Twelve participants from the Tech Assessment program came to the NPower Northwest training lab for the second hands-on workshop focusing specifically on free tools available to nonprofits enrolled in the Google for Nonprofits program, as well as free Google tools available to anyone.  The training covered:

• Overview of useful Google products for nonprofits
• Collaboration in real-time using Google Docs
• Hands-on exercises with Google Analytics and Google Forms
• Overview of exclusive tools for Google for Nonprofits enrollees

What does Google provide that can help nonprofits?

In the workshop, we reviewed Google Docs, Google Sites, Gmail, and Google Calendar, which are all are built on the premise that users will collaborate and share in real-time.

There are also many other applications, shown in the picture below, many of which you have probably used (Blogger, News, Picasa, Maps). Since there are quite a few products and services, we tried to focus on ones that we could see small nonprofits utilizing, and gave some real life scenarios and the corresponding Google product that would be useful.

Overview of all Google products

The tools we recommend: game-changers

Google Docs (including Google Forms), Google Analytics, and Webmaster Tools provide individuals and small organizations with the kind of expertise that comes from a complete IT department, for free!

We did hands-on exercises with mock accounts so that everyone could get real experience creating a quick-and-easy survey in Google Forms, and determining web traffic statistics from a live account in Google Analytics.

See what happens when things start getting Real

Focus on: Google for Nonprofits products

The last half hour of the training addressed the products available exclusively to organizations enrolled in the Google for Nonprofits program:

• Google Grants gives access to AdWords, which provides up to $10,000 of free advertising/mo.
• Google Apps for Nonprofits, up to 3,000 free users!  Manages websites, email accounts, etc.
• YouTube for Nonprofits, branded channel with action overlays possible
• Google Earth Outreach enterprise edition available free

Questions on eligibility?  See the eligibility guidelines here.

If you missed the Google for Nonprofits training, or would like additional information, here are some relevant training seminars we’ll be hosting in the near future:

• July 11 - Google Analytics Brown Bag
• July 18 - Search Engine Optimization (briefly covering Google Webmaster tools)

If you’re looking for the slides from Monday’s presentation, head over to our Knowledge Center. Next up for the Tech Assessment Program: Training #3 - Website Creation.

- Elissa Thomas and Stephen Eggers

Techtacular is coming up tomorrow and in addition to our 5 Top Reasons to Come to Techtacular and our Stellar speaker line-up, we are looking forward to mingling with folks from our round-up of wonderful sponsors.

Premier Partner:

• Microsoft

Savvy Partners:

• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• SAP
• Deloitte
• PointB

Community Builder Partners:

• Accenture
• Avanade
• Presidio
• Univar
• West Monroe Partners
• Sprint

Supporting Partners:

• AT&T
• Verizon
• Dell
• Liquid Planner

Start-Up Partners:

• Slalom
• IBM
• Oracle
• KForce
• Cognizant

If you don't want to miss your chance to mingle with some of the finest minds in Seattle, we still have a few tickets left!

Techtacular, a non-traditional nonprofit event, is coming up in only 2 days and we couldn’t be more excited! While the focus of our event is on mingling with other smart folks in the nonprofit technology sphere, we are pleased to have three individuals who will tell the story of how nonprofits are evolving to achieve maximum community impact. Although have no fear, we dislike long-winded speakers as much as the next guys, so this year’s program is modeled after a mini-TED talk style with short presentations that pack a lot of punch. Ranging from a social worker turned Operations Manager to a librarian with a passion for putting technology in the hands of nonprofits, meet the speaker line-up for Techtacular 2012!

Nicholas Merriam

A self-described social evangelist, Nick's career has spanned the nonprofit, for-profit and philanthropic sectors. Nick has always worked at the intersection of innovation and impact, whether it was healthy living for seniors or private equity investing for the environment. Nick is currently the Operations Manager for Building Changes where he leads the IT, HR and administrative functions. He also serves as the Vice-Chair of the Board for Friends of Youth.

Bridgett Chandler

Bridgett is the CEO of Camp Fire USA Central Puget Sound Council (CFUSA-CPSC), which serves nearly 15,000 people in the Puget Sound area with summer camp and year-round activities that connect youth and families to each other and the natural world. Bridgett has put her formidable skills to use at Seattle Public Schools, Talaris Research Institute, Seattle Mayor’s Office, and the University of Washington. Always looking for more ways to give back, Bridgett has served on more than a dozen community and nonprofit boards. And, although she has received many honors over the years, she is especially proud of being the first female valedictorian of Seattle Prep. (Girls rule!)

