New World Communications Does Google-powered Website for Seattle-based Not-for-Profit/NGO SavingVillageLives.org

This afternoon I am reflecting and resonating about recent Google-powered website ...SavingVillageLives.org that I designed and developed for a not-for-profit/NGO client with ties here in Seattle's Greater Puget Sound region and in rural Ethiopia where my client comes from. They are just starting up.The direction we took, working with  new Google Apps/Google Sites architecture was straight-forward and elegantly simple to work with and administer.  

We even designed, produced and embedded a 3 minute 47 second web television overview of the organizations mission and vision on YouTube that integrates nicely with the architecture. We also used a Picasa web slideshow to create a nice Photo Gallery page.. with automatic slide changes. Google Sites architecture also supported the creation of helpful List pages that list the kinds of volunteer help and the kinds of in-kind donations that the organization needs in order to achieve its mission... saving village lives.  Their vision is to do this by helping people out with things that many of us..here in the Pacific Northwest take for granted...like plenty of clean water, public sanitation and having schools and healthcare resources close by. Next to do will be to enable Online Giving once the organization completes its non-for-profit incorporation 501(c) 3 process. A blog page will also be forthcoming once more volunteers are recruited to help write it. 

This project and relationship has and continues to be a wonderful experience supporting such a great initiative and working with such great clients. Do you also have a need to develop a non-profit website with a modest budget...and get similar great results? If so, call us today and maybe we can also help you to move forward as well. 425-780-6872.

Talk to us about Google Apps, a Google website and Leveraging The New Web Television...for Fundraising and Donor Development

This morning I am intent on talking to more non-profit folks about using Google Apps and the new television for fund-raising and donor development... instead of listening to them crying the blues about how hard it has now become to raise money and develop donors competing with others the same old way ...in the same old "blood red" ocean of competitors. They are same ones who still haven't discovered or leveraged the power of Google Apps...upgraded their websites, or gotten hip to the new television... so their "challenge" ...is really an huge opportunity ...in disguise... to take in some new information and "re-frame" how they do things. Here are the benefits of that:

• Google Apps - This is not just about a better and easier way to build and manage a website... but a whole new virtual applications infrastructure that... in smart, innovative hands ....can provide phenomenal strategic advantage.  For starters, there's Google Apps startup page which is like a power dashboard that is customizable using cool "gadgets"... There's also a domain name e-mail account...powered by the same robust architecture that powers Gmail and that "talks" elegantly with a virtual file server and powerful virtual applications like Google Docs, Drawing, Spreadsheets, Forms, and Presentation.
  
  The implications are far-reaching - e.g. right out of the chute non-profit managers and small business owners can save big bucks and experience better performance than attempting to do IT the old way with expensive mail servers and file servers that keep going down, and all the software updating and additional expense of managing and administering all that. In sharp contrast, Google provides all the mail and file services virtually...with elegantly simple easy to learn apps that are automatically updated for only about $50 per employee..providing better "up-time" and performance at a mere fraction of the cost.
  
  It's not only non-profits and small businesses who will benefit but so will large enterprises and government who also elect to to "Go Google"... and many already are. And the really good news is that even the smallest micro business can afford to "Go Google" and even with free website hosting if they just use a Gmail e-mail address. See next.
  
  
•  Then there's Google Sites website architecture that's so powerful and so elegant that one begins to realize that WordPress website directions for non-profits and for small business will soon be history. The handwriting is already on the wall...the  Google cloud computing direction... IS the new future... and its here NOW. See my own Google-powered website for example and see how I have extended  it... You can even meet with us.."inside" it (using next-generation web conferencing, and webcasting.)
  
  See Google Apps product manager Rajen Sheth  demonstrating Google Apps on YouTube. He starts with corporate e-mail and intranet direction, but then he speaks to how even small businesses, non-profits, and education can take advantage of the architecture.
  
  
• Fund-raising, Donor Development and The New Television - When integrated with a Google cloud computing direction, the new television... in the right hands can significantly impact and improve fund-raising and donor development. Take for instance the new trend in grant writing where strategic partnership building and collaborate across a region or nation.. or even among nation-states is the new challenge. This where virtual applications and the new television can be innovatively applied. Add some of the newer web conferencing and some of the new webcasting that goes to mobile and to social networks like Facebook and Twitter and the fundraising and donor development game... changes phenomenally. We focus on this in our Community-authored Television Workshops.

