Want to hear about a topic?

With the holidays going on, I know that everyone is busy tidying up things in the non-profit world so I don't want to post a lot of the key topics during this last month of the holiday. With that in mind, email me about web topics you're interested in knowing more about. Maybe you have some questions about a product and if it's right for you. I'll pick back up the postings after the first of the year so think a bit about it and drop me an email. Some things I plan to start featuring:

• More Joomla! I'll be covering some great modules that I've tested and used that you might find useful.
• Web How-To's: Some very brief web how-to's to help make your site better. More for the coder in the organization
• More Product Reviews: I'm always stumbling across some cool web based tools that you might find useful.
• Answering readers questions. As questions are submitted, I'll post my responses to all you need to know web design.
• Much, much more!

Have a great December and see you next month!

It's the Holiday

With Thanksgiving being yesterday. Remember your favorite non-profit organization this time of year an make a donation to save a tree, feed the homeless, save the planet, find a home for a pet - whatever you can think of. Posts will resume after the holiday.

Sharing: Debunking Five Myths of Online Fundraising

Thon Morse is the President of Kimbia and he has written an article about online fundraising and some myths about it. Some things he addresses are:

Myth #1: Online fundraising isn't as effective as offline techniques
Myth #2: People won't give online
Myth #3: Online fundraising means raising money through my organization's website
Myth #4: Technology is not the problem
Myth #5: Raising 10 percent of all gifts online is a great goal

To read the entire article and his responses to these myths, check out Kimbia: Inside Out.

Joomla 1.5.8 has been released

For those of you using Joomla as your CMS, they just released the latest version - 1.5.8. As always recommended you should upgrade your version to the latest. The reason being is mainly for the security issues they fix from previous versions or because they received new light about a potential issue. Also, as there are releases, there are always bugs so when you report a bug, they generally put it in their list of fixes for the next release. It's very easy to upgrade your current website with the latest release. When you go to the Joomla site, you want to click on the option for finding an update package. From there you can select what version you are currently in and save the zip or gz file. You then have to have access to your server. On some servers, they will allow you to upload a zip file and extract the package but in other cases they don't. So in that case, you have the unfortunate task of unzipping the file on your local computer and uploading it to the server. As a safety percaution, you should always do a back-up of the database. I have never had any issue but you never know. Once it's unzipped, you can tell your version by logging into the administrator panel and checking the top right corner. It will show you the version you are currently using. Go to www.joomla.org for the latest release download.

Get Your Videos Ready!

Do you ever visit YouTube? Well I go there often. There are so many videos from so many topics, you could never get through them all. Well I'm not the only one who goes to YouTube. YouTube is a FREE online server where you can post your own videos in a personalized channel. Non-profits are starting to utilize it for their organizations. At YouTube, you can create a custom channel for your organization and post videos. This is great because if you have a lot of videos, you can store them there for free vs. storing them on your own web server. This saves bandwidth and space. YouTube also gives you custom code so that you can embed the videos into your website but they still reside on their servers. Another value to YouTube is that folks will have easier access to you and would likely see your video there first before they would at your website. Another type of video services is GodTube - same concept but more religious based so if you are a faith-based organization, consider using it as well.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Design Tip: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Do you remember your dad saying that? We'll mine always did and it's true. When a potential donor comes to your website for information or maybe to make a donation, a good visual of your organization can bring positive feedback. Capture your visitors attention with photos. Wouldn't it be nice for people to fully understand the work you do? You can do that by displaying photos of your organization doing what it does best for others, whether it's feeding the homeless, educating children or saving a displaced pet. Photos that tug on the heartstrings can eventually tug on the purse strings. It also helps people see just how far you've come. So the next time you're updating your website, don't forget the photos.

Cool Tool Alert: Kimbia

In an earlier post, I mentioned using Kimbia for your donations and fundraising, here's why:

It's versatile and you can plug it in anywhere!

Kimbia for lack of a better word is a mobile widget. You log into your Kimbia account and create campaigns and forms. You are able to customize and create as many fields as you need for your forms. Kimbia can also be styled using CSS so you can really give it the look and feel it needs to match your website. Once it's created you are given the code you need to paste into your website. The super cool feature about this code is that you can paste it anywhere. Think about networking websites or even personal websites. You can allow others to paste this code, let's say in their personal website and people who are visiting could make donations. A way to market this could be "show your support for our organization by adding this widget to your website." Really the options are endless. Also, another brillient thing is that if no funds are exchanged, there is no fee to use it. So if you just need to create an RSVP for a party, you can create a form in Kimbia and send it out to folks. And since there is no money collected, there's no charge to use it! Kimbia keeps track of the form results as well.

Kimbia is NOT an e-commerce tool per say. It doesn't have a shopping cart or shipping. However, I was trying to think of creative ways to use it. You could use it to pay for memberships since there is no shipping involved. So I would imagine that if you had an item that just had a flat rate, you could find a way to use this.

Again, a tool worth checking out.

Here are the bullet points:

• No start-up or set-up charge
• If you use the tool and no funds are exchanged, it is completely FREE.
• Kimbia charges only 5% which is the processing. Very reasonable seeing all the great stuff you get with this tool.
• This is not an e-commerce tool. I only wish!

While you may think this is a more expensive option, then lets say PayPal, well you are right. But this is more than just a payment processing tool. It's a fundraising tool - processing payments is just part of it. So if you are a heavy fundraising based organization, this tool really is for you. Also, consider that PayPal doesn't give you a lot of options for collecting information or payment, but Kimbia does. Kimbia allows you to create whatever fields you want and as many as you want. You've heard the old saying "You get what you pay for".

I found this point on their FAQ:

Does Kimbia provide me with other capabilities beyond creating online donation forms?
Yes we do. The same functionality that enables you to easily create customized donation forms also enables you create registration forms for any kind of event (e.g., races, golf tournaments, galas, etc.) Race operators and organizers have found our forms especially useful because they can accept and manage registrations for large races directly on their own websites, versus re-directing registration over to a third-party site. Additionally, the forms that Kimbia enables you to create and place throughout the Web can be used as distributed content channels for your organization. Beyond providing an immediate transaction opportunity, your donation forms can include videos, surveys, message boards, petitions or other content that you want to communicate to constituents. Providing such content helps build and maintain interest in your organization or associated causes and increase donor engagement.

Check out their FAQ for more details.