Facebook

July 5, 2009, The Washington Post — Twitter has been hailed as an incredibly useful marketing tool for businesses and brands, both big and small, to disseminate information and engage with consumers on a massive scale. But what about non-profits? The ability to use social media to fundraise for charitable purposes has been questionable. A few months ago, the Washington Post reported that Causes, one of Facebook's popular applications used by non-profits to raise money, was not netting much money for charities, despite its large amount of users (according to the application's page, it has 26 million monthly users).

Profiles, tweets, widgets, avatars, oh my! Social networking has created a wild new world. Given that newness, it’s easy for organizations to get caught up in the notion that they need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to engaging with constituents.

Margelina, my long-lost Second Life avatar, has a friend! Her name is TinaLouise Serendipity. I created her because I couldn’t remember Margelina’s password. So they’re more like stepsisters and, actually, they have yet to meet.

June 23, 2009, Bloomberg — When young Yale graduates need to hit up other alumni for charity, they tap the Old Boy and Girl Internetwork.

AUSTIN, Texas, June 23, 2009 — Charity Dynamics and FreeCause today announced a partnership that will provide nonprofit organizations with a unique and powerful social networking solution to drive greater constituent involvement and take special event fundraising to new levels.

NEW ROCHELLE, NY, June 17, 2009 — This month marked the launch of Salesian Missions first-ever national awareness campaign. The campaign includes the nonprofit organization's first television commercial and a new campaign website at www.FindYourMission.org.

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2009 — Leading child advocacy organization, the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), released information today that six months into the launch of their redesigned website (www.childrensdefense.org), site visits have increased 12%, Google organic search visits have risen 23% and the average time spent on the site has climbed 15%. These statistics demonstrate how the redesigned site reflects CDF’s deepened understanding of their audiences and goals through improved usability and accessibility. Now integrated with the organization’s online marketing tools, the content management system (CMS) enables staff to easily update website copy and graphics to ensure consistent branding and constituent experiences across all channels.

June 6, 2009 — In its "Employee Engagement Survey,” the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation teamed with Buck Consultants, an ACS company, to determine how organizations are communicating with employees to keep them engaged and productive. The survey includes responses from nearly 1,500 participants representing a broad industry and geographic base. The survey results are being released today at the annual IABC World Conference in San Francisco.

June 1, 2009 — Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook present exciting new opportunities for nonprofits to do online outreach, but many organizations lack the resources to explore them – especially right now.

May 28, 2009, The New York Times — The results are in, and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital is the winner of the Target Corporation’s “Bullseye Gives” contest on Facebook, in which 10 charities vied for votes from the social network’s users.