Like every nonprofit Executive Director, Ana-Marie has a wishlist of things she would love to do or have in order to maximize the effectiveness of her agency. Enjoy! Bunnie Riedel
How are nonprofits using/re-thinking use of technology/telecommunications in this bad economy?
At my agency -- CARD: Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters -- we are bumping up our use of technology. We are in the process of converting our website to more of a blog format, so that we can add widgets and such, and update it quickly and easily. We have made sure all employees can text each other quickly. We will be offering more classes and presentations online.
Are there things you won't, can't do? Things you wish you
could do but don't have the money to do?Oh yes! I would LOVE to have the funds to give every person on my team a laptop with Internet access, so that we could do tele-meetings with zero hassle. Would LOVE ultra-lightweight video equipment so we could get serious about capturing our classes and audience reactions -- and we could be publishing it on the Internet. We would also love to have the real-time polling system, where audience members are polled and the results are immediately tabulated and displayed as part of a displayed PowerPoint presentation. If the technology Gods smiled upon us, we'd surely have an online, interactive repository of our classes, trainings, tools and materials.
Is technology (social media, SEO, blogging, video blogging) helping you?
Social media is helping, though we haven't had the time or money to invest properly in this. But even having just a toe in waters of social media -- using StumbleUpon, Plaxo and LinkedIn -- has been quite helpful.
If your nonprofits use of the latest technology were a car, what make/model would it be?
Probably a 2001 Prius, with some dents and custom modifications.
Contact Ana-Marie at msamjones@gmail.com