Abby Nafziger

A recent transplant to Seattle, Abby brings together a strong background in libraries with a love of social media and passion for serving her local community. With five years of experience wrangling students in a high school library and showing them the ropes of good research skills, Abby went on to pursue her Masters in Library Science at Dominican University. Looking for a way to sharpen her tech training and learn more about the exciting world of nonprofits, Abby chose to participate in the AmeriCorps program here at NPower.

Haven’t grabbed your ticket yet? Don’t worry there are still a few left.

As the most popular social network for nonprofits*, Facebook integration is everywhere. However, figuring out how to use Facebook effectively to engage donors, volunteers and other members of your nonprofit community isn’t always easy. On Wednesday, our free brown bag training series continued with Facebook 101, to help dig into this communication channel. We had a good conversation that focused on two main concepts: Facebook Insights and Tactics for Facebook Engagement.

Facebook Insights - What do all those numbers mean?

Our Top 5 Facebook Tactics

1. Create a fully functional Page
2. Ask questions / Elicit feedback
3. Pictures speak louder than words
4. Be responsive
5. Don’t be afraid to re-share interesting content

What more info, check out the full presentation over in the Knowledge Center. Also we have lots more FREE brown bag trainings coming up this summer!

3 Bonus Resources

• John Haydon’s 27 Ways to Increase Engagement on Your Facebook Page - lots of good ideas to help you think outside the box and breathe some new life into your Facebook presence
• The Nonprofit Facebook Guy - created by the very same John Haydon, this site is chock full of helpful information, guides, videos and more all designed to help your nonprofit get the most out of Facebook.
• Nonprofit Tech 2.0’s 5 Nonprofits That Have Found Their Facebook Voice - sometimes it is easiest to learn by example, so check out these nonprofits and how they are using Facebook

*The latest Nonprofit Social Network Report found that 98% of nonprofits have a Facebook Page

Techtacular is only one week away! Get your tickets today and you can hear all about our sexy new theory of change. (And you thought theory couldn’t be sexy--shame on you!). But in case you need a few more reasons to join our party, we thought we would make you a list.

1. Mingle. Sip. Inspire

It’s not just a tag-line, our party will be an ask-free zone to get to know other sharp minds working in the nonprofit technology sphere and learn more about what happens when you put technology in the hands of nonprofits.

2. Wine and Beer aplenty (Did we mention the Sip part?)

In addition to wine, beer and non-alcoholic beverages, we will be featuring our Signature Cocktail - the Techtonic.

3. Jicama and Orange Salad with Watercress and Jalapeno Dressing or perhaps you prefer Roasted Tomato and Chipotle Pulled Pork Sliders

If that doesn’t make you drool a little, there will be lots more options at the buffet served by Wolfgang Puck Catering. Featuring a modern Mexican-inspired menu full of taste-bud friendly options, you definitely won’t leave hungry.

4. Stellar Speaker Line-up

No one likes speeches that drag-on forever, so we are keeping our speaker list short and sweet. Joining our Executive Director, Alison Carl White, will be Nicholas Merriam from Building Changes, Bridgett Chandler  from CampFireUSA and Abby Nafziger from our very own AmeriCorps VISTA team. Full speaker details here.

5. Drums + Tap-Dancing = High energy entertainment

A group of multi-talented performers from UpBeat Events will be at Techtacular to set the mood for an evening all about maximizing community impact through innovation and evolution. Come walk our red carpet and learn what sets savvy nonprofits apart (Hint: It’s not just fancy tech tools!)

Convinced? Grab your tickets here!

Rethinking the Science of Generosity by Greg Baldwin, President of VolunteerMatch

"As more resources are poured into generating social good by individuals, organizations, companies, and government, how we think about why people choose to make a difference is enormously important. It guides how we talk about giving back, the programs and infrastructure we put in place to facilitate it, and how we invite audiences to be part of these activities."

Attracting More Women to Computer Science Requires Shattering the 'Brogrammer' Culture by Liz Dwyer, GOOD Education editor

"Although women now make up the majority of college graduates, the number of female computer science grads has dropped precipitously over the past 25 years—from nearly 40 percent in the mid-1980s to 18 percent in 2009. As a result, only 2 in 10 programmers are women."

