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These days you can’t roam far in our non-profit world without hearing the buzz about “social networking” or “social media”. Wherever you go, you can’t help but overhear people talking about Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools. These services provide organizations a great way to connect with supporters and provide new channels for fund raising, but how can you best integrate these tools into your Web site for the maximum impact? What are the best practices in tying your social networking strategy with your Web site communications strategy? We’ll answer these question and more at the next Soapbox Salon! PICnet’s Soapbox Salon When: Thursday, March 18, 2010 Please RSVP by Wednesday, March 17 by clicking the link below and registering for the event. Questions? Contact Julie Dennis at julie@picnet.net or by calling (202) 585-0273. ****************************
Emily Shaftel was my point-of-contact at CSPC and she was an amazing coordinator for their side. I always received a quick turnaround, clear and detailed questions and she was very technically savvy with an eye for pushing the website to its limits. She actually departed CSPC on the day of the launch to go and volunteer for a year in Thailand! Emily definitely made an impact before her departure.
This project reinforced some valuable lessons for me: 1) Sometimes it’s the little things 2) “By your powers combined” (thanks to Captain Planet for this valuable wisdom) At PICnet, we aren’t just about creating snazzy new websites with sleek design and fancy features. We’re also here to help with your website’s basic needs, like in the case of Port Jobs. We recently worked with Port Jobs’ database contractor to automate Microsoft Access reporting to display current job postings in near-real time on their Airport Jobs site. Port Jobs chose us after a competitive bid process in which they considered several firms. Our functionality and a previous relationship with the business favored us in the selection process. But the database revamping is only Phase I – we will now be working on redeveloping Port Jobs in Soapbox, under the same template. Although this is a rare example, the project was fairly smooth in part because I already understood how their old database was set up – because I had created it when I was an employee with Port Jobs. This made it a lot easier to understand the goal of the database integration, and the limitations and opportunities moving from the current ASP driven site to Soapbox. In the end, this prior knowledge proved fruitful in a great solution for the client. Recently, we helped migrate a newly designed Coalition to Stop Gun Violence to the Soapbox platform, after they were seeing diminishing service and support from their old system. The organization wanted an option to have support 24 hours a day and to build a relationship with their platform provider. And boy, did we build a relationship! As project manager, I spoke with Ladd Everitt from CSGV almost every day – as their PR/media person, he had a great personal investment in the website, and he was very involved with the decision-making and details from the start of the project. We originally were going to use the eblast system Vertical Response, tied into the Salesforce CRM to manage CSGV’s contacts. However, upon understanding the small staff they had and the technical literacy which these two systems required, I decided to look into Network for Good’s My Emma Email Now! This turned out to be both a simpler and more affordable solution for the client. Now CSGV has petitions, contact forms and surveys running through the form creation on Email Now, and they are also able to send out well-designed html email blasts through this very simple and easy to use system. I also want to give a quick shout out to Kate Purcell, the designer of the site. The relationship PICnet built with Ladd for this site was great for overall communications and for the momentum of the project. He was a great example of a smooth client-vendor partnership – always delivering on time and was available at all hours during the holidays for launch. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence seeks to secure freedom from gun violence through research, strategic engagement and effective policy advocacy. Learn more here. We recently launched another great Soapbox site, this time for Mercy Investment Services, an asset management program for the collective investment and professional management of the endowment, operating, and other funds of the Sisters of Mercy and the eligible sponsored and co-sponsored ministries that choose to participate, all of which are tax-exempt organizations engaged in religious and charitable activities. The idea behind the program is that, by combining their assets, participants may obtain lower costs for the investment of their funds and access to better performing investment managers than each would otherwise have. Here are some of our favorite, and notable features for the new site:
Mercy Investment Services is connected to the Sisters of Mercy Communities, for whom we’ve built several community sites. You can read more about those here and here.
The new site is informative and engaging, with aggressive integration through Democracy In Action for events, campaigns, and eNewsletter sign-up and templates. It also includes liberal use of WuFoo custom forms for robust online grant and fellowship applications. One final cool feature is a Google Map integration displaying more than 100 charter schools in New York that links to more details and content within the site and to the individual schools’ websites. At PICnet, once we help a client launch a new site, we make sure we stick around and keep in touch to help with any follow up and enhancements after a few months of usage. We’re always here to help with little fixes, tweaks or updates, and that’s just what we did recently with the Latin America Working Group, whose Soapbox site we launched earlier this year. Once the site was up and running, LAWG wanted to highlight their blog better and allow for commenting on posts from site visitors. Our team worked with them to craft a low-impact strategy by implementing the following low-hanging fruit: 1) creating a new image button on the right side of the homepage called “Read our Blog” with a direct link to the blog Easy fixes, more success for the client = happy PICnet! LAWG brings U.S. civil society groups and citizens together to influence U.S. policy to promote peace and justice in Latin America. Since 1983, we’ve been opening doors for Latin American human rights activists to speak truth to power in Washington, DC. Learn more about LAWG at http://www.lawg.org. If your holiday calendar isn’t full yet, we’ve got something to fill it with – PICnet is reinstating Soapbox Tuesdays, a monthly forum held at our offices for Joomla and Soapbox users. We’ll discuss the up and coming, answer your questions, brainstorm, and give feedback where needed. We’re excited to create a space where people can bring their lunch and their questions to chat about how technology is changing the non-profit world. As the year wraps up, it’s time to gear up for last minute changes to your Non-Profit Soapbox and Joomla Web sites. What better way to do this than by sharing some lessons learned with your fellow Non-Profit Soapbox and Joomla! users at PICnet! When: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 We hope to see you there! Click here for more details. The Brazilian technology community is bubbling with amazing energy, and I had a great opportunity to see it first-hand this past weekend. On Saturday, I was asked to speak at Intercon 2009, an annual gathering of Web technologists in Brazil. I’m excited to report back that the Brazilian community (especially those in the Joomla world) are heavily engaged in our open source technology ecology. My presentation focused on open source content management systems (CMS) with two perspectives: that of a company looking to invest in CMS software, and that of a business looking to build a solid business model based on providing services around open source CMS software. I provided a little snapshot of PICnet’s history, moving from a pure consulting firm to one providing our flagship Non-Profit Soapbox product, while sharing some lessons learned and paths to success.
Many thanks go to our friends at iMasters, who put on this great conference, and who were gracious hosts during my stay in Sao Paulo. I’m looking forward to next year’s event! |
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Just in time to celebrate the birth of some our most famous U.S. presidents, PICnet launched a new Soapbox website for the 
A couple weeks ago, we launched a really great new site for a great and deserving organization – the 
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