Nonprofit and community groups have several reasons that they are slow to adopt new technologies. Nonprofits are reluctant “risk” donor money on unproven technology upfront and most community groups are small depending entirely on volunteers.  As a result efforts are started but often lie half finished. The challenge is compounded because volunteers are left to make all the choices without organizational context they often chose of create a build a custom tool that is challenging to use or to manage when they inevitably move on. The good news is the last few years we have seen the rise of simple to use and free tools that nonprofit and community groups can benefit greatly from using.

 

At the time of writing this I am the Director of New Media Strategies for collaboration United Way’s working on a new media partnership. I also volunteer to help several nonprofits with new media tools.  My approach has been to search for solutions that simple, free and can be learned by anyone. I have found that there are many rich resources. It’s just difficult for someone new to this area to choose the few good tools to focus their attention. With this in mind I intent to post at a series of tips, ideas, opinions and helpful links aimed to help nonprofit professionals or community volunteers get started in new media. I will be tagging these blog posts with the tag “new media”.

 

I hope some of these tips can help nonprofits, community groups and caring citizens to become stronger and more interconnected. I also hope that readers will take advantage of the commenting capabilities on this blog to let me know their new media: challenges, ideas and tips.