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Category Archives: Mobile
October 4, 2012, 10:13 am
Why Nonprofits Need to Do More to Reach People on the Go
If your nonprofit hasn’t found a way to reach people on mobile devices such as iPads and smartphones, a new study suggests that it’s time to start.
More than 13 percent of all Web-page visits in August were made on a tablet or a mobile phone, according to the online measurement company comScore.
That figure is almost double the percentage of Web traffic that came from mobile devices a year ago, the company says.
Tablets accounted for 4.3 percent of all Web traffic and phones for about 9 percent. Even with the growth, desktop or laptop computers remain the most popular devices to view the Internet, providing 86.7 percent of all page views.
Dig deeper: Learn how nonprofits are redesigning their Web sites to appeal to supporters using phones and tablets in this recent Chronicle report.
September 5, 2012, 3:06 pm
Tweaking E-Mail for the Mobile Age
Ever since e-mail programs gave users the option of blocking images, many organizations have added short notes to the top of their messages—variations on “Trouble viewing this e-mail? Click here”—to direct recipients to online versions of the e-mails, images and all.
But while the notes make sense for people who read their e-mail on desktop computers, they can reduce the number of people who open the message when checking e-mail on mobile devices, says Holly Ross, executive director of the Nonprofit Technology Network.
She says that if someone is checking e-mail in a preview pane on a computer, they’ll usually be able to see enough of the message to know what it’s about.
“But on a mobile device, often all you see is a name, some part of the subject line, and then you see, ‘E-mail not displaying correctly?’ and that’s about it,” says Ms. Ross. “It doesn’t give…
May 31, 2012, 9:43 am
Nonprofits Use Responsive Design for Better Site Display
As more and more people rely on smartphones and tablets to get information, nonprofits must figure out the best way to make sure their Web sites display information just as well on the small screen as on computers.
Some groups have been creating special mobile versions or apps that work on different types of phones and tablets, but with the dizzying array of new technology, that process is complicated and expensive. That’s why a new approach is gaining popularity.
Called responsive design, the goal is to build a Web site that automatically recognizes the device or screen size a viewer is using. When you call up one of these sites on an iPhone, for instance, it instantly displays material using dimensions of the phone’s screen. When that same site is viewed on a laptop computer or a tablet, everything is shown in bigger dimensions. And nobody—not the viewer or the nonprofit—has …
April 30, 2012, 3:14 pm
Speeding Up Your Nonprofit’s Web Site
If your organization’s Web site isn’t up to speed, you could be losing donors and other supporters. But a free online tool, Google’s Page Speed, can help offer a quick analysis of the code on your site to determine whether it is loading as quickly as it can and offers recommendations for changes that can add zip to a sluggish site.
Those recommendations also come with a Page Speed score designed to show how much a site can improve. The score doesn’t measure the actual time it takes for a site to load on a computer screen, because that is influenced by the size of a page in bytes, server hardware, and other factors. But it does help gauge whether a site is performing as well as it can.
Sites that need significant improvements score below 50 out of 100. If a site is more modern, with best practices in place, it will probably score in the 80s or 90s.
The top 25 charities…
April 5, 2012, 2:39 pm
Online Fundraising Increased 19% in 2011, Says New Report
The total that charities raised online jumped 19 percent in 2011 compared with the previous year, and the number of Internet gifts they received climbed 20 percent, according to a new study that analyzes online fundraising and advocacy at 44 national charities.
The 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study was published by M+R Strategic Services, a fundraising consulting company, and the Nonprofit Technology Network.
The share of people who responded to e-mail fundraising appeals and advocacy requests dropped in each of the last five eNonprofit Benchmarks studies. But in 2011, organizations said the percentage who made gifts increased 2 percent and the percentage who responded to advocacy alerts jumped 28 percent.
The increases can be attributed, at least in part, to organizations’ being smarter about their use of e-mail, says Sarah DiJulio, a principal at M+R Strategic Services.
…
April 5, 2012, 11:27 am
Nonprofits Need to Think More About Mobile
The growing number of people using their cellphones to go online is a compelling reason for nonprofits to think more about how they make mobile technology a key part of spreading their messages and operating their programs, Laura Quinn, executive director of Idealware, told participants at the Nonprofit Technology Conference here.
In a recent survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 10 percent of cellphone owners said that their phone was their primary means of getting online. For certain demographic groups, such as young people and low-income workers, the percentage was even higher.
The first thing nonprofits should think about, Ms. Quinn said, is how their current Web site appears on cellphones. She recommended visiting the Web site mobilephoneemulator.com to see how an organization’s site looks on different mobile-phone operating systems….
November 23, 2011, 11:04 am
Charting a Decade of Online Donations
Only 4 percent of donors had given online in 2001. This year, about 65 percent have given to charity through the Internet.
That’s one of the comparisons made in a new graphic from Network for Good, a fund-raising and volunteerism Web site that celebrates its 10th anniversary this month.
In 2001, the average donation through the site was $226. But this year the average gift is $73, a change that Network for Good interprets as a sign that online giving has “gone mainstream.”
Here’s the full graphic:
September 29, 2011, 10:11 am
Two Nonprofits Honored for Innovative Technology
Hollaback created a smartphone app that lets victims of sexual harassment log their experiences and post a picture of the person they say harassed them.
South by Southwest, the annual conference of thinkers and innovators, has honored two nonprofits it says are using technology in novel ways to promote social good.
The organizations, which won scholarships to attend next year’s conference, are Hollaback and Friendfactor. Three other groups that are not nonprofits also won after entering an essay content to describe their work.
Hollaback, in Brooklyn, works to fight sexual harassment by collecting personal stories of victims on its Web site. Victims are encouraged to use their smart phones to post pictures of those who engage in “street” harassment.
To making such reporting easier, Hollaback has …
July 21, 2011, 9:32 am
Is Mobile Technology Better for Communication Than Fund Raising?
Silver Ring Thing, a Christian group that promotes abstinence among teenagers, is seeing success with mobile technology—but not for fund raising. The organization is using the medium almost exclusively for reaching out to young people.
During the past 18 months, the group has built a mobile database totaling about 25,000 numbers, mostly teenagers, said Jason Burtt, Silver Ring Thing’s senior vice president and national director. Silver Ring Thing sends one or two messages a month to its list, mostly encouragement, news, and links to blog posts and videos.
About 10 percent of the people who receive a message with a link visit it, and about 5 percent watch videos, Mr. Burtt said.
“We get good feedback from people who receive them,” Mr. Burtt said. “The main service for us is to be a reminder [to our audience], along with a chance to launch or advertise things that we are …
June 23, 2011, 2:54 pm
New Nonprofit Apps: Advocacy, Management, and Mission Get Attention
The international advocacy organization One has chalked up some early successes with a new mobile application for iOS—the operating system for Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and some iPods.
The application, released this month, makes it easy for the organization’s supporters to call their U.S. representatives, sign petitions, and connect with other advocates and organizers in their area. During its first two weeks, the free application recorded more than 20,000 downloads.
“We think that mobile advocacy is the next step,” said Kimberly Hunter, a spokeswoman for One.
So far, the best measure of its success is downloads, but that will change with new campaigns, Ms. Hunter said. The organization plans eventually to add a competitive component to the app that will allow supporters to measure their actions against others’—and for the organization to figure out which people are its most…
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