Grassroots.org

We are all a twitter over here at Grassroots.org. Why? We can officially provide Drupal and Joomla-style hosting for all our clients.

Drupal and Joomla are open-source content management systems that are both incredibly user-friendly and intuitive. Our clients will now be able to edit and update their own content as well as incorporate more complex functions like forums and blogs. This has, until this point, been a major challenge for our less tech-savvy organizations.

TierraNet, long time supporter and service provider, has made this upgraded free nonprofit webhosting possible by upgrading our nonprofit package to include a free MySQL database.

MySQL is one of the best programs for database management. It opens up a world of possibilities to clients and can be used to support Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and other great content management systems. The icing on all this cake is that with these new features, there is more of the features our clients have already come to know and love! They will get twice the disk space, 5 times as many mailboxes, and 10 times the bandwidth!

We are so grateful for TierraNet's very generous donation, and are beyond excited to see what amazing things our clients can achieve with this better service! Our clients have big dreams for their nonprofits, and now those dreams are a little closer!

I know it's been a long time since I posted, but I'm ready to make good on my tardy New Year's resolution to blog more.

I am going to begin a help blog to offer people visiting the site a chance to find out how to use the tools that we are offering in a better way. Possible topics include domain name basics and nonprofit website fundamentals. Of course, if you have any questions that you're dying to know about (or a better title), then please email support@grassroots.org and we will try to answer your question in the best way that we can.

You all should also know that I am ready to celebrate because Chicago has finally warmed up to the point where I am able to bike to work. In the past few months, I have been working on a variety of projects ranging from client intake to a huge member inventory to some work with Drupal that gives you folks a gallery where you can see the sites that volunteer designers have made for clients. (http://grassroots.org/membergallery) Aside from that, I will be attending the Better Deal Conference (http://www.abetterdealconference.org/) in Washington DC in May and possibly giving a talk about nonprofit technology tools there.

So get excited everybody. See you soon!

My name is Ashley Mathews and I am currently serving as the Communications Coordinator for Grassroots.org through the AmeriCorps Community Technology Center * Volunteers in Service to America (CTC*VISTA) program.

The program places individuals with nonprofit organizations that use information and technology to address the needs of low-income communities. Once a CTC*VISTA is placed within an organization his or her job is to build capacity for that organization.

As a VISTA with Grassroots.org, I have seen firsthand how nonprofits make a difference in communities all over the world—and how much larger an impact they can make with the power of technology at their fingertips. For instance, when Grassroots.org provides an organzation with free web hosting or domain name registration, it is the beginning of a Pay It Forward-style movement. Equipped with a website, a nonprofit organization can provide better services to their constituents. In turn, their constituents can spread the word about the service to others (promoting their services and perhaps even helping to build support for the organization).

Being a part of this process helps me to fulfill my personal definition of a successful AmeriCorps CTC*VISTA: someone who believes technology can be used as tool in the fight against poverty, and who helps others to harness the power of such tools to make change. In this way the experience of being a CTC*VISTA has been extremely valuable to me—and I believe my service has been valuable to others as well!

More good news! The Sun Microsystems Foundation has selected Grassroots.org as a featured volunteer partner! What does this mean for us? Publicity and, hopefully, a boatload of highly qualified Sun Microsystems employees who are ready to volunteer their time to build sweet websites for our 1000+ members.

Check out the feature on the Sun Microsystems Foundation Blog. Hopefully we will follow up to this blog with some examples of great websites built by Sun Microsystems employees during their Worldwide Volunteer Week (April 26-May 4)...and beyond!

I have a great announcement to make today: We are officially launching a new service offering for our clients: free virtual office phone service, including toll free numbers (including extensions!) courtesy of Phone.com.

So how does this virtual office phone service work? Like a regular office phone number, but with a twist: instead of ringing a certain phone (like the phone on your office desk), the number forwards to an existing phone.

By way of example, take the Grassroots.org toll free number? It’s a Phone.com number. So if someone calls my phone number (800-252-0015 x152), it rings my cell. I can chose to pick it up, or let it go to my Phone.com voicemail box. (In fact, I can configure it so that it automatically goes to my voicemail in lieu of my cell, but I prefer to answer my phone).

There are even more options. You can opt for the "follow me" service that will ring a string of numbers until you pick up (cell, then office, then home), you can change voicemail settings so that voicemail is captured and emailed to you, saved on Phone.com, or just left on your regular voicemail for which ever phone you choose.

For us, the Phone.com 800 number has been a perfect fit. Our staff is scattered around the country...with this number we can all have the same “office” number. It simplifies things. It allows our nonprofit clients to call us, toll free. It helps us look more legitimate to funders.

Thanks to CEO Ari Rabban and the great folks at Phone.com, we are now able to offer the same service that has worked so well for us to our nonprofit members. We’re excited to know what you think!