What Nonprofits Can Take Away From Facebook's Organ Donation Initiative and Past Activism Efforts

"World peace, voting, tolerance and environmental responsibility are some of the issues the social network has actively promoted in the past. Facebook seems to be most interested in the power of many lightweight interactions. Any initiative it gets involved with will likely be very simple and require little effort on the user’s behalf."

The Thing They Don't Tell You (When You Set Out to Change the World) by Sasha Dichter, Chief Innovation Officer at Acumen Fund

".... is that the bottom right part of the table is actually MORE frustrating than the bottom left."

Hope you enjoyed these articles and if you want to learn more about my favorite content curation tool (that I used to find these articles and many others), check out this post on 5 Reasons Your Nonprofit Should Be Using Google Reader

NPower Northwest is proud to welcome SAP, the world’s largest enterprise application software provider, as a Techtacular 2012 sponsor. SAP believes in reinvesting in communities they serve, and supports NPower Northwest as part of this commitment to community vitality. Everett Oliven, Regional VP of Sales puts it this way: “The ability of NPower to empower nonprofits and bring technology to the work of nonprofits is an important aspect of providing to the community.”

Oliven feels a special bond with NPower clients such as Washington STEM who strengthen K-12 education. SAP’s Nonprofit Advisory Board strongly supports Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs. Thanks to NPower’s technology expertise, Washington STEM benefits from a stable and secure technology infrastructure. With that solid foundation, staff and volunteers can focus on their mission to reimagine education for all students, starting with those most underserved and underrepresented in STEM fields.

SAP enjoys strong partnerships in the corporate community, and recognizes fellow NPower supporters Microsoft, Univar and Paccar for their contributions. According to Oliven, “NPower is a force multiplier because they empower other organizations to empower the end consumer. By sponsoring NPower, we give once to benefit many.”

A part of our Techtacular sponsorship series, this profile seeks to give a glimpse into some of the organizations that devote time, stewardship and financial support to NPower. If you want to join in the work of NPower, come mingle, sip and get inspired - May 17th, 2012.

Over 15 individuals from the Tech Assessment program filled the NPower Northwest training lab to capacity for our first of three hands-on workshops. Focusing on Social Media strategies and tactics this two hour presentation took a deep dive into how social media is used by nonprofits including:

• Selecting a focus for social media efforts [Storytelling, Information hub, or Community Building]
• Creating realistic and measurable goals
• Tactics for increasing Facebook engagement
• Details about Facebook Insights and Twitter

Social Media Strategy: Choose a focus

The first part of our morning focused on the strategy end of things, including the importance of focusing your nonprofit’s social media efforts. While storytelling, information hub and community building all play important roles in successful social media campaigns, smaller nonprofits with limited hours and attention, can often gain ground by selecting one of those focuses to be the foundation of their strategy. To illustrate this point we looked at several nonprofits who exemplify each of the three focuses.

Which is the biggest focus for your nonprofit?

Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic, Timely

After spending time diving into SMART goals we took some time for each nonprofit to come up with 1-2 goals that they can use during the coming months to sharpen their efforts. By combining SMART goals with a specific focus, nonprofits can help create a realistic strategy for their social media use.

Nonprofit participants follow along as Stephen leads a discussion of SMART goals.

In the second part of the training, we focused in on Facebook, since this was the common social network channel for all of the nonprofits in attendance. We started by looking over the basic layout of a Facebook nonprofit page, the elements that should be addressed if you are pressed for time are: the profile photo (180 x 180 pixels), cover photo (high-quality pictures are more effective than 1,000 words), “About” section, and Timeline milestones.

If your nonprofit is just getting into Facebook, focus on just the basic parts of a functional Facebook Page

5 Tips for Better Facebook Engagement

In our Facebook tactics section, we focused on 5 tips including: Creating a fully functional page, Ask questions / elicit feedback, Pictures speak louder than words, Be responsive, Don’t be afraid to re-share interesting content. With each tip we include real-life examples from nonprofits using these tips to engage better with their audiences. In the last half of the workshop, we broke into smaller groups to focus more on evaluating social media strategies through measurement tools like Facebook Insights and software for managing multiple social media channels such as HootSuite.

