NPower Northwest will be closed on Monday, January 2nd. The NPower Support Line, including Emergency Support, will not be available that day.

Have a safe New Year's celebration and we'll see you in 2012!

Forget to get a gift for someone on your list? Why not show them you care with an animated GIF? Cheap (i.e. free), plentiful, and environmentally friendly (no need to print these beautiful things out), nothing says "happy holidays" louder than a forwarded email full of the best animated GIFs of the season.

While animated GIFs used to be a sure sign of web design left over from the 90s, animated GIFs have experienced a huge comeback during 2011. Thanks in part to Tumblr and other link heavy blogs, more folks are turning to animated GIFs to help capture unique moments, funny occurrences or just odd pairings. Here at NPower, we take our job of finding the best technology has to offer for the nonprofit world seriously and have created this special curated GIF collection especially for you.

• Looking for a subtle hint for your co-workers that you welcome their leftover Christmas cookies? This should help you send a clear message.
• Perhaps you prefer to express emotions through imagery from the teenage soap opera Dawson’s Creek. Well then this collection of James Van Der Beek’s emoti-GIFs should keep you well supplied for many months.
• Do you prefer those classic animated GIFs that have stood the test of time and still can be found in the far reaches of the Internet? This should suit your needs.
• And finally these last two GIFs are from my co-worker Stephen’s personal collection: Graceful Camel and, finally, the best gift from Carl Sagan.

Do you have a favorite GIF from 2011, or perhaps an old classic that makes you smile every time you see it? Share the link in the comments below.

- Abby Nafziger

Sources:
The GIF That Keeps On GIFing: Why Animated Images Are Still A Defining Part Of Our Internets
10 Funniest GIF Trends of 2011
The Golden Age of the Animated GIF
Animated GIFS Triumphant
http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/animated-gifs-triumphant.html

Whether you're planning to update your current website or building a new one from scratch, a little non-technical work on your part can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars in web consulting hours. NPower recently hosted a brown bag to help nonprofit staffers with the planning process and also produced a thirty minute recording of the content. The workshop covered three main topics:

• How to save money on design consultation by defining current website problems, determining goals for your new site, and articulating those goals clearly to your web consultant in a Statement of Work (SOW).
• How to save money by avoiding "shiny object syndrome." Just because you're impressed by the latest and greatest web tool doesn't mean it's going to be of value to your organization. Simple questions and formulas will help you determine if a shiny new web feature is cost-effective for your organization.
• How to save money on design services. There's several ways to help your designer and developer work together more efficiently to produce a beautiful and functional web site.

If you're getting ready to embark on a website project, I recommend you schedule your own brown bag lunch at your office. Bring in your staff to watch the 30 minute recording on Planning Your Web Project, and then start brainstorming strategies to effectively plan your next web project.

You can access the recording and slide deck from the brown bag that NPower hosted in our Knowledge Center.

- Christin Boyd

NPower Northwest will be closed for the holidays on Friday, December 23rd and Monday, December 26th. The NPower Support Line, including Emergency Support, will not be available on those days. If you have a regularly scheduled support visit for that day, your consultant will work with you to reschedule.

We'll respond to emails on Tuesday, December 27th unless otherwise indicated in an out of office email response. Happy holidays y'all!

It's hard to believe that 2011 is coming to a close. But, here at NPower we're getting excited by the possibilities of 2012, including tons of new training opportunities that we'll be providing free of charge for our nonprofit friends. You can check out our website's Training Calendar for the full list (we've got brown bags scheduled through August), but here's what we've got coming up in the first two months of the new year.

FREE: Google Analytics Brown Bag: Your organization’s website is the cornerstone of your online communications strategy, but is it helping you reach your online goals? Join our brown bag session to learn more about Google Analytics and how this website statistics service can help you determine if you’re on target. January 11

FREE: Twitter 101 Brown Bag: Confused by all the jargon flying around Twitter? Terms like “retweet,” “hashtag,” and “handle” throwing you for a loop? Join our Twitter 101 brown bag where we’ll take you on a Twitter field trip that will help demystify the tool. January 18

FREE: Choosing a Database Brown Bag: Selecting the best database for your organization can go a long way toward improving operations and translating meaningless data into information you can actually use. Join us for a brown bag session to get clarity on your database options in terms of cost, features, and ease of implementation. January 25

FREE: Prevent Communications Overload Brown Bag: Managing email, social media, and mobile communication is a daunting task.  Join us for an interactive brown bag where we’ll identify the various elements of the communication spectrum and ways to turn the overwhelming noise into manageable communication again. February 8

FREE: Search Engine Optimization Brown Bag: You may think your organization’s website is the best, but what do Google and other search engines have to say about it? Join our brown bag and learn the simple steps you can take to improve your website’s content and exposure. February 22

Need training on Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, Windows 7, etc? Visit the Training Partners page of our website to get info on classes offered by RAMCO and New Horizons. Our partnership with these training providers means that friends of NPower are eligible for discounts. Full details are available on the Training Partners page.

See you in 2012!

- Mandi Moshay

This is the first guest post from Matt Fikejs, Information & Referral Program Manager at 501 Commons. Matt will be guest-blogging periodically to share updates from the Statewide Nonprofit Resource Directory.

Once upon a time, a nonprofit staff member got stumped in their job, but didn’t know where outside of their organization to turn. Ever happened to you?  If so, you’re in good company. The reality is, this “story” plays out everyday and across the state for countless colleagues. Knowing this, you start to see why a central place for information and referrals is so important to our state’s nonprofit sector.

A late 2009 Giving Practice report – funded by seven Northwest foundations – came to the same conclusion. It found that “One of the essential [nonprofit] ecosystem elements is a trusted source of information and referral to capacity-building services. None of the [WA State] community hubs we looked at had such a system, and it was mentioned as a high priority in King County in particular.”

Recognizing the need, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Campion Foundation, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, The Seattle Foundation, and Social Venture Partners stepped up to back 501 Commons’ Statewide Nonprofit Resource Directory. Launched earlier this year, the online Directory connects you with:

• Approved consultants and other service providers who specialize in nonprofits, like NPower Northwest
• Tools & best practices
• “Best of the web” links
• Featured events
• Statewide map of discounted venues

In future posts, I’ll hone in on different aspects of the Directory and how they can help you do your job more effectively. For now, remember: You have a “first stop” for questions.  Save yourself time by starting your search with the Directory.

Still stumped?  Then email me (matt@501commons.org) or give us a call (206-682-6704). Over the years, we’ve done at least 1,500 projects with Washington State nonprofits, schools, and government agencies and have pretty much seen it all.  Chances are we'll have an idea of where to turn next.

- Matt Fikejs, Information & Referral Program Manager, 501 Commons

• NTEN, Idealware, and TechSoup are infinitely useful and probably need no mention as they are so widely known.
• I have recently discovered Beth Kanter's blog clearinghouse - it's sorted by category and is a great jumping-off point for your area of interest.
• A very comprehensive news aggregator that I use to populate my RSS feed reader is Alltop.

• I check in regularly with Puget Sound Nonprofits, an amalgamation of tweets and other local news content.
• Communities Connect Network publishes information about its collaborative work delivering technology services to Washington citizens. (NPower Northwest has been involved with CCN initiatives).
• I also like to keep up with the Seattle Community Technology Program blog, maintained by the City of Seattle Department of Information Technology.
• And, as a former librarian trained at the University of Maryland iSchool, I was curious to see what projects are percolating at the University of Washington iSchool. The Technology & Social Change Group provides information on research about communications technologies in communities of need.