Free And Open Source Alternatives To Proprietary SaaS Offerings

With this week’s announcement that Blackbaud will buy Convio there have been many questions whether this will be good or bad for the nonprofit organizations both companies count as their clients. We have often had clients and other nonprofit organizations we come into contact with us ask about the open source tools we specialize in, and how they compare with the proprietary tools or Software as a Service offerings that they’ve heard about. One very clear difference is that the open source tools don’t get bought up and consolidated. Eben Moglen, of the Software Freedom Law Center, gave a keynote address at the Nonprofit Technology Conference (video) a few years back. In a passionate 45 minute speech, he discussed the choice between free sofware and proprietary software as a moral one. Every dollar spent purchasing an operating license, or paying a lease on proprietary SaaS is a dollar taken out of the public trust and given to private companies to distribute to their executives, owners or shareholders. On the flip side, money spent deploying free and open source solutions is often also spent making those solutions better, and available for others to use. Allen “Gunner” Gunn of Aspiration Tech wrote similarly this week of the Blackbaud/Convio merger: Blackbaud makes tens of millions of dollars in annual profits by charging nonprofits usurious rates for mission-critical software. Their sales tactics and licensing terms are among the most aggressive and ruthless I have seen, even in my hardest-core Silicon Valley days. And their executives receive multi-million-dollar cash and equity compensation packages. Organizations do have options. Unfortunately those options due not have multi-million dollar...

An Open Nonprofit Directive

At the end of 2009 when the Obama Administration came out with the Open Government Directive (which I wrote about at the time) I had some conversations with other consultants and thinkers in the nonprofit technology world about the idea of an “Open Nonprofit Directive” that would, in many ways, mirror the OGD. Two years have passed, and in the prognostications for the year ahead I’ve seen a number of references to “opening up” and increasing transparency in the nonprofit sector. Once again I am left thinking it is time for an Open Nonprofit Directive. The three key tenets would take their lead from those laid out by the Obama Administration in 2009: Transparency. Organizations should provide the public with information about what the organization is doing so that the organization can be held accountable. Participation. Organizations should actively solicit expertise from outside of the organization so that they make the most efficient use of the funds entrusted to them. Collaboration. Organizations should work together with one another and with the public as part of doing their job of solving the problems, addressing the issues, or providing the services they are formed to work on. A year ago, Wiser Earth ran this article about Opening Up at nonprofit organizations, highlighting three main benefits of openess: Greater Efficiency Increased Trust Improved Fundraising Among the suggestions that the article offers to move toward a more open existence are: updating your 990 Listing in Guidestar, discussing your organization’s needs openly on your website, discuss your failures in addition to your successes. Those suggestions speak to the Transparency issue to which I would add:...

Responsive Design, Email Content Strategy And Templates

Why do so many organizations waste the opportunity to hook their email subscribers with the first line of the email message? I hadn’t really noticed this sooner because of the way I consumed email: through a series of complicated email aliases and gmail filters.  Honestly, in Gmail, I was basically ignoring most solicited bulk email (organization email lists). But since I’ve been taking a first look at my email through my iPhone and iPad using the iOS mail app, I’ve begun to notice this shocking fact. Here are some facts about viewing email via the iOS mail app: Approximately 35 to 40 characters of a subject are displayed Approximately 100 characters from the top of the email message are displayed Two lines at 50 characters, and a subject of 35 to 40 characters. That’s basically a Tweet.  And that (plus the “from” name) is all you have to get your reader’s attention and convince them to open the email message and read on. Why do so many emails waste this space with something like: “Click to view this email in a browser” (37 characters) “Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.” (64 characters) “If you’re having trouble viewing this email, you may see it online.” (68 characters) “Web version | Edit your subscription | Unsubscribe” (55 characters) I looked through maybe a dozen email messages that started with some variation on one of the above disclaimers to discover that the messages were sent through the following services: Vertical Response MyEmma Convio Mail Chimp Constant Contact Campaign Monitor The organizations are not choosing to put this...