Social Entrepreneur blog for the world changers
Archive for June, 2009
Award & An Idea
Jun 19th
50 States for Good program
(submitted by Devin Kingdon)
“Through the 50 States for Good program, the company is now asking its consumers to help decide what projects around the country should receive the company’s financial support. With a $100,000 community action fund and a goal of inspiring participation across all 50 states, Tom’s of Maine encourages people to share their opinions on the projects that matter most to them.” - www.50statesforgood.com
Applications are available on their website and are due by August 30. At that time submissions will be voted on and the 5 projects with the most votes will receive $20,000.
An Idea
Here is an idea… I find out about these things every so often and I do enjoy letting you know about them. Would you be interested in helping each other out with the voting process as a community?
What I am thinking is the first 3 to 5 of you that are going to submit an application would let me know. Then, as a community, we can help each other out and vote on a readers applications. What do you think? Would you be interested in something like this? Would you be willing and committed to help vote for each other?
Question: Stealing Donors
Jun 17th
I have really enjoyed hearing from all of you regarding these questions. The last couple we have received some really great answers about Creative Events Ideas and Fundraising Ethics.
Question: What do you think about asking donors from organizations you worked with before for a donation or to get involved with your current nonprofit?
In the nonprofit world people are changing jobs more and more frequently. This can result in creating relationships with donors from a number of different organizations. I’ve found that when I work with people often times there are a few I get to know at a bit deeper level and stay in touch with after I am at the organization. Sometimes these individuals ask about my work to see if it fits in with their giving interests.
Staying Motivated
Jun 15th
Working in fundraising is all about staying motivated by your mission to help your cause. As I have spoken about in other posts sometimes you hit a wall and you have to keep pushing. Raising support for your organization can have some really great moments but it also takes a lot of personal will when things are not going the way you would like. Here are a few things I do to stay motivated.
- Talk with one of your clients or program staff and get a story about your organization from them. This is a great way to reconnect to the mission (see Great Donor Stories).
- Take a walk, grab a cup of coffee, or say a quick prayer. Anything that gives you a break from your daily work and allows you to take a deep breath and refocus. I often get so bogged down by the details that it helps to clear my head and then reengage.
- Take a Lunch. This forces you to interact with other co-workers and get away from your desk.
- Keep a paragraph from a favorite book or a verse of scripture at hand that reminds you why you do what you do.
- Have a quick chat with a co-worker. If you like your co-workers take a couple of minutes to hear from them about their work. This can help you see momentum in other fundraising areas and, if you like your co-workers, is a great way to improve your mood.
Do you have any tricks or tools you use to stay motivated? Let me know I’d love to use them myself.
2.8 Release Jazzes Themes and Widgets
Jun 10th
I’m very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 “Baker,” is immediately available for download. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of noted trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker. Here’s a quick video overview of everything in the new release:
The first thing you’ll notice is that visually 2.8 feels a lot like 2.7, just with some minor tweaks here and there. However once you’ll dig in you’ll begin to appreciate the changes.
Major New Improvements
First and foremost, 2.8 is way faster to use. We’ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.
The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.
If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you’ll appreciate the new CodePress editor which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you’re editing linked right below the editor.
If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. We’ve completely redesigned the widgets interface (which we didn’t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a much cleaner and robust API for creating widgets as well.
Finally you should explore the new Screen Options on every page. It’s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.
And Even More
You can read the full list of over 180 new features, changes, upgrades, and improvements on the Codex. The list is exhausting!
The Future
We’re already thinking hard about the next versions, 2.9 and 3.0. Keep an eye out for improved media handling, better dependency checking, versioning of templates and themes, and of course the fabled merging of WordPress and MU announced at WordCamp San Francisco two weeks ago.
Getting Your Way
Jun 10th
Here is a secret I use and I’ve seen others way more intelligent and experienced than I use to get a result they like. All of us have ideas or projects we would like to see happen that seem to get “shut down” immediately or before we can even start to get people excited about them.
Every organization has its “Thought Leaders” or unspoken culture shakers that everyone looks to before making a decision. If you want your idea to succeed, these people need to be on board and excited before you go through the traditional channels. So why not involve them in the “development” and creation of your initial idea and allow them to provide you with feedback about your project so they have a vested interest.
I will often meet with these turning point people individually and present them a skeleton version of my idea. When presenting the idea I’m careful to make sure they understand that it is only an idea not a full fledge project. Often I’ll ask them what their thoughts are regarding areas of the project that would go over well and areas that would not. Appeal to them as an expert letting them flush out some of the areas of the idea.
Summary of #wordpress-dev IRC meetup for 20090603
Jun 3rd
- Next Wednesday, June 10th, is the target date for the release of
WordPress 2.8. Tickets against the 2.8 milestone that are not
blockers will be postponed to another release. - WP 2.9 will require MySQL 4.1.2 or greater. This is raised from the current requirement of 4.0.
- Checks will be added to the automatic upgrader that will prevent upgrading to 2.9 if MySQL < 4.1.2 is being used. The upgrader will also issue a notice that suggests asking the host to upgrade MySQL to meet the minimum requirement.
- In order to promote migration to PHP 5, the upgrader will suggest that those running
PHP 4 switch to PHP 5. A link to a Codex page describing how to switch for various hosts should be provided. - The new weekly IRC meetup time will be every Wednesday at 9pm UTC.
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