Take part in a new nonprofit tech needs survey and be eligible to win prizes

In the world of professional nonprofit fundraising the selection of tools at our disposal has never been quite as broad as it is today. There are of course dozens of ways to engage with your donors in 2011 and as many methods again to promote activism and awareness for your nonprofit and its goals. Here’s the reality though, technology has reinvented the way we live our lives and communicate with people over the last 10 years and in common with that is also rapidly changing the way we do business. Whether we are running a restaurant or helping to promote a nonprofit the ways we can engage with people continue to change. I spend a fair amount of time reading websites that are devoted to changes in technology and while everyone jumps up and down about the forthcoming iPad 2 or the newest social media trend the fact is almost everything that’s new in the next 12 months will most likely be out of fashion in three or four years and functionally obsolete in six or seven. Industry experts feel that the technological capacities of the tools we use will double within the next three to four years and as the tools change so will the application of them by us, the users.

What’s important to remember for nonprofits is that the key components of building donor relationships, responding to questions or suggestions and informing those that support your organization of your accomplishments will remain at the heart of what you do. Social media does matter, understanding the potential for online fundraising matters, using your website to market your business of course matters also. At present however many businesses (not just nonprofits) are trying to juggle the application of time and expertise to assess just what steps should be taken next. Predicting what might trends may replace Facebook or Twitter in the years to come, plus guessing how most people will gather their news five years from now are the big questions to try and determine. Many businesses struggle to find the time to best interpret the information that our rapidly  accelerating technological age is bringing to us. Keeping up with industry trends via professional surveys and even taking part in those surveys is a really great starting point, many of the changes that we’ve seen in the last few years were in fact predicted.

I write all of this today because I wanted to let you know about another new survey which is compiling data from the nonprofit community to see how we are using the tools of social media, your email strategy, how your website performs, how you’re measuring data and what is working well for you. It’s called the Nonprofit Tech Needs Survey and only takes a few minutes to complete, plus by doing so you’ll be entered to win prizes such as a (electronic book reader if you’ve been too busy keeping up with all the other changes!) or a $100 donation to the charity of your choice. If you have time please follow this link to the survey to take part and I’ll be sure to report back on the results. The survey data is being compiled by RadCampaign.