I have recently been learning another language and when I explained what I do, the need for the word 'volunteer' came up fast. 'What's the word for someone who works without pay?' I asked.

'A slave.' said my teacher.

Ah, yes. You know non-profit slaves! People with smarts and ethics and education who you stuck photocopying pages for an hour. Or markering a poster. Those slaves, the ones that don't come back after your first slave meeting.

Your nonprofit has a fabulous website. You attract thousands of admirers each day. You update it with fresh content, you communicate with your donors. You rock.

You've also invested blood, sweat, tears and cash into the beast. So is it possible to make some money back from your website?

Having a decent website is a given for most nonprofits. It's a key communication tool, with your stakeholders, the media, donors, the world. Given that, let's assume that your website has some inherent value for your organisation. But can you actually create a revenue stream from your website?

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So, do you understand the electoral system yet? Thoroughly digested those platforms and polls? With both a Canadian and an American election on the go this autumn, there’s a lot of indigestible info out there. We’re going to show you some sites that will hopefully help you stay on top of it. More...

So you've collected information about your IT needs, you've thought deeply and grokked your problems. Now what?

Having managed IT off the side of my desk (in addition to fundraising), I wanted to pass along a few nuggets of wisdom about information technology. Specifically, I was asked the other day how to hire a good “geek” for a non-profit. Seemed that all the best IT experts were either too specialized or too expensive to hire.

So I said to her, don’t just hire a geek. You need to step back and plan laterally. Here’s my two-part series on how to solve your IT woes…

Social bookmarking, or using tags to organize web pages into a publicly viewable archive online, is becoming increasingly common among nonprofit organizations and supporting technologists. Social bookmarking tools are preferable to browser bookmarks or favorites in a number of ways, including accessibility from any computer, superior detail in archiving and retrieval and the ability to share our bookmarks as a whole or by tag with other people.

Most of the time it seems to me that the conversation about social bookmarking starts with del.icio.us - probably the most popular social bookmarking tool online. There are many more options available, however, and I thought it would be useful to provide some brief explanation of a few alternatives and some things to consider in making your selection.