Check out the details on free virtual office phone service

As the Outreach Coordinator for Grassroots.org, I am in charge of matching volunteers and organizations. I send both parties a questionnaire so that I can find an organization whose needs best match a volunteer's ability. Usually this works out. Most often, our clients are just desperate for a designer and don't ask for too much.

Today something amazing happened--I matched a Swahili-speaking designer with a Swahili-speaking Executive Director! The organization is WHEW (Women Healing and Empowering Women) in Houston, Texas.

WHEW aims to address interconnected challenges women face such as former incarceration, homelessness, and domestic violence, and they are starting local but going global. WHEW sent back their questionnaire a couple of days ago, along with some information about their organization. Busi Peters from WHEW let me know she was eagerly awaiting someone who could transform their word, pdf and jpg files into an eye-catching site!

Well, today I received a completed questionnaire from one of the recent volunteers who found us on on volunteermatch.org Baraka Manasses Kuria, a recent Computer Science graduate from Nairobi, Kenya, was hoping to find a nonprofit in need and help them gain some web presence while simultaniously building up a design portfolio.

While both the organization and volunteer looked like typical requestors I see everyday, there was something great about them. WHEW was looking for (not expecting!) a designer who spoke Swahili. Luckily Baraka is fluent! Needless to say, I was very excited to match them and I have great expectations for what is to come from this relationship. Watch for updates here: whew-now.org

Many of our volunteers are from every corner of the globe, representing a wealth of interests, talents, languages and goals. I love it when I am able to match them to nonprofit organizations with similar needs. It doesn't happen everyday but when it does, it's great!!!

What is good philanthropy? Throughout the holiday season, folks are bombarded with this question while charity after charity asks us for a donation. What will get us “the most bang for our philanthropic buck” was a particularly popular topic this holiday season, covered in the New York Times, the Washington Post, countless television news reports and internet articles. I personally thought a lot about this question, because I often feel the pressure to give to more organizations than I could possibly afford. I worry about starving people in Africa, but I also worry about starving people in my own community. I want to support the arts, and the arts in schools, but how can I prioritize the arts over medicine for HIV positive children?

While I was reflecting on this question, I couldn’t help but think about what Grassroots.org does. I know it sounds cheesy, seeing as how I work for Grassroots, but I really think it is one of the organizations that embody “Good Philanthropy”. A donation to Grassroots isn’t just a donation to our organization – it is a donation to 1000+ (and growing) organizations. The organizations we support serve every facet of life. From education and community development, to community support networks, the arts, and international development, every dollar donated to Grassroots is a dollar donated to solving many of the problems that we as a community, both national and international, are facing. By giving to Grassroots, I don’t have to prioritize one struggle over another; I can support them all and feel good about where my dollar is going.

Now, in January 2008, with tough economic times looming in the news, I can’t help but worry that there will be less money to support the wonderful nonprofits out there, doing the important work that can be so challenging, but so rewarding. I know that people, as they think about where their money goes, will be thinking about how to give their money to nonprofits in a way that will have a big effect. As we as a collective begin talking about what “Good Philanthropy” means, I hope that organizations that serve many other nonprofits will take the lead. Umbrella organizations like Techsoup, NTEN, and Grassroots do important work that helps so many – our work is bigger than ourselves. Really, isn’t that the point of philanthropy- to give to something bigger than yourself?

Fundraising is tough business. Ask any nonprofit. Which is why we at Grassroots.org try our darndest to come up with creative fundraisers. May I say, our latest is pretty creative. We will be holding a charity domain auction at the SnapNames Live Auction at DOMAINfest Hollywood 08.

Here is how it works:

1.) Folks donate domains to Grassroots.org,

2.) Moniker appraises the domains,

3.) SnapNames auctions them for us via their Live Auctions, Extended Catalog Auctions, or their Daily Online Auctions.

4.) The donors receive a tax deduction for the value of the domain and Grassroots.org receives the funds from the sale of the domain.

Super duper! And all funds go to the support of Grassroots.org programs which means all funds go to the support of over 1000 nonprofit organizations!

One of our supporters has already jumped in and donated Cared.com and Pleasures.net. Huge thank you to Telepathy!

In the past two weeks, I've spent an hour a day making phone calls to different organizations all across the US and Canada to tell them about our Social Ventures Consulting Program—a very cool program, in my opinion. I did this earlier in the year, which means I'm nearly a pro, despite the fact that it's hard to not sound like a genuine telemarketer out to rob from the poor and give to the rich.

But it's worth persevering because it's for a good cause (or it's a good cause for a good cause). We're offering free business consulting in partnership with the Dingman Center at the University of Maryland Smith School of Business. We can't offer service to everyone who applies since we only have a limited number of students in the program. We can offer consulting services from business focused individuals to organizations with a specific business need. I am learning that running a nonprofit includes dealing with a lot of unwanted but necessary overhead and organizational issues. It's nice to know that I'm part of an organization that tries to help others getting through this so that our members can work on doing what they do best.