I recently wrote about Tu Diabetes' use of Twitter and the strategies the online community has employed to find and engage with new people.  Today, I want to take a look at another social media tool Tu Diabetes is using successfully: YouTube.

Tu Diabetes is an online community where members help each other out, educate themslves and share the steps taken every day to stay healthy while living with this very serious condition. Tu Diabetes employs a gamut of web tools in its process of reaching out to new community members, keeping the community informed, and educating the public.

Sending out yet another email to your members can be painful sometimes when you really want to say the same thing you've already tried to tell them countless times. We've all been there, either on the sending or receiving end of those messages. But, making something fun that delivers the message means you get to make something new and interesting, your members get to enjoy what you've created and the message is in there without any more of the boring blah blah blah. But, how do you do that?

The number of people blogging is still growing (just check Technorati for numbers), but the number of organizations starting blogs is rising, too. After enough staff members and volunteers touted the usefulness of blogs for conversation, news, and general transparency, it seems organizations are looking to give blogs a chance. Organizations of all sizes and sectors are utilizing this community building tool. Here are some examples of how far and wide blogs are being used to reach out to the community.

ARK Adventure

You may have heard of the Digital Makeover from Simon Fairway already. It focuses on the South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau and hopes to examine and improve the use of technology and online collaboration/web 2.0 tools by the organization in a public way so we can all learn together.

Hello to the Net Squared community blog readers!

I wanted to take a quick moment and re-introduce myself to everyone. I'm an nptecher that loves community. I think we have something special here at Net Squared and am excited to say that I'm now going to be a solid part of it! I'll be posting here twice a week, with insights, case studies, and how-tos that I come across to help you all as you continue to adopt and evaluate technology for nonprofits.

Britt Bravo is on a much-deserved vacation, so I'm stepping in for her to keep news and information about the social change web coming your way!

Members of the Vancouver Net Tuesday group gathered recently to discuss podcasting for social change. There were quite a few people (check out the pictures!) there for the conversation, but if you weren't one of them, don't worry, you can get a recap right here!

Britt Bravo is on a much-deserved vacation, so I'm stepping in for her to keep news and information about the social change web coming your way!

The UK Catalyst Awards highlight examples of individuals or groups putting social technology to use in connecting people and doing good. "It doesn't matter if you're a community group, a charity, in business, or just doing something smart in your own time – we can all do our bit." These stories offer ideas and inspiration about innovative uses of social technology that you or your organization can learn from.

But who won? The eight winners include:

Britt Bravo is on a much-deserved vacation, so I'm stepping in for her to keep news and information about the social change web coming your way!

NTEN and Beth Kanter are leading the nonprofit technology community in the We Are Media Project: The Social Media Starter Kit for Nonprofits. The community, by working wikily, is building a toolkit and instructional guides about the use of social media in helping nonprofits distribute their stories.

Britt Bravo is on a much-deserved vacation, so I'm stepping in for her to keep news and information about the social change web coming your way!

The Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards have been announced and there are 12 nonprofit winners! This was the first of an annual contest, bringing in over 1,000 tagline submissions and over 3,000 votes.