Bev Freeman over at the Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association has been working on a great series about nonprofit marketing. Check out her posts on:

Nonprofit Marketing….Really?
Using marketing to enroll people in a significant program or initiative, increase awareness about an agency’s mission, its services, or the response to a crisis in your community, and/or raise the visibility of an organization as a basis for successful fundraising or “buy-in” (acceptance) by your constituencies.

Nonprofit Marketing – Using a Plan, Considering Social Media
Outlines the benefits of a plan, encourages you to engage in planning and helps you understand where social media may fit in.

Nonprofits—Begin to learn about the social media
Set aside time every week to learn more about the social media. Nonprofit communicators have a unique opportunity to employ any of an array of social media tools – these are low-cost (often downloadable for free) and very often effective.

Check out my latest article in The Jewish Daily Forward, which articulates how many of the nonprofits we come into contact with are struggling to keep up with technology. I’m already hearing some “mazel tovs” and “Yes, we’re hearing the same thing toos.”

Technologically Impaired?
Jewish Organizations Struggle To Keep Pace With New Technologies
By Monique Cuvelier
Wed. Jun 18, 2008

Honorary Member of the Tribe. Good for the Jewish people. Rabbi of technology. Three phrases I’ve heard more than once to describe myself.

How, you might ask, did a girl raised in a Baptist church in Colorado (my parents lived down the road from the Focus on the Family headquarters) simultaneously learn how to correctly pronounce the word “nachas” and carve a niche for herself as the gentile helper of Jewish technophobes?

The question occurred to me sometime between coaching new rabbis on how to take an online course and helping a team of teachers bring social media from synagogues to a wider audience, part of the work of my company, Talance, Inc.

The answer: In short, it happened because the Jewish philanthropic world I’ve been working in since 2003 needs help. Technology is whizzing forward, picking up secular not-for-profits and Christian evangelists who have figured out how Web 2.0 — usually those technologies that bring people together through such social networks like MySpace, or encourage people to generate their own content — can assist them with growth and with community building. Meanwhile, many Jewish not-for-profits and synagogues are left behind, confused by the options and unsure of the relevance.

“Honestly, we have to quit asking other Jewish nonprofits for their advice,” said a client of mine who works for a New York-based Jewish not-for-profit. “When we ask them for information, they say, ‘We don’t know, but if you find out, tell us.’ They’re as clueless as we are.”

It’s understandable. Everybody’s a little clueless with new technology. It seems that every week, the next, brightest social media tool is all the rage.

Many secular or non-Jewish not-for-profits realize that this revolution is big and scary and unknown, but they are curious about it and willing to learn. The smart ones have figured out that with a little technical chutzpah they can reach a lot of minds out there, and as a result they’re changing more lives.

Look at Kiva.org, a microlending Web site that lets people such as Paul in North Carolina and Jake from Gainesville, Fla., lend money to small-time entrepreneurs in places like Uganda. If it weren’t for the connectivity of Web 2.0, Kiva never would have generated microloans valuing more than $32 million. Or take MoveOn.org, which gave liberals a stronger voice by creating a forum for them to gather and become active.

So what exactly is breaking down when you take the term “not-for-profit” and put the word “Jewish” in front of it?

It could be a matter of where the money’s coming from. MoveOn.org and Kiva.org are both extremely well funded by a wide range of sources, which makes it easy for them to experiment with new technologies. Plus, many secular not-for-profits receive a push to embrace new technology from behind the scenes.

“Some of the secular nonprofits have boards of trustees and directors with people from large corporations that exert pressure to budget the money necessary for technical development,” said Steven Lubetkin, senior fellow of the Society for New Communications Research and a synagogue tech consultant in New Jersey. He spends most of his time with his podcasting business, ProfessionalPodcasts.com.

“They don’t usually do that in the Jewish not-for-profit world, because so many are owned or controlled by a federation,” he said.

Rabbi Hayim Herring, executive director of Minneapolis-based STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal), which helps synagogues understand and use technology, knows federations well. He thinks there may be a cultural reason that funders aren’t pushing for more daring Internet use.

“Historically, we’ve been a people of the book, not a people of the byte,” he said. “Our medium up until now has been the text, and those who work in this media are more comfortable with the printed word. There are some synagogues that do their bulletin totally electronically, but not too many.”