This is what we here at New World Communications are about. Call us today and let's talk about Google Apps, a Google-powered website upgrade and leveraging the power of the new television for fundraising and donor development. 425-780-6872.

Google Apps for Non-Profits: There is a Life Beyond WordPress Webmaster Dependency

This morning, after viewing this web television piece about how this non-profit has benefited by taking a Google Apps direction, I am reflecting about the great conversation I had with a lovely person I met yesterday that I started connecting with over at one of the several espresso cafes where I work.  She overheard my phone conversation raving about the advantages of a Google Apps for Non-profits direction that I was taking with my client, and she got interested herself. 

Hers was a familiar situation that I've seen several non-profits faced with: They get to a certain stage in their development where a new website with additional functionality is in order, but they get stuck because the WordPress site with plugins that has been proposed by the local WordPress "guru"...costs an arm a leg in consulting time and they don't have the money. And so they sit, needing to raise more money to pay for a complicated WordPress implementation...the next year... that th3y belatedly discover they can't easily manage themselves, and this causes them additional organizational and  money headaches. They in effect, become "WordPress guru dependent", wasting more time and money than they need to.

Luckily, I was able to help her by letting her know that there is now a life beyond WordPress webmaster dependency, especially when you see and understand the advantages of what a Google Apps for non-profit direction provides. Here are just a few of them:

The first major benefit is Operational Infrastructure... not just another website with more "bells-and-whistles":

• A robust Google-architecture direction, most of which is free or low cost - It all starts with a Gmail account that you discover is the door way to multiple free applications that you don't have to pay for. Google Docs is wonderful. You can even develop a Google Site that hosted for free if just use a Gmail email address. If however you need to have a domain name e-mail address, then a Google Apps Premier edition account is only $50 a year per domain name e-mail account...and Google then becomes your IT resource...and supplier of robust applications that allow your organization to grow...virtually... as you extend your business reach in ways limited only by your imagination.
  
  
• With your Google Premier edition account you also get your own Google Video account with better control over who views your content, and better control over the kind of content you need to upload.
  
  
• You have no in-house mail server, file service or web server to go down!  Instead you get an elegant virtual file server managed by Google with 99.9% uptime... nothing like the horror that most non-profits that have in-house mail servers and file servers continue to experience...and at the worse time....typically right during the height of a major fund-raising campaign.
  
  
• No Office applications, and firewall gateway software updating costs or upgrading hassles to pay for. Instead you get virtual office applications that are elegantly simpler to use - word processor, drawing application, spreadsheet, forms, and presentation applications... that are automatically updated by Google with new features coming out all the time. Google Voice also has some interesting phone routing applications that distributed workers can take advantage of it. 

Now about a Google Apps website direction itself :

• Google Sites architecture - Compared with the WordPress administrative "back-end" that forces all users to work at the HTML layer, Google Sites architecture is elegantly simpler. With Google Sites architecture, even non-technical, non-HTML saavy folks can create and edit pages, add pictures and even embed advanced functionality... and Google Apps... "talks" to Google Docs documents. You can even give content contributors their own Google Docs "page" that can be embedded on Google Sites page.  You don't have to be "webmaster dependent" because the architecture is so intuitive and easy to work with. Google Sites architecture...designed by Google itself... the king of search...also indexes phenomenally well .
  
  
• Google Apps Marketplace - In addition to all the free applications, Google has been working with hundreds of third-party developers who have been writing apps that integrate with Google Apps/Google Sites architecture if you need to further extend the functional of your non-profit Google Sites-based website. See how many third-party applications there are.
  
  
• It's the entire systems integration piece that makes the most sense - For me personally, and as a television person, the entire Google Apps for Non-profits direction makes powerful good sense to me. Google's Chrome web browser is marvelous as is having more choice over where you upload your videos and Google Android operating system on smart phones and on Google TV potentially provides non-profits with a lot more power than merely taking a WordPress direction does. I could go on and on... about all the great Google applications most of which are free.

Therefore, before biting the bullet and going down a surprisingly expensive WordPress road and discovering it's many hidden minefields of WordPress webmaster dependency... at least learn more about the advantages of  Google Apps for Non-Profit direction first, because it will deliver for more power for the money invested. This is what I was able to share with her. Call me if you have similar challenges - 425-780-6872.