that 11 Essential Tools. Nonprofits should also be using Ustream for live-streaming while on location! The advent of the Mobile Web is slowly starting to permeate and transform nonprofit communications. Just like social media transformed the nonprofit sector and how it communicates with its supporters, so will the Mobile Web (even more so). The best new...

One year ago today Nonprofit Tech 2.0 published its first blog post. At the time I was a skeptical blogger. I had low expectations for Nonprofit Tech 2.0. I would have been happy with couple hundred visitors a week, but a year later Nonprofit Tech 2.0 just surpassed 254,000 visitors. I didn’t see that coming at all. In fact,...

While there are many great nonprofit bloggers, nonprofits that are utilizing social media and mobile technology should also be reading the five blogs listed below. Although they are primarily written for the private sector, their writers seemingly have direct communication with companies like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. and often provide some of the best inside information about crucial updates...

Social networking communities are migrant communities. They move with you to The Next Big Thing i.e., from MySpace to Facebook to Twitter to Foursquare. Social media skeptics often say that it’s a waste of time to utilize social networking sites because they are here today, and then gone tomorrow. While it is definitely true these sites could be here...

There are now over 143 million blogs on the Internet and when I launched Nonprofit Tech 2.0 in September of 2009, I had very low expectations. I wasn’t convinced at all that the world needed another blogger. But within a few months it was clear that blogging was the missing piece in my online communications strategy. 80% of my ROI (Return...

Now that most nonprofits have a Community Page on Facebook in addition to their Official Page, it is crucial that nonprofits create a Wikipedia account to edit, maintain, and “Watch” their organization’s Wikipedia Page. Why? Because Facebook Community Pages have Wikipedia Tabs that pull in your organization’s information directly from Wikipedia. For example, I used to work for a nonprofit...

Full disclosure. I have no idea if using Flickr to distribute and archive photo and press releases will appeal to the media and/or blogosphere, but I got the idea from what I think is the best nonprofit photostream on  Flickr: The UN Refugee Agency. The UNHCR does attach press releases to a good number of the photos they upload...

Nonprofits and their adoption of social media has created an interesting, albeit interdependent relationship with large companies like Google, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. Nonprofits use the sites to build their online brand and supporter base, and the companies in turn then benefit from having tens of thousands respectable, well-known nonprofits promoting their sites and tools to millions...