So this is Christmas

9. December 2011  |  Blogposts  |  Bit.ly Link  |  Comment

Even though I have moved to Sheffield and now live one whole hour away from my Danish contacts, we still use the same calendar here and it says: “Christmas!”

Therefore I am now giving away 20 gift cards for Kiva’s microloans!

The first 20 who sends me their name and email through the form below will receive a Kiva gift card with $ 25 on it. It is completely up to you if you want to withdraw the money after the loan has been paid back or be a part of Kiva and reloan it. It is up to you, but you know what I would have done ;o)

Merry Christmas!

Oh sorry! I am out of gifts!

But thank you for being nice this year!

Read more about Kiva, microloan og gift cards here.

Communitas 2.0 – a free community resource for gathering encouragements

26. November 2011  |  Releases, Resources  |  Bit.ly Link  |  Comment

Have you ever been in need of a way to encourage your many volunteers or just adding the memorable feature to your conference? If so, you should have a look at “Communitas”, a free resource from Greenbrook built as a WordPress theme.

The principle behind is very simple. Install Communitas, add your contacts and invite them to click in and encourage each other. After a few weeks the outcome will be a vast amount of personal encouragements, ready to print and deliver to each person. Think of it as a collective gift, given to each and every person.

To add your contacts to Communitas you could download your networks profile pictures from Facebook or Twitter, or just take some new pictures with your smartphone and upload directly to the site through the WordPress app. It is very simple ;o)

The newly updated version of Communitas is improven in both design and functionality, as you can see in the images and the demo below. One of the main features is the responsive design, making it possible to use Communitas from desktops, tablet and smartphones.

You can read about the previous version of Communitas here.

Take a closer look

Smartphone

Tablet

Desktop

Take an even closer look ;o)

Add a very simple booking form to your website!

26. November 2011  |  Releases, Resources  |  Bit.ly Link  |  Comment

One of the needs I am most often asked to solve – when producing new websites for unions, churches and volunteer organizations – is the possibility of adding a simple booking form, e.g. to the post about the upcoming event.

If you would like several different booking forms, I will recommend using the forms in Google Docs (see video) since it is very simple built and applied to your website!

If you in contrast only need one kind of booking form for one or several pages, the Google Docs solution is too much work. Instead you should go for the “Response” plugin, recently built by Greenbrook. Response will automatically add a form to your Page or Post, if you have added a receiving email-address to the given Page or Post. And that is all there is to it! Below I have displayed a demo of what it could look like (in Danish though).

Download “Response”

Build a mobile resource or online handbook for your organisation

21. October 2011  |  Blogposts  |  Bit.ly Link  |  Comment

The emergence of small nicely fitted mobile websites and smartphone applications have compressed the entire internet’s vast amount of data down into pocket size, so it is available anywhere and any time. All you need is a smartphone and 3G network. And with the growing attention to tablets in mind it is clear that mobile content are here to stay.

As with many other things businesses are the first to move and exploit the new market, leaving volunteer organisations, charities and unions behind trying to figure out how they can join the game.
Well, here is my suggestion.

The online handbook

Besides designing your own application, the classical approach is to create a mobile friendly version of your existing website. And it is definitely not a bad solution, but before we simply copy what businesses are doing we should figure out what our particular community needs “here and now” with the portable device in hand. And maybe the solution is far easier, way cheaper and much more on the spot.

With the portable device in mind, ask yourself if your community really needs the heavy graphics, the complete menu structure and the entire article archive, more than a fast and simple overview of the latest news, contact details, links to social media and a shortcode to Google Maps that brings your visitor to you as fast as possible?

If you prefer the latter the solution is right here. The title is “Spokesman” and it is a free theme for WordPress. You can download it from here and install it on your own installation of WordPress. Read more →

Give your team a private forum for cooperation and knowledge capture

14. October 2011  |  Releases  |  Bit.ly Link  |  Comment

Greenbrook has just released a new free resource, and as always, it is especially designed for charities, churches, social businesses and volunteer initiatives.

The resource is a WordPress theme called “Square” and turns WordPress into a tool for cooperation, just like the prior theme from Greenbrook (“Communitas“).

Square is built to give groups, teams and leaders a private and secure, but still easy accessible forum for discussion and knowledge capture. Therefore everything is hidden for non-members, but when logged in, you can use Square from both your computer and smartphone (iPhone and Android). Read more →

Tags: , , , , , , ,

  • Comments

  • Tweets

    • On my way to London for a two day training in @civicrm and I'm looking forward to see who else might be there ;o) 2 hours ago
    • RT @aropaNU: Uge 8 spørgsmålet (en dag forsinket) er: Hvilket sociale initiativ inspirerer dig? Hvad har andre gang i der får... http:// ... 1 day ago