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GoLightly Learning Center
Your source for knowledge on successful online collaboration.
Email messaging
- The Gilbert Email Manifesto by Michael C. Gilbert. One of the best articles to
help organizations keep Web and email in perspective. His three rules are: Resources spent on
email strategies are more valuable than the same resources spent on web strategies; A web site
built around an email strategy is more valuable than a web site that is built around itself;
Email oriented thinking will yield better strategic thinking overall.
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Blogging
- A Nonprofit's Guide to the Blogosphere by Willow Cook. Tech Soup surveys
nonprofit blogs and reports back.
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- Ready to Start Blogging? by Marnie Webb, Director of Knowledge Services at
CompuMentor. It’s been over a year since blogging hit the big-time. Among the medium’s early
adopters were nonprofits, who seized the opportunity of this flexible and affordable tool to
communicate with constituents, and build their own media channels. One of my favorite articles
about blogging for nonprofits is now over a year old, but the advice compiled by Marnie Webb
from CompuMentor in San Francisco is still as fresh as the day it was penned. She discusses
topics such as choosing a blogging provider, naming your blog, using RSS, using Permalinks,
linking to other bloggers, using blog comments, and reviewing blog metrics. We take all her
advice to heart, since blogging tools are at the core of the GoLightly toolset.
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Online fundraising
- Raising Thousands (if Not Tens of Thousands) of Dollars with Email by Madeline
Stanionis, 128 pages, $25, Spring 2006. The best book ever written about email fundraising.
This book deals unabashedly with what was once the most controversial aspect of online
fundraising, namely email appeals. As recently as a few years ago, email fundraising
appeals were seen as a type of nonprofit spam, even when supporters and list subscribers had
opted in to receive communications. Madeline writes as an insider about many email fundraising
campaigns that she has personally worked on. She offers truly useful material on raising money
online, built around real-world examples and screen shots to help illustrate her points.
Buy from Amazon.com
Online community
- Resources for Developing Online Communities by Robert Weiner, President, Robert L.
Weiner Consulting and Ray Valdes, Research Director, Gartner Research. An excellent article on
the opportunity and challenges of building an online community that we think will be of
interest to many GoLightly clients and GoLightly community participants. This article gets to
the crux of the difficulties inherent in creating and sustaining an online community. Concise
and easily digested, this article identifies key issues to consider before building an online
community, including examples and resources. The article was originally published by iapps (a
division of Bridgeline Software).
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- Creating a Relationship-Centric Organization: Nonprofit CRM by Paul Hagen. Ways to
acquire, retain, and enhance constituent relationships. June 2006.
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Case studies
Cincinnati YMCA Uses GoLightly to Engage Easily and Quickly with Community Partners.
A profile of how Cincinnati YMCA uses GoLightly. Rebecca Kelley, Executive Director of
Community Services, Cincinnati YMCA:. “We use the GoLightly tools to manage the Cincy After
School programs that we administer for the Cincinnati Public School system. Specifically, we
use it to communicate with partner agencies that are involved in the program, which are all
locally run and are located all across the county...”
GoLightly Helps the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN) Connect Its Members.
Holly Ross, Programs Director, NTEN: “I find the tool so straightforward to
administer, and so easy for users to navigate that I would definitely recommend it. It’s a
great next step from the generic email discussion lists that many groups are using. The tool
is designed with the idea that the people in your networks are your most important resource,
and it allows them to communicate with each other, create communities of interest, and share
their ideas and resources.”
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