Yesterday’s BlackBerry outage gave me a chance to catch up on some reading. (But let’s just keep that between me and you.) So here are some blogs and articles worth a look:

Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education has a new blog called Brainstorm that I’ve added to my reading list. While all of the content isn’t fundraising specific it is always wise to keep tabs on trends in any area, especially higher education.

Todd Cohen - Todd gives his $0.02 in a post called “Storm brewing for nonprofits” that deals with the impact of a recession on the nonprofit world. This whole topic is springing up a lot lately and opinions vary on what it all might mean. What I think everyone would agree on is that if you’re waiting until something bad happens to prepare or change strategies, then it’s probably too late to avoid some problems.

The NonProfit Times - They pick up on an article from MarketingSherpa about “10 mistakes to avoid with email newsletters.” One tip not on the list is to remember to always have some form of “call to action” in your email newsletters. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an ask, but never miss an opportunity to drive action from an interaction. It could be a poll, a survey, or something else that engages more than just your constituents’ eyes.

Tim Davies - A straightforward “One page guide to Google Alerts” that should help anyone trying to measure the reach and awareness of their online efforts. I remember the days when you’d pay big bucks for a clipping service or spending hours in LexisNexis trying to research a topic.

Tech Soup - Beth Kanter continues to demystify Web 2.0 with her article called “Eight Secrets of Effective Online Networking.” This article is a follow up to “Determining Your Social Network Needs” that Beth wrote a few weeks ago. These are both worth spending some time reading, thinking, and discussing at your organizations.

Garrett Keating - A great three part series about writing custom parts for Blackbaud NetCommunity. Always good to see things out there in the wild taking shape. And it shows how blogs and Wikis can peacefully coexist no matter who’s publishing the content.