Wednesday, January 24, 2007

59 Smartest Orgs online

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am on the Board of CompuMentor/TechSoup, which helped develop the list that follows. (I thought I'd put this up front instead of that end - transparency matters)

This is an interesting list of "smart" nonprofits. I, of course, love a list of 59 anythings - just so its not the top ten.

You can read the list. I'll post the research methodology - its all about transparency. I noted that lots of folks in the comments added their favorite NPO, though only a few mentioned any of these criteria.

"So, how did we research these nonprofits?

Squidoo, NetSquared and GetActive each recommended nonprofits that were on their radars, charities that were talked about in 2006 and taking a different approach to fundraising, community, and idea spreading. Then we looked at how each of those organizations was interacting with the more compelling web 2.0 tools and principles. These aren't just orgs that throw up a video or a forum or a MySpace page and stop. These are organizations that are busy aligning their missions and models and stories to support the new marketing online.

We asked questions like:

What does the org's website look like?
Does it just ask for donations?
Do they have a way for members to share their stories?
Do they have lenses or Groups on Squidoo?
Do they have MySpace groups?
You Tube videos?
Flickr sets?
Do they value microdonations or only $1000 and more?
Do they run contests or challenges to engage their members?
Do they send out weekly or monthly newsletters?
Do they have RSS feeds?
Are people blogging about the org?
Are they stuck in the land of direct mail, control, and offline fundraising?
Are they optimized for the new cadre of young philanthropists?"

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