Many Christian organizations — especially evangelical ones — have the spirit of startups in Northern California’s Silicon Valley and are definitely composed of people of the byte. Lay preachers can start up churches, and their goal from day one is to grow as big as possible as fast as possible. They do this by spreading the Good News anywhere they can, and accepting new converts. Not surprisingly, they find it easier to tinker with new technologies. In a time when attendance in organized religion everywhere is declining, innovations that promise to reach out to potentially millions of people sound pretty attractive.

These organizations have identified Web 2.0 communication as a tool for their ministries, and many are creating impressive Web presences. The Web site for Revolution Church in Kansas City (www.kcrevolution.org) has a podcast. It also links to a page on MySpace, the popular social-networking site, and has an account on Flickr, an image-hosting site and community platform. Sugar Creek Baptist Church in Sugar Land, Texas (www.sugarcreek.net), hosted a blog that informed members about the development of a new building while accepting online donations to pay for it.

Rabbi Aaron Spiegel, information technology director of the predominantly Christian Indianapolis Center for Congregations, said, “This is exactly what congregations are trying to foster, a venue for [them] to give feedback and voice their opinion.” Not to do so, he noted, is to risk alienating a host of future generations — generations that take technology for granted.

In fact, these younger generations, especially millennials, who are just now entering the work force, are likely to be the ones bringing Jewish philanthropies into the 21st century. Today’s 24-year-olds grew up with this technological revolution; they were in diapers when the Internet took hold. Technology was never something they had to get used to, but not having it feels like deprivation.

Sharna Goldseker, vice president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, directs 21/64, a project that helps wealthy millennials understand how to invest their resources. Goldseker also works with federations on how to bring “next-generations” into their networks.

“We’re seeing a generational shift,” she said. “The next generation interacts differently with technology than older generations. Historically, Jewish institutions spoke for the community. Web 2.0 technology encourages the institution to speak with the community.”

These people will force the landscape of all philanthropies — Jewish or otherwise — to change, even if it’s a difficult task. “It’s easy to look back and outline shifts [in our culture], but when you’re in them, it feels turbulent,” Goldseker said.

As Spiegel said: “They have to change. No doubt about it. The Jewish world as a group has to be more responsive to the world and the way things work. If we don’t, more and more people are going to say, ‘This world is irrelevant to my life, and I’m not going to participate.’ The benefit of responding is, they get to stay relevant and in business.

“It will happen,” Spiegel said, “probably sooner rather than later.”

Here’s another good reason for you nonprofits to set up your own websites: Google Grants. If you have 501(c)(3) status, you can apply to receive free AdWords advertising on Google – this is worth it! As cited on the Google site:

Google Grant recipients use their award of free AdWords advertising on Google.com to raise awareness and increase traffic. Three of our award recipients have achieved these results:

* Room to Read, which educates children in Vietnam, Nepal, India and Cambodia, attracted a sponsor who clicked on its AdWords ad. He has donated funds to support the education of 25 girls for the next 10 years.
* The US Fund for UNICEF’s e-commerce site, Shop UNICEF, has experienced a 43 percent increase in sales over the previous year.
* CoachArt, supporting children with life-threatening illnesses through art and athletics programs, has seen a 60 to 70 percent increase in volunteers.

Check out program details to see if you qualify. Google Grants recipients are selected every quarter, and they say you’ll know within six months whether or not you receive one.

Good luck!

At the Special Libraries Association conference in Denver, CO, last June, I heard the term “competitive intelligence” uttered more than “Who’s giving away the free cookies?”

CI, as it’s called, is not exactly in James Bond’s arena, but even he would agree it’s helpful to know what the competition is up to. It’s an imprecise practice that consists of Internet research, networking at events and even eavesdropping in elevators to see what you can learn about similar organizations.

It makes sense for small businesses, because they’ve got to move quickly, and when you’re working with a small pool of people, fresh ideas that work in your market are at a premium.

Nonprofits should look to CI too, because as much as many hate to admit it, others are competing for that grant too, and it helps to know how you stand a better chance of winning it. Plus, you might find useful resources for volunteers or new funding resources.

The Web is the small shop’s best friend for CI, and here are a few tools that will help you keep track of what the competition is up to:

Google Alerts
http://www.google.com/alerts
How on earth did I manage before Google Alerts? Plug in any phrase you might research on the Web (say, “micro-philanthropy” or your competitor’s name), and Google will do an automatic search and deliver results directly to you. It’s free, to boot.