Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

I guess because I’m a blogger, I get these interesting tidbits in my mailbox. I don’t always have a lot of time to investigate them, or figure out if they are useful, but I do like to not completely ignore the ones that look interesting. I do hope folks will comment if they know something about these, or have an opinion.

• ReviewBasics is a collaborative editing and reviewing tool. I’ve perused the demos, and it does look like it would be useful for reviews of things like specs, wireframes, etc.
• Zoomgrants looks like it is trying to be some sort of one-stop-shop for grantors and grantees. As a funder, you can put up RFPs (at a cost), and people can apply directly online. It looks interesting, and potentially useful. I wonder how many foundations will go for it, though. I started a little Twitter conversation about it, and people seemed intrigued.
• BlueAvocado is a new online blog/magazine/website specifically for folks who work in and with nonprofits. It looks very promising. I’m looking forward to reading it.
• Convio is getting into some interesting territory these days. They’ve been doing some nonprofit research. They have released two studies, one on the “wired wealthy” and another which is a “nonprofit benchmark index” study - basically providing some benchmarks for organizations to measure themselves against, traffic, email newsletter click through rates, etc. It’s actually a pretty interesting resource, and worth a read. Of course, it’s only a study of Convio’s clients - but it’s interesting nonetheless.