Hot Off the Press: Issue Two of NTEN:Change is Live

NTEN’s Free publication for Nonprofit Leaders is also a great read for NPTech staff members.  Includes case studies and tech solutions from other NPOs.

To access the latest issue, you’ll need to subscribe with your email address.  Future editions will be emailed to you.

Access here: Hot Off the Press: Issue Two of NTEN:Change is Live.

Rebekah L. Hickey · Comments  

Skipping the Copy in Nonprofit eNewsletters

Writing a nonprofit newsletter can be a serious drag. Back in my nonprofit days, I remember the monthly struggle to prize interesting (and coherent) stories & program info from my over-busy coworkers. So I thought I’d share the clever solution two of my clients, PDX Q Center and Hudson Pride Connections Center, have come up with to promote their upcoming events.

Rather than standard newsletter copy, both community centers use the bold graphics they already have on-hand for event promotions to create teaser images that link to the event’s page on their websites. The graphics stand on their own to create a visually appealing newsletter that’s easy to scan at a glance and see what’s happening at the center. I appreciate the simplicity of it every time I get one of their newsletters in my inbox. I’m also more likely to click on an image that strikes my fancy than read a mile-long newsletter, what about you?

Here’s an example of Q Center’s copy-free, ‘visual’ newsletter.

Now, both of my clients are community centers, so their newsletters are of the ‘upcoming events’ variety. I realize that graphics-only newsletters won’t be be appropriate for every purpose, but I think it’s a solution that is worth exploring if you’re struggling to create fresh and interesting content for each issue.

What do you think? Have you come up with a novel solution to address your newsletter blues? Tell me about it in the comments.

Rebekah L. Hickey · Comments  

Tags: Case Studies

Hudson Pride’s New Website Makes Updating Content Easy for Staff

Click image to see additional screenshots

Hudson Pride Connections Center is an LGBTQ Community Center located in New Jersey. With a small staff and limited annual budget, Hudson Pride needed a website that they could easily update with new content and images regularly. Their old site was outdated–making heavy use of table-based layouts, deprecated code, and inline styles–and required a webmaster to make even the smallest update or change.

I built Hudson Pride’s new website on WordPress, my preferred content management system (CMS), for small nonprofit clients, and created a custom theme to best meet our design and functionality requirements. The new site includes an Events Calendar, with upcoming events streamed on the home page, a Blog for announcing news items and press releases, and an engaging look and feel.

Before launching the new site, I trained Hudson Pride staff to use WordPress to manage their own content moving forward. They will be able to easily and quickly edit the navigation menu labels, create new pages, add new photos to the image slider on the home page, etc.

I’m pleased with how Hudson Pride’s new site has turned out–it will serve Hudson Pride well in the years to come. Thanks especially to Nancy Caamano, Hudson Pride’s wonderful Executive Director, and to all Hudson Pride’s staff, volunteers, and board members for their assistance in creating an engaging new resource for the LGBTQ community in New Jersey.

VISIT LIVE SITE

PORTFOLIO

Rebekah L. Hickey · Comments  

Tags: Case Studies

Create a Custom Username for Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Page

It’s already old news that Facebook made some big changes to Pages this week. If you haven’t upgraded your nonprofit’s fan Page yet, you may as well hop on the bandwagon and start learning how to use the new features. Facebook has made a few much-needed improvements that make upgrading your organization’s Page worthwhile. Here’s a great article to help you get started.

Something that Facebook hasn’t changed, however, is the ability to create a custom username for your nonprofit organization’s Fan Page. A custom username lets you direct your supporters to your organization’s Facebook Page with a short, easy to remember link (eliminating that nasty string of numbers at the end). It’s a simple step you can take now to improve your nonprofit marketing efforts.

Instead of the default link to your Page that looks like this:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Fan-Page/123456789101

You can create this shorter, more memorable link instead:
http://www.facebook.com/My-Fan-Page

As long as your organization’s page has 25 fans or people who “like” it, it’s eligible for a custom username.

Follow these (quick and painless!) steps to create a custom username for your organization’s Facebook Page

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/username
2. You’ll see something similar to this on your screen:
   
3. Select your organization’s Page from the drop down menu (you must be logged in as a Page Admin to do this).
4. Facebook will let you know if your Page is eligible (at least 25 fans/’likes’).
5. Select your preferred username (ideally the Page Name), check its availability, and click to confirm.
6. UPDATE 4/25/11: Facebook does allow you to edit or change your username after you’ve confirmed it, but be aware that doing so will change the URL of your Page to match the new username.
7. Once you’ve created a custom username, use it from now on when creating a link to your organization’s Page. You don’t need to update existing links, however, unless you want to–Facebook will automatically redirect users who use the old url.

Questions? Read up about custom usernames for Facebook Pages here. Visit Facebook’s Pages Guide for more resources on starting and managing your organization’s Facebook Page (if you’re new to using Facebook as an organization, visit the link to resources for “Nonprofits”–you’ll find a helpful best practices guide.)

Rebekah L. Hickey · Comments  

Tags: Facebook Tips, Nonprofit Tech 101

New WordPress Plugin Makes Adding Images to Sidebars Easy

Just wanted to let folks know about a WordPress plugin I just discovered: Image Widget WordPress Plugin. I’m adding this plugin to my list of standard plugins to install on client websites. The plugin lets you directly upload and position images on the sidebar, saving a step if you usually upload images to the Media library and then manually add to the sidebar using the tag. Any time clients are required to use HTML code things can get a little tricky, so I’m thrilled to have my clients start using it.

One caveat: you can’t have the same image in more than one Image Widget, so if you have more than one sidebar, and want the same image on both, you’ll need to upload the image twice and rename the second one to use it in the widget. Otherwise, it’s a great plugin for giving clients the ability to add images to a sidebar without using code.

Rebekah L. Hickey · Comments  

Tags: Nonprofit Tech 101

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