NPower Seattle welcomes Alison Carl White as Executive Director, effective March 10. Alison has a proven history of successfully directing teams in the areas of program expansion and implementation, operational management, and diversifying funding support – all in an effort to address critical community needs.

Alison has served for the past six years as the Executive Director for Seattle Works, a nonprofit that helps people in their 20s and 30s get involved in the community. During her tenure at Seattle Works she led teams of Board members, staff and volunteers who positioned Seattle Works as a thought leader in the areas of volunteerism and generational leadership. She also revamped programs to achieve 20% growth and created a new fee for service program to leverage staff expertise that raised over $300,000 in 5 years.

A graduate of Leadership Tomorrow, Alison currently serves on the board of directors for United Way of King County and City Club.  In 2007, she was appointed by Governor Gregoire to serve on the Washington Commission for National and Community Service and by Secretary of State Sam Reed to serve on his Seattle Advisory Board. She was selected by the Puget Sound Business Journal as a 2005, 40 under 40 award winner.

Alison has the talent, skills and passion to lead NPower through its strategic refocus and into the future. She brings solid nonprofit management experience in program management and fundraising. Alison also understands the contribution that NPower makes. As a client of NPower Seattle while at Seattle Works, Alison appreciated the dedication and support that NPower’s team provided. She understands capacity building and how to describe the role that NPower Seattle plays in advancing our customers’ abilities to meet their missions.

As we welcome Alison, we bid farewell to Gregg Johnson, our interim ED since October. Thank you Gregg for leading us through this transition time and setting the stage for our continued success!

Our friends at NTEN are offering a series of trainings designed to help organizations who participate in the Google Grants program to use thier grant and AdWords more effectively.

The cost for the series is $100 for NTEN Members / $200 for Non-members

Sessions Include:

• Setting Goals and Setting Yourself Up for Success (02/25/2010)
• Evaluating Performance and Monitoring Your Google Grants Account (03/04/2010)
• Optimizing Your Google Grants Ads and Keywords (03/11/2010)
• Optimizing your Google Grants Campaign and Maximizing Your Online Initiatives with Google Nonprofit Offerings (03/18/2010)

> Register Now for Google Grants Advanced Series!

Not quite ready for the advanced series? NTEN also offers the Google Grants Beginner Series: Learning to Use and Maximize Your Google Grant.

The Confluence Gallery and Art Center has flourished since 1988 as a hub of the arts community in Twisp, Washington. The nonprofit gallery holds seven group and individual exhibits each year, showcasing the work of local and regional artists from North Central Washington. Special exhibitions draw from farther afield, highlighting noteworthy artists from the Pacific Northwest.

As participants in NPower’s statewide training and technology support program funded through the Greater Everett Community Foundation in 2008 and 2009, Confluence Gallery completed a Stable and Secure Assessment which pointed to a severe need to upgrade aging hardware. NPower consultants assisted Gallery staff in selecting a new desktop system, provided funds to cover the purchase (thank you GECF!), and procured software donations (Microsoft Windows and Office — thank you Microsoft!) to support key accounting and grant writing functions. In an “extreme makeover” story, Executive Director Sybil Macapia says Confluence Gallery is now in a much stronger position to support the administrative needs of the organization, and recently procured a much-needed grant that she links directly to the availability of that single new computer system.

Congratulations, Confluence staff! And thank you to the Greater Everett Community Foundation, Microsoft and our other supporters who make miracles like this one possible for nonprofits in Washington state.

In a recent post, Kivi Leroux Miller at Nonprofit Marketing Guide shared that her recommendations to nonprofits today compared with 10 years ago are like night and day. Take a look at what she considers to be the default starting point for a discussion about newsletters:

Does your newsletter look more like 2000 or 2010? If your newsletter has more in common with the left column than the right, it’s time to rethink your newsletter strategy.

A key question to ask yourself: Does your newsletter work in world that prefers communications that are fast and friendly (2010)over fat and formal (2000)?

Look for more tips Kivi’s forthcoming nonprofit management guidebook, coming out next year.

Social media is a big topic right now for nonprofits, with lots of tools and tips and big promises floating around. Having seen people’s eyes begin to swirl from the hype, I thought I’d chime in with a reminder about the basics of good communication and relationship-building. Whether you’re blogging, tweeting, updating on Facebook, or writing on parchment with a quill, these tried and true guidelines stand the test of time:

1) Identify your target audience: Technology tools emerge and fade, but your audiences and the desire to communicate endure. Getting clear about who you want to reach as a first step will save you lots of time and missed targets.

2) Design you message for your audience: Be sure to be clear about you want them to do as a result. Some options are:

• nothing, because you are simply informing them
• replying or commenting, because you are asking for a response
• taking action (signing up for a class or calling their legislator), because you have called them to do something specific

3) Pick the best communication channel for your audience and your message. For example:

• Is your message a short and sweet call to action and your target audience is using mobile technology? A tweet or an update to your Facebook fan page is a good match.
• Is your message mid-length with some solid information about a topic your audience prizes, and the stats show that people in your target audience read your enewsletter? Try a blog post linked from your website and enewsletter.

4) Nurture your relationships in other ways: remember that social media technology tools are a vehicle for communicating, but relationships are people-powered. Social media tools do not replace thank you notes, phone calls and in-person gatherings.

Suggested social media resources

• For ideas on writing engaging blog posts (including selecting provocative topics/titles – how’d I do?): From ProBlogger: 13 Types of Posts that Always Get Lots of Comments
• For an introduction to the Technology Hype Cycle and opinions about text message giving: From Beth Kanter’s blog: Nonprofits Should Consider SMS Fundraising with Eyes Wide Open
• For pointers to social media resources and updates for nonprofits, follow NPower Seattle on Facebook: facebook.com/npowerseattle

Is your organization still trying to figure out how to use social media tools like blogs, Facebook and Twitter to communicate with clients, donors, funders and community members?

Are you wondering if it makes sense for you to blog or tweet about your services, news and events?

NPower has teamed up with Philanthropy Northwest to help you explore how Social Media can support your organization’s communication and advance your organization’s goals. Join us for the first offering of this exciting class on Wednesday, February 24th.  In Social Media for Building Community, you will:

• Articulate your organization’s goals, identify messages, and explore social media tools.
• Evaluate the time needed to employ new communications tools vs. their value for your organization.
• Learn practical strategies for effectively connecting with various constituents using Web 2.0 tools.

Join us for Social Media for Building Community on Wednesday, February 24th. Learn more and register to attend at npowerseattle.org/socialmedia

Last week, I linked to a study which questioned if nonprofits are using social networks to their fullest potential. Today, I came across a very informative report which shows actual statistics of how nonprofits and their fans are interacting on social networks, and it provides good advice on how to use that data for yourself. This report would be great for organizations debating which social networks to start using and to figure out how to set them up once you do.

In addition to the Nonprofit Social Media Benchmark Study, you may also be interested in this post which boasts “20 Mind Blowing Social Media Statistics“, which shows information about how many people are using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and how much they have grown recently.