Jon Lebkowsky's blog

League of Technical Voters' Code-A-Thon

Jon Lebkowsky — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 08:08:49 -0500

AssistOrg's Silona Bonewald, founder of the League of Technical Voters (LOTV), organized a 48-hour Code-A-Thon over the weekend to create new functionality for the Drupal platform according to LOTV requirements. Kai Mantsch's video shows more about the event.

"Social Change and the Technology Struggle"

Jon Lebkowsky — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:16:58 -0500

I posted at WorldChanging about an important new report published by dotOrganize, an organization set up "to assist organizers in utilizing online tools as vehicles for their vision." This report is resonant with AssistOrg's vision and focus.

Nonprofit 2.0 and the long tail

Jon Lebkowsky — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:32:37 -0500

Following the concept of "Web 2.0," we can talk about "Nonprofit 2.0," which was the title of a Sonny Cloward post in October 2005 (referring to a post by Marnie Webb of Compumentor about nonprofits and Web 2.0). Others have used the term, but I'm especially interested in a July 8 post at nonprofittechblog.org focusing on one aspect of Web 2.0, "the long tail,"

a statistical phenomenon that says that the niche players in any Internet-driven market, become, in aggregate, a larger market force than the “brand names” of that market. For us non-profit types, that means all those little mom-and-pop non-profits are actually a bigger force in toto than the Red Crosses, United Ways and Salvation Armies of this world. In a sense, your average donor is now going to be confronted with a Netflix-like selection of charities he or she can donate to. Sure, they might want to donate to the Red Cross but then there’s the indie non-profit just trying to help out literally in the neighborhood of that donor.

Observations on nonprofit software from One Northwest

Jon Lebkowsky — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:20:27 -0500

Steve Andersen at One Northwest has written "Some observations On Nonprofit Software":

Missions are serviced only by engaging constituents to action
Engagement activities aren’t unique to nonprofits, so the tools aren’t either
The best way to build software for nonprofits is to find tools that successfully addresses most of your needs and then add the nonprofit-specific functionality
Software targeted at a larger market than nonprofits will improve faster than software specifically for the nonprofit market
Software that has open Application Programming Interfaces makes the “build-on-top” model work
There is a market for nonprofit-specific software that serves a defined function and is accessible via robust APIs