The NetSquared social web survey, a questionnaire about users' web habits that we conducted in May 2006, reached 949 users from various nonprofits around the world. As you might well imagine, many of our respondents are using the web in creative and compelling ways in their work. In the interest of inspiring others to find ways that they too can use the web to enhance their work lives, we've included a list of some of our favorite answers below, sorted by tool/service. (Thanks to everyone who gave us permission to use their comments!)

Bookmarking/tagging

• We use del.icio.us to share bookmarks among staff about grants, resources and training ideas.  (Zach Fisher, Contact Center)
• As part of the Nonprofit Congress initiative, we are encouraging people who mention or link to nonprofitcongress.org to tag their pages in del.icio.us and using an aggregator for a "Who's Linking Here?" page. We've also started a blog on the site and are listed in the Nonprofit Blog Exchange. We haven't started podcasting yet, but are looking at branching out into that sometime soon. (Richard Cohen, National Council of Nonprofit Associations)

Blogs

• Read political and tech blogs daily, keeps me on top. Occasionally contribute to these blogs. Write and maintain an office wiki for office systems: phone info, tech info, etc. (R. Scott Lamorte, Trees Foundation)
• The United Way blog keeps us informaed about what's going on in the Texas legislature, as well as new initiatives. Evite is being used by coalition members to announce meetings and events. (Nancy Dahle, Foundation Communities - ShadowBrook)
• Most of my use of these tools is more to keep up with the state of environmental blogs or let staff know about something interesting I find, not to contribute our own content. My organization's outreach team is not very enthusiastic about using blogs or other social networking tools, despite my best efforts. (Regional Conservation Organization)
• I use my blog to keep my membership more up-to-date on things that the association is doing on their behalf. It supplements my quarterly newsletter. (Kenneth Pigg, Rural Sociological Society)

Podcasts

• We podcast our teleoconferences, create xml/rss feeds for selected content, utilize a wiki internally to collaborate with our chapters and utilize blogger and other blogging services for special marketing opportunities. (Marc Sirkin, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society)

Wikis

• We use a wiki to keep our to do lists and the status of help desk tasks updated between the three I.S. staff I occosionally read blogs by I.S. people at other agencies who are writing about their progress on various projects, like online medical records, etc. (Lois Danks, Peninsula Community Mental Health Center)
• We are using mostly a wiki to collaboratively edit a peace guide. We also try to implement a groupware to share contacts, documents, a calendar... all together. Otherwise, it's still a bit difficult to set up and use for a little NGO. (Pau, Nova)

Various & Other tools

• Use Google's homepage option to read various news threads as well as its new chat feature built into gmail. Have used Facebook on occassion, but it's too much of a time vacuum. Listen to mostly news podcasts on my Powerbook via ITunes. Would use an iPod if I could afford one. We are thinking of creating podcasts for our newsletters as well. Am hoping to start a wiki-based Intranet for my organization within the next year. (Jim Otepka, Badger Assoc of the Blind & Visually Impaired)         
• We began to use Civic Space during our last federal election (in January) and are now exploring its potential, while also converting our main website to "the social web". (David Langille, Centre for Social Justice)
• I use news tracking and RSS feeds to track news, developments in the non-profit and grant world and for personal interests I use the blog for personal and professional purposes. We are starting a podcast this summer with the kids at our community technology center and hopefully introduce them to the world of blogs. We also use a blog to post meeting notes. (R Morgan, Community Neighborhood Renaissance Partnership, Inc.)
• We use flickr, blogger, and youtube to document and present our programs. We use them as an educational tool, adapting the documentation techniques of Reggio Emilia to the internet. We also using instant messaging software to convene and transcribe "conversations." (Tyler Denmead, NewUrbanArts.org)
• I'm a Librarian, so we use blogs to promote library activities. We use wikis for policies, we use podcasts for instruction, and we use RSS feeds to collect information resources. (Tiffeni Fontno, Case Western Reserve University)
• Mainly use the tools for information - searching blogs to stay informed about current events and how regular people are reacting to specific events. Use social networking sites to stay in touch with friends and to complete research for a work-related education program about the dangers of social networking sites. (Tracy, CAPSA)      
• We use a variety of webtools to gather LGBTQ-related health resources and news. Our website is run entirely by the blog software WORDPRESS, and it includes rss feeds, and will soon include podcasts. Our staff reads a variety of blogs to stay up-to-date on LGBTQ health news. (Joi, The SafeGuards project)
• Castpost is super easy for me to bluetooth short av files from my cell phone. iTunes has some good, free podcasts. Picasa - links straight to Blogger when I upload images. Technorati - to find blogs with common tags and also find out if certain tags already exist. (Diane Babak, SANGONeT)