Whatever your comfort zone, these technologies are here and as the public grows more Web savvy, they expect you to be up on the latest trends. One of my favorite parts of this new tech wave is that it’s relatively low impact on one’s budget. The Internet has in fact given Joe Public the keys to authorship through numerous free social networking and blogging sites. (They even let me on!) So, aside from the obvious commitment of time and creativity there’s no reason for you not to join the game.

Next question: What might a nonprofit use such tech for? Well, on a VERY informal basis, I surfed to a few well known nonprofit Web sites who I figured would be up on their tech and might offer some good examples. I found stories of volunteers and people touched by the organizations, but they had pretty much all gone through marketing first. What I was hoping for was a direct voice of organization members and volunteers.

Never fear, this building is full of people who work with wonderful people like you every day. So I asked around and found an org (who is a client) who is doing some very cool things—Jesuits of the California Province. I do want to say that I’m not trying to hawk our products here. I just want to point out some of the ways this org is trying to connect with current and new constituents as soon as they surf in. And if you have some other great examples, send them in! The more people see, the more ideas we can generate.

The Jesuit Home page offers options to compose multimedia prayers, listen to or download podcasts, join discussion boards, read blogs, or listen to music composed by Jesuits. There is lots of other information on the page, but these are all interactive ways to give surfers a full picture of what the organization does. It also gives them access to other constituents and the people who make the organization work. This means that surfers are connecting at a person-to-person level with real, unedited people. And that makes a big difference.

I can offer up another example—Science online. Science is a well-known, high-profile scientific journal, also part of the nonprofit community, that normally serves just the scientific community. On their Web site, however, they’ve expanded their outreach to try to include educators and a broader audience. Full articles are restricted to members, but you can see right in the middle of the page a link to their podcasts, which provide free access to the same topics covered in the journal. Their multimedia site also offers interactive videos perfect for use in the classroom and complete with teacher resources.

In this case, Science is opening up parts of their value that is normally reserved for members only and sharing it in a new, more accessible way (way more user-friendly then the peer reviewed articles). This offers extended benefits to teachers, who may surf on more often for teaching tools, and students, who may start by saying “This is neat” and end by having a serious interest in science.

The point is there are ALWAYS ways to make your site more interactive, adding value and a gee whiz factor at the same time. That translates into more people who want to check out your site, who want to spend more time on your site, who tell their friends about your site, and who ultimately may be more likely to get involved.

But will nonprofits flock to DoGooderTV instead of free alternatives like YouTube or Google Video? DoGooderTV will always have a captive audience looking for nonprofit content, but whether or not organizations will be willing to pay for that placement remains to be seen. Tracking…

Update: Michael says:

The site is 100% FREE! A new version is online now that allows nonprofits to create basic home pages and upload video.

That’s great news from the DoGooderTV camp - not only because the the service will be free, but social elements like creating pages are coming sooner rather than later.