Technology

Facebook's Open Graph platform allows you to build applications that pass information between Facebook and your website then publish back to Facebook.

Traffic to Oxfam’s website surged by 400% within 12 hours of the Haiti earthquake. For the Pakistan floods, the peak was lower but it lasted longer.

There is more or less an expectation for charities to be on Twitter, but when was the last to you stopped to think why your charity is on social media and are you acheiving what you set out to?

Bit of a longer blog this week but I hope you’ll bear with me as I’ve come across an interesting issue that more and more charities, small businesses, community groups etc. are going to need to think about in relation to their web presence.

It stems from the increasing popularity of multiple browsers now being used by many of us to access the web.  I should admit right now that I use a PC and a Blackberry but I’ve asked the views of colleagues with Android phones and Apple products and they experience the same issue (albeit in different ways).

Put simply, I’m baffled by how different the same thing can look on different browsers and the fact that some things don’t work at all in some browsers whilst everything is tickety-boo in others!

How important this is depends on how we are trying to deliver our core messages.  Consider these examples;

I was looking at the RSPCA’s website and had cause to try and find some information about their rescue teams.  The charity chooses to use videos to show footage of their teams in action and I think this is a great tool to support both campaigning and fundraising.

I watched the video in my preferred browser, Firefox but the delay in the film starting irritated me sufficiently to switch to Google Chrome, which is usually a faster browser.  The video did indeed start more quickly (well, it actually started!) and I watched the team in action, hanging over the edge of a very high cliff to rescue a ram.

This week I’ve seen several blogs and tweets from people whose thinking I respect touching on the subject of putting your audience at the centre of your actions.  Some have suggested that the audience should always be the driving force and others have posited that true innovation might not be possible if you do.

In our office there is much ongoing discussion about digital and associated fundraising activities.

Increasingly social media becomes crucial element of event coverage. So how do we make the most of the events we are attending?

You have a job to do — raising funds for your organisation — and as much as any job it depends on technology.

Fundraisers thrive on information, often asking the questions: ‘What is our donor retention performance this year?’ ‘Which kind of donor acquisition provided the best long-term ROI?’ ‘What moves one-t