News: Kintera announces enhanced social network tools

The trend toward more powerful online social networking tools is being carried forward by one of the ASP giants. Kintera’s November newsletter includes a reference to new content submission tools that have a distinctly Web 2.0 ring to them:

Kintera continues to expand its library of powerful Web Tools with this more advanced content submission feature that allows organizations to build and leverage social networks. The new Content Submission Advanced Tool allows Sphere users to build an online form to capture content from Web site visitors. Web site visitors can upload text, images, files, and tag their content as applicable to different relevancy segments.

Click and Pledge provides affordable, powerful software tools for nonprofits

A new webservice profile has been added to the NonProfit Matrix:

Click and Pledge provides organizations with affordable yet powerful software tools designed for nonprofits. We make it easy to use, secure and we provide free customer support. There is no upfront investment: only pay for what you use.

>view this profile

News: ChipIn personal fundraising widget released

ChipIn has announced a new release of their handy add-in personal fundraising tool, making it possible for just about anyone to raise money online for the causes they support.

From their blog:

We released our ChipIn widget on Widgetbox today making it even easier to embed our contribute now badge on many more sites. You can easily place our contribute now badge on your Typepad blog, blogger, Myspace, Xanga, Friendster, WordPress, and many more. Check it out at widgetbox.com/widget/chipin

This new tool is already generating interest. Michael Stein has posted an article on ChipIn’s fresh approach to the ASP/web service equation, and Peter Deitz at First-of-its-kind has kindly provided a detailed post on the ChipIn feature set, inlcuding step-by-step instructions.

News: Convio to add Personal Outreach Pages

Following the rapid growth in popularity of personal fundraising page systems, like justgiving.com and givemeaning.org, which give individuals the power to create their own individual fundraising campaigns for the organizations they support, ASP mainstream giant Convio has announced plans for its own integrated version.

Convio’s Personal Outreach Pages will let constituents raise money and advocate on behalf of an organization at any time and for numerous causes. Convio’s Personal Outreach Pages are due to be launched in early 2007

Read Convio’s press release here.

Online tools for grassroots network building and advocacy campaigning

The good folks at dotOrganize have published a new report: Online Technology for Social Change: From Struggle to Strategy which covers a broad range of tools, tactics and strategies for grassroots network building and advocacy campaigning. One of the interesting “products” of the project is The Organizer’s Tool Crib which is an online listing of tools and web services to support online organizing, much in the same vein as the NonProfit Matrix, but with some interesting additional Web 2.0 functionality.

Analysis: Donor-Management Software Comparison

Tech Soup has published a chart that compares features of 8 leading donor management software packages. This is an Excel chart that includes the industry leaders, such a Blackbaud, Sage, and Donor Perfect, but also some of the more grassroots based and open source option such as eBase and SalesForce. The chart covers key functionality such as record adminstration, fundraising tracking, email functionality, and data import/export, and offer some additional notes on the relative strengths of each software option.

Tech Soup includes a note that the information contained in the chart is self-reported by the software vendors , and they encourage feedback and comment from users of these software packages.

Article: How to Use the Internet for Group Fundraising

A new guide to choosing and using online services for group fundraising campaigns (such as sponsorship marathons, personal fundraising pages, etc.) has been published by Peter Deitz at the new first-of-its-kind blog.

How to Use the Internet for Group Fundraising includes a brief introduction to planning and organizing group fundraising campaigns and provides a detailed pros/cons analysis and cost/commision comparison of nearly a dozen leading services providers offering group fundraising functions

New blog launched on NonProfit Matrix

The NonProfit Matrix, a leading online source for information on application service providers and online services for nonprofits, has launched a new blog to compliment its service provider listings.

This new blog features updates and information on new resources to help nonprofits make better use of online services for activities such as fundraising, donor databases, email broadcasting, events management, and much more.

The NonProfit Matrix blog will be updated regularly, and is available via RSS feed. Use the links below to subscribe using some of the most common RSS readers.