The Nonprofit FAQ

What use is the Internet to a nonprofit organization (NPO)?

An extensive overview by Jayne Cravens, offering points re: research, networking, marketing, and fund raising benefits the Internet gives to nonprofit organizations: http://www.coyotecom.com/online.html Cliff Landesman of the Internet Nonprofit Center has a similar essay, "Nonprofits and the World Wide Web", which has helpful information for organizations just getting started using online technologies, and for those looking for justification for getting online: http:/www.nonprofits.org/website.htm Put Barber offers an introduction to ways nonprofits might use the 'net to support special events (first published in "Advancing Philanthropy" July/August 2001 from the Association of Fundraising Professionals -- http://www.afpnet.org); see http://www.nonprofits.org/npofaq/misc/010726specevents.html. Phil Agre of the Department of Communication at UC - San Diego has posted his excellent publications about computing's impact on community and social practice on his Web site at http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/ Steve Glikbarg, a founder of Impact Online, has an online tutorial, Internet 101, that provides both an overview of the Internet and information on how nonprofit and issue-focused organizations can utilize the Internet, from e-mail to Web sites: http://www.glikbarg.com/ The Virtual Volunteering Project has information on how to find and involve volunteers via the Internet, at: http://www.serviceleader.org/vv/ How Associations Are Taking to Technology http://www.asaenet.org/Publications/AMnov97/11how.html New Technology in the Human Services, http://www.soton.ac.uk/~chst/nths/, has links to a bibliography of related literature and has 100+ abstracts of related papers - look under Information Systems. UK Communities Online and Partnerships Online, http://www.partnerships.org.uk/stories/intro.htm, by David Wilcox and many other authors, traces the rise of Internet use by the NGO/volunteerism communities in the United Kingdom and the many partnerships that have resulted. Technology & Nonprofits: A Vision for the Future http://www.nonprofit-tech.org/technology/vision.html A series of articles and examples... very much like the site you are looking at now.... How the Internet is being used by nonprofits http://marketlink.ca/Resources/Knowledge/Articles/articles_3.html Examples of ways in which the Internet is being used by the voluntary sector in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. Establishing a Presence: Local Nonprofits Online http://www.uwm.edu/People/mbarndt/npdev.htm, an article covering Strategic use of the Internet by organizations. Edith Asibeym a graduate student at Stanford University, conducted a study on "NPOs and online communication strategies", focusing on the use of the Web by three environmental nonprofits: Greenpeace, WWF, and the Sierra Club. The URL is: http://www.stanford.edu/~easibey/enviro_title.html or http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~easibey/enviro_title.html Nonprofit SiteAnalyzer http://www.gilbert.org/siteanalyzer Created by the Gilbert Center, an organization that studies how non-profit groups use the Internet, this site publishes reports that analyze the effectiveness of non-profit Web sites. For example, the group's first report studied more than 500 Web sites operated by charities that serve young people to see how recently the information on the sites had been updated. Eric Mercer has an excellent online document entitled, "How Can We Use the Internet for Fundraising?" at http://www.nonprofit-info.org/misc/981027em.html, an extensive review of the mechanisms available to nonprofit charities for Internet fundraising. Fundraising on the Internet is further discussed in another soc.org.nonprofit FAQ: http://www.nonprofit-info.org/npofaq//06/13.html This page was updated March 20, 1997 and 9/4/99; completely revised by Jayne Cravens 2/11/00 -- PB