Technola : Public Interest Law & Technology Updates & Commentary : Matthew Burnett & Kate Bladow : Tech Advice for the Non-Profit Legal Sector

An updated version of Idealware's A Consumers' Guide to Low Cost Donor Management Systems has been released. It compares 29 donor management systems that cost $4,000 or less in their first year and dives in deep for what they consider the top ten systems.

Why might you need a donor management system? Because these systems help you to track the people who care enough about your organization to give money and to retain them as donors. They are much more powerful than spreadsheets, which, as the report explains, quickly become a nightmare to manage.

For example, a tool like Microsoft Excel can’t usefully link pieces of information together, so as soon as someone gives more than once, you have a tracking problem. If you have 10 donors who have each given between one and five times, the spreadsheet becomes complicated and ugly, making it difficult to figure out your total giving for the year. Add in the fact that two of those donors are married, and they should only get one mailing, and it’s suddenly completely unmanageable.

Are you using a donor management system to track your donors? If so, is your donor management system one of Idealware's top ten? Or do you use a system that Idealware didn't cover? Let us know in the comments. - K

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[Editor's Note: The following post is by the Shriver Center’s Web and e-Communications Director, Michelle Nicolet. It shares data from a recent survey by editors of the Clearinghouse Review on the use of online tools and resources by legal aid advocates. We asked Michelle if she would write up the results of the survey in a guest blog post for technola, and she was kind enough to agree. We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. –M]

Legal aid advocates have an array of online resources at their fingertips. Moreover, the growth of social media offers new ways for advocates to connect with and learn from one another. But which resources are advocates using? A recent survey conducted by the Editorial Team of Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy attempted to learn more about poverty lawyers’ current use of online resources.

The survey, conducted in April and May 2011, received 285 responses from legal services and other advocates working in 43 states. By a wide margin, the most popular online resource used for legal research or professional development is listservs, which are used by 81% of respondents. Other popular resources include government websites (72.9%), webinars and webinar recordings (64.4%), Westlaw (53.5%), statewide websites (53.5%), and the respondents’ own programs’ websites or intranets (48.9%). Lesser used resources include podcasts (7%) and law-related blogs or “blawgs” (25.1%).

Respondents show more willingness to read online than ever before. When asked how an online-only version of Clearinghouse Review would affect their use of the journal, 38% said they would be more likely to read the Review, and 48% said their use of the Review would not be affected. Only 14% of respondents said that they would be less likely to read the Review if it were only available online. This is a significant shift from just a few years ago. In a 2007 survey, 81% of respondents reported that they did not regularly read Clearinghouse Review online.

Some of the increased willingness to use online resources may be traced to the availability of content on mobile devices. Over 45% of respondents to the survey reported reading web content on a mobile phone or tablet device, with 73% of those reporting that they read content on a mobile device daily. Clearly, the next generation of legal aid websites should be mobile-friendly to ensure the broadest accessibility by advocates.

Only 29.1% of respondents indicated that they use RSS newsfeeds to stay on top of relevant news and information. Although this is a slightly higher percentage than reported in a similar 2007 survey, it still seems surprisingly low and possibly presents an opportunity for training.

In addition, although more respondents reported using social media than in earlier surveys, professional use of social media is still quite limited. The most popular network for professional use, LinkedIn, is still not used by a majority of respondents. Even Facebook and YouTube, which a majority of respondents reported using for personal reasons, are scarcely used by respondents to connect with one another professionally. The potential impact of social networking to support communication and collaboration around poor people’s issues remains largely unrealized in the legal services community.

The editors of Clearinghouse Review are grateful to the survey respondents for their input. Through the Review and related content, we seek to promote coordinated affirmative advocacy efforts, support an emerging generation of advocates for social and economic justice, and foster a sense of community among legal aid and poverty lawyers. The information collected in this and other surveys will be extraordinarily helpful as we plan future content for Clearinghouse Review.

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If you are looking for an easy way to keep up with current technology trends, subscribe to NTEN:Change, a new quarterly journal intended to help nonprofit leaders and their programs use technology wisely.

The most recent issue includes many useful articles, including

• Facebook for Volunteers - Jayne Cravens, a virtual volunteering expert, and several nonprofit organizations detail what has worked to recruit volunteers on Facebook.
• Show Me the World: Video Storytelling for Your Cause - This feature outlines how a program can and should begin integrating videos into their communications.
• Social Media Nightmare: Errant Post from Your Org's Official Profile Online - Wendy Harman from the American Red Cross shares how a potential nightmare can be transformed into a fundraising opportunity.

