Come to the 2009 Massachusetts Conference on Service and Volunteering from the Mass Service Alliance June 4 in Marlborough, MA, and you can hear Monique Cuvelier of Talance, Inc., present on how to use YouTube in your volunteering programs. You’ll see some examples of organizations that are doing it well, and how volunteers can help spread awareness.

It’s the special session on social media at the end of the conference. We’ll also be doing a drawing for a $300 Talance gift certificate, which you can use for web development or web strategy consulting, and a copy of Jill Friedman Fixler’s excellent book Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow, published by Volunteer Match.

Plus you can pick up a free – yes, free! – copy of our 2009 Massachusetts Non-Profit Social Media Report at our table in the poster session.

Hope to see you there!

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Hi, Friends!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? And how much is that video worth if it travels virally, propelled by someone other than you, and saves you effort and boosts awareness of your organization?

In short, a lot.

Many of you have figured that out already. You turn to YouTube to learn about other organizations, for tutorials and movies from your friends and colleagues. And you’ve seen that free and wide-reaching video-sharing sites not only let you tell a story through moving pictures, but they open up the conversation to your fans. This means they can sing your praises for you, and you have a chance to build a stronger relationship with them.

We’re so excited to be presenting on just this topic at Massachusetts Service Alliance’s 2009 Conference on Service and Volunteering on June 4 in Marlborough, Mass. Learn more and register here: http://www.mass-service.org/

Our own Monique Cuvelier will be presenting the closing session, Using YouTube in Volunteer Programs. We hope you can come and learn a bit about engaging volunteers through video and share some of your stories. We’ll also be holding a drawing for a $300 Talance gift certificate and a copy of Jill Friedman-Fixler’s book Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow.

If you can’t make it, but you’re on Twitter, you can follow the discussion at #MCVS.

Remember that Talance is offering a 30-minute free webinar on Does Twitter Matter for Non-Profits?, Tuesday, June 23, 2009 from 2-2:30pm Eastern. Learn how you can make sense of this madly growing tool and how it applies to you.

»Register for this free webinar now!

Have a technology question? Ask it, and we’ll answer! We answer a reader question in the blog every week for the benefit of everybody. We’ll review your question before posting (don’t be shy about asking – no question is stupid!) and get back to you with a response.

»Ask a Tech Question

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Send to a friend. Don’t keep this good stuff all to yourself. Click that Forward button.

Video is a fabulous way to spread awareness, so think about blowing the dust off your YouTube account next time you want to drum up support for one of your organization’s programs.

International Medical Corps is an organization that’s spreading awarness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, and it’s been tremendously successful with thousands of views and thousands of comments.

Are you planning some kind of event or have a fund drive that you can get help for by putting online?

Everybody knows YouTube is full of pimply 15-year-olds lip-synching to pop songs and babies who laugh funny. Right? Wrong.

Those people are all there, but there’s a different audience than you might think. Interestingly, the age breakdown is pretty even among all age groups. Surprisngly, the 55+ sector is a little bigger than the 18-and-unders, according to research from Nielson/NetRatings:

What this means is that YouTube is relevant to all kinds of people who are interested in non-profit causes, synagogues or churches. It certainly was relevant during the last election. Your people are probably already there. Are you?

I spend so much of my time on social networks that it’s hard for me to remember that not all nonprofits use them. But you should! Social networks, like those below, are an ideal way to create community, distribute information and learn from others. Plus, these are all free services, and free marketing is a nonprofit’s best friend.

So, as part of our end-of-the-year-top-five-blow-out, here are our five favorite social networking sites:

1. Facebook: We love Facebook is the community-based Pages and Groups. But we especially encourage charitable organizations to set up a Facebook Cause. This lets you easily spread the word about important issues and lets you take donations online. (See Talance on Facebook.)
2. MySpace: What we love about MySpace is its size. It’s the third most trafficked sites in the United States according to Alexa, so it’s a great way to make connections and send out buzz. Non-profits can use the blogs to distribute alerts and updates.
3. Twitter: Twitter wins our hearts because it’s so fast. This microblogging site lets people follow updates without the bulk of a blog. Nonprofits are using it in great ways – such as sending out calls for blood donations. (See Talance on Twitter.)
4. Flickr: Sharing photos seems innocuous enough, but there’s power in those images. We’ve seen church groups post compelling images of their missionary work and nonprofits post images of their events, which can create interest in future events.
5. YouTube: If photos are powerful, videos are even more so. We love the way YouTube brings images and sounds to your network. Look the Living Darfur official music video, which has received more than 2 million views. Activist Naomi Klein has created a powerful network for her Shock Doctrine. Movies are powerful things.

In the giving spirit of the season, our Friendly Web Tools blog is going to close out the year with a wealth of tips for you. From now until 2009 (we’re taking a break on the 25th and 26th), we’re going to give you our top five every day, from design tips to gadgets.

Today, as it’s Gadget Monday, I’m giving you our top five gadgets. As with all gadgets featured on Gadget Monday, these meet our criteria of affordability, ease of use, practicality and ingenuity, all factors we think are vital for charitable organizations.

So, with the end of the year nigh, our top five gadgets:

1. XO. We adore the cheap, durable, energy efficient and inspired green and white laptop computer from the One Laptop Per Child project. We love it because it’s wonderfully designed and it can help change the life of children all around the world. It’s cute, rugged and has built-in wireless. In fact, it’s so great, you might want to buy one for a kid somewhere else who needs one and then buy one for a kid closer to home.

2. E-book reader. It’s a weird experience going from a book to a digital square, but once you cotton on to an e-book reader, you’ll never look back. Even if you don’t want to pay for the expensive books, you’ll still love either the Sony E-Book Reader or Amazon’s Kindle for free and paperless newspapers, magazines and a large backlog of public domain books.

3. Solio Charger. We first saw this when we volunteered at our local public radio station – they were giving it away as a premium for pledging. I’ve loved it ever since. The Solio “stores power from the sun or socket; freeing you to recharge your mobile phone, iPod and other handheld devices anywhere, anytime. A fully charged Solio will recharge the average phone up to two times, or give you up to 15 hours of MP3 music.” Green and great.

4. Zi6. We’ve reviewed the Flip Video digital recorder, but we really like Kodak’s Zi6. It’s a cheap HD (I’ve seen it for barely over $100 online) camcorder for quickly capturing video and letting you upload it to YouTube easily. Fast and fun.

5. Optoma’s Pico Projector. Earlier this year, we featured the 3M pocket projector, a gadget that makes taking PowerPoint or video presentations on the road much easier. We also like Optoma’s Pico, which is bright, incredibly portable and just shy of $400.

Move over pens, it’s time to make room for a pocket projector. Yes, projector, not protector. The 3M Pocket Projector is a dinky $359 projector that takes the place of hyper-expensive LCD projectors that can run in the thousands.

Plug the projector into your laptop to access DVDs, presentations and photos, and project them onto your desk or wall or another blank white space. It’s definitely limited to a smaller room application in bright light – it displays around a foot across – but in a dark room, you can use it to project a much larger image on the wall.

Perfect tool for taking on the road for seminars or doing quick displays.

Very nice! Our friends at STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal) have launched a new YouTube Channel to promote their programs and to aid in their ongoing quest to educate synagogues in the powers of technology.

I believe one of the tools they use to put together their web videos is the Flip camera, which I’ve mentioned here in the past.

Check it out and click Subscribe so you can receive updates from this great organization.