Archive for the ‘Nonprofit’ Category

Choose the Right WordPress for Your Website

Many small to medium-sized non­prof­its need an easy, inex­pen­sive option for their web­sites. A com­mon bit of advice is often dis­pensed in those sit­u­a­tions: try WordPress.

Depend­ing on the organization’s needs, that advice might be spot-on. Unfor­tu­nately those giv­ing the advice some­times don’t delve into an impor­tant ques­tion: which WordPress?

Because there’s not just one kind of WordPress.

In fact, there are four.

Read more…

Choose the Right Technology: Goals, Tools, and Match

I try not to use over­wrought, hyper­bolic drama-words too often in my writing.

Okay, so maybe I don’t try very hard.

But there’s no other way to say this: the time peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions have wasted by using the wrong tech­nol­ogy is utterly tragic.

It can hap­pen so eas­ily, espe­cially for non­prof­its who often need to rely on well-meaning vol­un­teers for tech­ni­cal help. But it’s not hard to pre­vent. Read more…

Website Options for Nonprofits — Part 3: Use Your Browser to Build a Website

This is the last in a three-part series dis­cussing web­site options for nonprofits.

Part 1 gave back­ground infor­ma­tion about what a web­site really is and dis­cussed options for where yours can live.

Part 2 dis­cussed the tra­di­tional approach: installing a web page edi­tor on your com­puter and using it to build a website.

But the last 5 years have intro­duced a bevvy of tools that promise to let you build a web­site using noth­ing but the most basic and ubiq­ui­tous tool of the Web Age: the hum­ble web browser. In this third post we’ll take a look at those tools. Read more…

Website Options for Nonprofits — Part 2: Web Editing Software

This is the sec­ond in a three-part series dis­cussing web­site options for nonprofits.

Part 1 gave back­ground infor­ma­tion about what a web­site really is and dis­cussed options for where yours can live.

But whether you’re build­ing a new site or need to update an exist­ing site, you need some way to edit pages. Today we’ll dis­cuss your options for edit­ing or cre­at­ing a tra­di­tional web­site: one where some­one (you, a vol­un­teer, or some­one you hire) hand-crafts a web­site using a web edi­tor installed on their com­puter. Read more…

Website Options for Nonprofits — Part 1: Big Picture

If your orga­ni­za­tion has a web pres­ence of some kind, which it prob­a­bly does, there’s a good chance you’re not com­pletely happy with some­thing about it. Maybe it’s too expen­sive. Maybe it’s too hard to update.

Maybe it’s just plain ugly.

If your orga­ni­za­tion doesn’t have a web pres­ence, there’s a good chance that makes you uncom­fort­able. It might also make peo­ple who con­sider sup­port­ing you uncom­fort­able. Read more…

Cut Through Computer Clutter

Stop me if I’m wrong: there’s a lot of junk on your computer.

Hey, look at that. Nobody stopped me.

It’s awfully easy to accu­mu­late so much stuff on your com­puter that you can’t find the use­ful stuff mixed in with all the cruft.

And oh, the cruft. It saps our time and sucks our souls. But a few well-chosen tools can make a big difference.

Read more…

Google Voice for Nonprofits

“Google Voice for Non­prof­its” isn’t a new Google offer­ing intended for non­profit orga­ni­za­tions. It’s a question.

Is Google Voice right for nonprofits?

As with any worth­while ques­tion, the answer is “it depends”: on the organization’s size, its cul­ture, its work needs, and plenty of other things. This arti­cle takes a look at some issues to weigh in con­sid­er­ing Google Voice for pro­fes­sional use. Read more…

Computer Viruses: Repel, Reveal, and Remove

Virus pre­ven­tion is a lit­tle like den­tal cleanings.

Maybe you put it off longer than you should, even though deep down you know that’s a mis­take. Then when some­thing finally goes really, painfully wrong you smack your­self in the head for not tak­ing care of it sooner.

I’ll try to make this as pain­less as possible.

Read more…

Share Files Online — Part 3: Collaboration Tools

You need to share files. Whether it’s with friends, clients, part­ners, or cowork­ers, there’s some file you need them to see, and vice-versa.

My last two posts drew a dis­tinc­tion between whether you’re file-sharing for pub­li­ca­tion or for col­lab­o­ra­tion (How to Share Files — Part 1: Overview), and then explored some options for the publication-based options (How to Share Files — Part 2: Pub­li­ca­tion Tools). Read more…

Decide Which RSS Feeds to Follow

RSS is a great way to eas­ily fol­low a lot of web­sites. This arti­cle isn’t an intro­duc­tion to RSS—that’ll have to wait for another time—but if you’re new to RSS or just a lit­tle hazy on the details, I highly rec­om­mend you watch the 3-minute video RSS in Plain Eng­lish.

Even though RSS is awfully con­ve­nient, even­tu­ally even the con­ve­nience of hav­ing your favorite sites con­densed into one place can get over­whelm­ing. Read more…