Whilst SYFAB's digital makeover is moving forward, I thought I would take the opportunity to have a look at some of the clever ways other nonprofit organisations have found to use new technology to refine the way that they are working.

One great example is Action for Blind People's use of podcasting to make their web offering more accessible to their service users. Audio has obvious benefits for an organisation that provides practical support and advice to visually impaired people, and as Sophie Gray, Action for Blind People's online marketing officer points out, ‘There is a lot of empathy involved with hearing a persons voice. It can be truly inspiring hearing the story of someone that has faced the same difficulties as you, and overcome them’. You can read more here. The podcasting approach has even been successful in generating press coverage, with one of their audio pieces having been picked up by SocietyGuardian.

Education charity, Worldwrite has developed it's own YouTube channel to host documentary videos that campaign on everything from Western development policy to attitudes towards volunteering in the UK. The commenting section allows viewers to provide feedback and join the debates. You can read more about there approach here.

Conservation education charity, Wildscreen, are using Google Earth and Maps to create customised maps and virtual visits of their projects and areas of activity. This is a great example of a charity using free tools to create a compelling and informative experience for their supporters with a relatively small investment of resource. You can read more about this initiative here, or watch a short video about the project.

Another great example is YouthNet, an online charity for young people, who use Facebook as a way of providing a community for their 40-50 "peer volunteers" who are trained and recruited to offer relationship support for 16-25 year olds. Facebook was chosen as the platform because it it was already used by 98% of their user base. In effect, YouthNet went to where there volunteers already are. The community of volunteers was built through a 'secret group', and the Facebook functionality easily facilitates updates, newsletters, and events. This presentation explains the idea in more detail.

Health policy charity, the King's Fund are another organisation that use Facebook to extend their online presence outside the confines of their website. The Medical Professionalism group is an informal space for doctors to discuss their opinions of what it means to be a doctor and debate the concept of professionalism in medicine.

So how do you measure whether any of this is worth it? This is a difficult question to answer, especially when the return is often some combination of the financial and social. This calculator for social networks is an example of the sort of models that can be employed to answer this question. It is probably a bit too complicated for our purposes, but does give a good indication of the types of factors that you may want to consider when deciding on your strategy.

I hope some those examples have inspired some of you. I'll follow up with an update from SYFAB shortly.