Software Giant Releases Nonprofit Option
April 18, 2010 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Software Giant Releases Nonprofit Option
Microsoft is making a foray into the world of nonprofit software.
The Redmond, Wash., company has released a version of its Microsoft Dynamics CRM product for nonprofit organizations.
The software is designed to help charities record and track information about donors, gifts, volunteers, and clients.
The Web-based software costs $9.99 per month for each person in the organization who uses it, with a minimum of five workers.
For more information: Go to https://offers.crmchoice.com/nonprofit.
‘Real-Time’ Grant Updates Offered
Grantsfire, an online service designed to capture and publish up-to-date information on grants, will soon become a project of the Foundation Center.
The system pulls information about recently awarded grants from foundations’ Web sites or direct feeds using a simple unified standard called hGrant.
It was created with money from the Community Technology Foundation of California and the Charles Stewart Mott and William and Flora Hewlett foundations.
“The Grantsfire technology gets us one step closer to having real-time grants information,” Bradford Smith, president of the Foundation Center, said in a written statement. “This is central to our longstanding mission of increasing transparency so that people can see exactly what foundations are doing on the issues about which they care most.”
For more information: Go to http://www.grantsfire.org.
Software Advice for Charities
Many nonprofit leaders feel overwhelmed by technology, and with good reason: Idealware, a nonprofit group in Portland, Me., has identified 35 kinds of software that charities might want to use for fund raising and communications.
“Trying to navigate through all of the software types that are possible is really challenging,” says Laura S. Quinn, executive director of Idealware. “There are so many different things that one could do, all of which take at least time, if not money.”
To help charities make sense of their options, the group has published The Idealware Field Guide to Software. The new book explains what each type of tool does, lists leading vendors, and gives a range of how much the products cost. It also tries to help charities prioritize the technology projects they want to tackle.
Says Ms. Quinn: “Wikis, for instance, are probably not where you should start if you don’t have a very good Web site and you haven’t thought that much about broadcast e-mail tools.”
Nonprofit employees are all over the map in terms of their awareness of the tools out there, says Ms. Quinn. She worries that amid the “swirling hype” about the latest technology, good, solid information about the basics can be hard to come by.
“It’s hard for folks who know a lot about technology to imagine how little other people know,” she says. “There are organizations that are literally running off an Access database or an Excel file and almost nothing else.”
For more information: Go to http://www.idealware.org.
Bits
n VolunteerMatch has created a free tool that allows people to use their iPhones to search the group’s database of service opportunities, either by ZIP code or their current location. The application allows people to save and share their favorite volunteer opportunities on Facebook and Twitter. To download the application: Go to http://www.volunteermatch.org/volunteers/services/iphoneapp.jsp.
n Videos created by charities got unprecedented attention when the winners of the 2010 DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards were featured on YouTube’s home page on April 10. “Darius Goes West,” the winner in the category for small groups, has been viewed nearly 275,000 times. For more information: Go to http://www.youtube.com/nonprofitvideoawards.
n Nominees for the 14th annual Webby Awards have been announced in more than 100 categories, including best charity Web site. Voting for the People’s Voice Award in each category runs through April 29, and awards will be announced on May 4. For more information: Go to http://www.webbyawards.com.
