Software/Technology

To create a new fundraising platform for nonprofits designed to raise $50,000 for Alabama charities in its first year, a trivia contest seemed quite natural. Impact Alabama, a relatively new nonprofit, collaborates with colleges, universities and communities throughout the state to implement service projects to serve disadvantaged people. The college students who power these projects typically walk away with an enhanced sense of social and civic responsibility.

The Salvation Army discovered that nobody opened about half the printed annual reports it sent every year. So it decided to scrap the hard-copy version, moving to an all-digital one in 2009.

Because the digital content can be used in so many ways, it makes some of the high initial costs more cost effective.

More and more charities are doing what the Salvation Army has done, creating all-digital editions of their yearly reports. The new versions make liberal use of audio, animation, and video (watchable even on smartphones), rather than long, text-heavy articles.

The Twitter co-founder Biz Stone plans to announce tonight that he is joining forces with a nonprofit technology group to start ConvergeUS, a charity that seeks to combat social problems with new technology. The nonprofit’s goal is to make resources of large technology companies more available to nonprofit, academic, and government organizations, said Rey Ramsey, chief executive of TechNet, who said he approached Mr. Stone to work with his group.

Spent, an interactive online game developed by the social-service organization Urban Ministries of Durham and North Carolina ad agency McKinney, which donated its services, is an online interactive game that educates people about poverty and homelessness. Players navigate the game by making decisions that could severely affect their health, finances,children’s well-being and work life. The goal is to show the choices a needy person must make every month. At the end of the game, people are asked to donate, volunteer or play again.

Foundation Source, provider of support services for private foundations, announced the launch of Foundation Source Access, a new online platform that connects nonprofits with private foundations in order to help them raise money easily and cost-effectively. Access introduces private foundations to discover and fund a wide range of the latest and most urgent fundraising projects for support. Access also serves as an innovative philanthropy network, allowing nonprofit and foundation peers to share lessons learned and strategic insights.

Blackbaud today announced that three of the leading arts and cultural membership associations; American Association of Museums (AAM), Association of Children’s Museums (ACM), and American Public Gardens Association (APGA), will partner with Blackbaud to make technology more accessible for their members.

CauseVox, a white label crowd funding platform for non-profits, announced today the launch of its fully customizable crowd-funding platform for nonprofits. The platform, in beta, offers easy to use and manage charity-branded fundraising pages.

Is your nonprofit organization throwing too much money at technology — money that could be put to better use helping accomplish your mission?

Hewlett-Packard is reshaping its policies on giving away money to nonprofit causes. Now the company will not just give away money. It will also donate the expertise of its employees to build solutions for nonprofits.

The change in policy makes sense, as the value of HP’s technology expertise could be far more useful, in conjunction with a donation, than just writing checks to charities, said Paul Ellingstad, a director in the office of global social innovation at HP, in an interview.

Banks are to adopt a system that allows people to make a small donation to charity whenever they withdraw cash.