- Elissa Thomas and Abby Nafziger

For more details, check out the powerpoint in the Knowledge Center. Next up for the Tech Assessment program: Training #2 In-Depth Look at Google for Nonprofits applications [May 14]. Also if you were disappointed on missing out on this training, we are offering Facebook 101, a free brown bag on May 9th!

PointB is a management consulting firm that helps clients develop strategic insights and translate them into reality. Point B clients look to the firm for industry and functional expertise combined with our ability to execute in a variety of areas including healthcare, retail, technology strategy, business processes, operations, and mergers and acquisitions. A broad-based, locally driven firm operating across 7 U.S. markets, PointB has 425 employee owners. One of those employee owners is Paul Lambert, President of Consulting for the Firm and past President of the NPower Northwest Board of Directors. Paul’s passion for NPower’s mission comes from his sense that PointB and NPower are both in the business of success. “We’re in similar businesses that involve change and the power of technology to help groups fulfill their missions.”

In his role as steward and advisor to NPower through six years of service on the Board, Paul has supported NPower from both a financial and resource perspective. PointB has provided generous corporate sponsorship of NPower’s annual event for the past five years. In addition, Paul has brokered pro-bono support from PointB experts on change management and recruiting leadership, and brought in NPower to provide technical support for a larger PointB engagement with the MacArthur Foundation. Paul adds, “When we give money and resources, NPower makes much more out of it for the community by supporting nonprofits in meeting their missions.”

Paul has always had tremendous respect for NPower and the people who work here, and a visit to several NPower clients a few years ago clinched it for him. In speaking to staff from Rainier Scholars about the difference it makes for them to have a stable and secure technology infrastructure, Paul found himself getting choked up. “My father was a professor, so I knew early on about the transformative power of education. Hearing the stories of the kids that Rainier Scholars is able to help thanks to technology support from NPower, really brought that home for me.”

The case for corporate sponsorship of NPower is an easy one for Paul to make to others in the community. “Think about how important technology is to your organization, and then consider the organizations like Rainer Scholars…who you care about personally and that NPower helps so significantly. It is so important to support what NPower represents: the good and beneficial use of technology in the community.”

Serving on the NPower Board has been a delight and an eye-opener for Paul. “NPower has nurtured my understanding of philanthropy and its role in my community. Getting involved with NPower was absolutely the right thing for me. I am an even better community supporter as a result.”

A part of our Techtacular sponsorship series, this profile seeks to give a glimpse into some of the organizations that devote time, stewardship and financial support to NPower. If you want to join in the work of NPower, come mingle, sip and get inspired - May 17th, 2012.

In addition to the work that the AmeriCorps team does for NPower, they've also been reaching out and connecting with other organizations and communities. While Abby has been volunteering at the Seattle Public Library, Stephen and Elissa have been assisting with various RecTech programs as part of the Seatle Parks and Recreation. Here is more about Stephen's experience with RecTech:

What is RecTech?

RecTech is a partnership between the Seattle Parks and Recreation and the City of Seattle Department of Information Technology. They provide after-school programs, internships, and open computer labs in ten locations throughout Seattle. The particular program that I helped out with was the Adobe Flash after-school internship which was designed for teenagers to learn technology skills while completing tasks and projects for nonprofits.

Adobe Flash Internship

Students learned how to create animations, text, diagrams, and how to design a user interface. They also learned how to program using ActionScript, which allowed them to create buttons, navigation screens, mouse-over effects, or procedural animation. Rain or shine, every Friday I would make the hilly commute to the Southwest Center in West Seattle (via bicycle) to share my knowledge in Adobe Flash and programming. Although I am far from a professional Flash developer, I have enjoyed using my knowledge to provide hands-on training in the small classroom setting.

A Happy Volunteer

What’s been great about this program is that I’ve felt very useful. There have been times when I see that students are struggling with a new concept, or don't know how to execute the clear ideas in their head into the final product, and I can step in and show them the right tools or process. I’ll see students spending a few minutes trying to get something aligned or in the right position, and it’s usually simple things that I can say, such as “Hey, if you press the arrow keys with an object selected, you can nudge it pixel by pixel” and suddenly they try it and feel incredibly accomplished. Adobe Flash is a powerful program, and it’s really fun to see students at such a young age doing great things with it. It really allows students to be creative, but at the same time, teaches them skills that will be useful for a long time to come.

- Stephen Eggers