Heather Mansfield

Many nonprofit professionals already are overwhelmed by all of the free or low-cost resources they have at their fingertips — and as the mobile Web and related startups continue to grow, prepare to be mind-boggled by all the new technology options available to your nonprofit in coming years. Here’s a list of some of the resources you might find useful.

Executives have come a long way in understanding the social Web. However, as I travel the country this year giving trainings on social and mobile media to nonprofits of all sizes, I'm somewhat flummoxed that the No. 1 complaint by nonprofit social-media practitioners is still that, "My boss doesn't get it! What can I do to make him understand?"

Your social-media campaigns are only as good as the human beings behind them. For your nonprofit to succeed on social-media sites, make sure your social-media manager has most of the following qualities:

A Few Words of Caution: Small to medium-sized nonprofits should take Facebook case studies and best practices based on the success of large nationally and internationally well-known nonprofits (with huge e-mail lists and multiple communications and development staff) with a heavy dose of skepticism.

If your nonprofit is making five or more of the 10 social-media mistakes below, odds are that training and a re-examination of your social-media strategy are required.

It took almost a decade for donors to trust Donate Now technology. Similarly, it might take years for them to trust apps and widgets (and mobile-giving technology), but can you imagine if we had listened to the naysayers and thrown out Donate Now buttons in 2005 because the results weren't immediate?

1. Reserve a YouTube.com URL to match your Web site. It’s important that your organization’s YouTube URL match your Web site’s URL in case you ever promote your YouTube channel in print materials or in your e-mail signatures. For example, Big Cat Rescue: www.bigcatrescue.org www.youtube.com/bigcatrescue Even if you don’t plan on using YouTube immediately, sign up and grab that URL before someone else does! PLEASE NOTE: When signing up for your YouTube account, your “username” becomes your YouTube URL! So, in this example, Big Cat Rescue has the username “bigcatrescue.” 2. Use your organization’s logo as your channel’s profile picture. Odds are that

In 2001, I launched a small, Web-based nonprofit organization called eActivist.org. Like most other small nonprofits, we were strapped for cash. At the time, “Donate Now” buttons were the latest and greatest in nonprofit fundraising, and I had the highest of hopes and expectations for this new and cutting-edge technology.