bryanmiller's blog

Social Actions is a fantastic online initiative that aims to make it easier for people to make a real difference in the world, by essentially aggregating thousands of online microphilanthropic opportunities from over 50 different non-profits and other sources (at the last count) through one site with powerful search functionality.

However, what is really clever about the way that Social Actions works is that it is not just reliant on people visiting the site to search for opportunities to take actions they might be interested in. It can also ‘push’ action opportunities out to any other website...

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

Last week YouTube launched a new feature called ‘Call to Action’ for Non-profit Partners, allowing them to place overlay ads linking direct to their own website on their YouTube videos - for free. The clickable ads can direct viewers to any webpage, such as a secure donation page - essentially making YouTube videos into online DRTV ads.

To test the new feature, last Sunday YouTube placed a video for charity:water on its homepage, complete with a clickable overlay encouraging viewers to donate to fund water wells - and generated a very impressive $10,000 in donations in one day. So it certainly seems to work!...

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

Time seems to be flying by this year. It seems like just the other day we kicked-off the new year and now it’s pretty well the end of March already. All of which means that I really need to get down to work on three conference sessions that I’m scheduled to present over the next few months.

It’s always great to meet folks who read Giving in a Digital World at conferences, and I’m also always on the look-out for new case studies to help illustrate them - so I thought I’d share the details here to see if anyone can suggest any great new examples of nonprofit online community activity for me to include...

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

Development charity ActionAid took to the streets this week with a novel approach to publicise today’s ‘Put People First’ protest march through London, in the form of The MegaMouth - a megaphone-equipped superhero shouting-out slogans provided by the general public via SMS and Twitter...

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

March 13th was apparently the 20th birthday of the World Wide Web! So, why not celebrate this great day by taking a little time to stretch your thinking about the Web just a bit - by watching the great video in the link below, in which Tim Berners-Lee explains how he invented the World Wide Web and sheds some light on how he believes his brainchild will evolve in the future.

In this short talk, Berners-Lee explains how the World Wide Web all began because he wanted to refine the way we use information and work together - and, apparently, because his boss humoured him and agreed that he could spend time on it on the side as a “play project”. All bosses with bright staff - take note!.

It goes without saying that this particular play project ended-up revolutionising our lives through the way the Web links documents together online. But this is just the beginning. The future, Berners-Lee explains, will comprise evolving from the current ‘linked documents’ approach to a ‘linked data’ approach. This is the next revolution - and understanding what this means will be key to your online fundraising and marketing activities in the future.

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

Understanding how the specific consumer groups that make-up your target audiences are adopting and using digital channels is fundamental to developing successful programmes to engage with them online. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a chunky consumer research budget you may well feel that you have no way of gaining the type of detailed insights you need to support your planning.

However, if you keep a look-out then chances are you’ll find that every so often some great reports are made available completely free of charge that can give you just the type of information you need.

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

Just a few weeks behind the originally planned launch date (which is pretty impressive for a development of this complexity) the online fundraising site formerly known as Play it Forward and now renamed Pifworld went live over the weekend - and it's well worth a look.

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

A report has just been released by the Pew Research Centre in the US, detailing research into the profile of US users of the increasingly popular microblogging service Twitter.

Interestingly, according to the report, Twitter users are not as young as you might have expected - with a median age of 31. Compared to 27 for MySpace users; 26 for Facebook users; and a positively ancient 40 for LinkedIn users.

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

Kiva, the 3-year old non-profit peer-to-peer microlending organisation, has just announced release of an Application Programmers Interface (API) that will enable any developer to create new tools and applications supporting the Kiva lending community.

Using the API, developers will be able to access public data from Kiva - such as a full list of entrepreneurs requesting funds or the latest lending activity - and integrate it into whatever type of application they care to develop. Suggestions from Kiva to start developers thinking include an iPhone or Blackberry App or a map showing the real-time transfer of funds around the globe.

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...

The Resource Alliance, organisers of the annual International Fundraising Congress that last year attracted some 900 fundraisers from all around the world, has announced that it is to host what it describes as "the world's first virtual fundraising conference" - from May 12-14 this year.

For its first year IFC Online will be focusing exclusively on new media fundraising because the organisers, probably rightly, believe that it will be the online fundraisers who will be the most comfortable with an online conference format. However, the plan is to expand the programme in future years to attract fundraisers from all disciplines.

Click here to read-on at Giving in a Digital World...