To subscribe and read NTEN:Change, visit nten.org/ntenchange. - K

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The Ontario Civil Legal Needs Project recently released the report, “Listening to Ontarians,” which examines the barriers that Ontarians face in accessing the civil justice system. A collaboration between the Law Society of Upper Canada, Legal Aid Ontario and Pro Bono Law Ontario, the report does a nice job of identifying and exploring both the promise and challenges of using technology to increase access to justice for low and moderate-income Ontarians (see, in particular, page 58 of the report). The survey also found that “84 per cent of low and middle-income Ontarians are connected to the Internet.” The full report is available for download here (PDF). -M

Update: Only after publishing this post did I come across this great post on the Clicklaw Blog, which covers technology and access to justice issues in this report as well as another recent report, Moving Forward on Legal Aid: Research on Needs and Innovative Approaches.

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The Nonprofit Technology Network today released the 2009 Nonprofit IT Staffing and Spending Report. First published in 2006, this Report is an excellent resource for objective data on nonprofit IT salaries and how nonprofits are spending their IT dollars. The free report is available for download here. -M

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Today Technola is participating for the second year in Blog Action Day, an annual event founded in 2007 that encourages bloggers to post about the same issue on the same day, thereby triggering a global discussion on an important topic.  Last year’s theme was poverty, an issue very close to our hearts, which we wrote about here (be sure to check out the comments). This year’s theme is climate change.

There are, of course, many different angles in which to explore the issue of climate change. Our choice, which we hope you’ll join us in reflecting upon, is the impact that climate change has on low-income individuals and communities. To spur your reflection, here are a few resources:

• Designing Climate-Change Legislation That Shields Low-Income Households from Increased Poverty and Hardship, The Effects of Climate-Change Policies on the Federal Budget and the Budgets of Low-Income Households, and How Low-Income Consumers Fare in the House Climate Bill, all reports by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities;
• Climate Change's Unique Impact on Low-Income Communities, a blog post by Dan Lesser on the Shriver Center’s blog, The Shriver Brief;
• Green Housing and Climate Change, by Enterprise Community Partners; and
• Climate Change and America’s Poor, by Living on Earth, a weekly environmental news and information program distributed by Public Radio International.

Although Technola doesn’t typically delve into knotty policy issues (hey, we’re geeks, not wonks!), we hope that you’ll join us and thousands of bloggers throughout the world today for a robust discussion on climate change. See you in the comments section!   -M&K

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The Legal Services Corporation recently released an update to its 2005 report on the justice gap in America. Highlights include:

• For every client served by LSC programs, another person who seeks help is turned away;
• LSC programs will not be able to meet the needs of almost 1 million low-income individuals seeking legal assistance in 2009; and
• In the area of foreclosures, LSC programs will have to turn away two for every person served.

The full report is available for download here (PDF). -M

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The Hatcher Group just released a new report on how nonprofits are using new media for social change, which is based on a survey of 30 nonprofits working on state-level advocacy issues.  It provides an overview, metrics and strategic insight into several tools, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook and social news sites. The free report is available here (PDF). -M

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The National Center for State Courts recently released its annual Future Trends in State Courts, which highlights innovative court programs and thinkers. Like last year's edition, the document features several articles on self-help, access to justice, and partnerships:

• Access to Justice: Economic Crisis Challenges, Impacts, and Responses by Richard Zorza
• Redesigning For the Customer: Self-Service Sites Can Help the Courts and the Public In a Tight Economy by Pam Burton
• Think Outside the Court: How Nonprofit Organizations Can Benefit Court Systems During Times of Economic Uncertainty by June B. Kress

Thanks to Carl Reynolds, Administrative Director at the Texas Office of Court Administration, for pointing this out on his blog, CourTex. - K

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The US Census Bureau released the 2008 statistics for income, poverty, and health insurance coverage last Thursday, confirming what most legal aid staff already suspected. The poverty rate increased: from 12.5 percent in 2007 to 13.2 percent.

Yes, in 2008, 39.8 million Americans lived in poverty. For reference, that's more than the number of people in the US' largest 32 cities or more than the number of people in California.

The Census Bureau's data has additional information, but for a quick overview, try Census Numbers Bad and Going to Be Worse from Poverty & Policy or Poverty Rose, Median Income Declined, and Job-Based Health Insurance Continued to Weaken in 2008 from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. - K

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NPower today released its 2009 Community Technology Survey, which synthesizes the results of a survey completed by over 1,000 nonprofit organizations from a variety of sectors. Topics include IT staffing, spending, funding, infrastructure, adoption, email communication and file sharing, website management and marketing, event and donor management, program and service delivery, finance and human resources, and social media. Overall, the survey suggests that “IT is still a small part of a nonprofit’s overall focus as lack of funding and ongoing costs call for a higher level of quality and affordability in the nonprofit IT services arena.” -M

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The Legal Services National Technology Assistance Project (LSNTAP) today released an interactive report based on their 2008 technology survey of the software and hardware being used by nonprofit legal services programs. The report website allows you to filter survey results, rate products and vendors, update survey answers for your organization and export survey data. According to the survey, 31% of respondents reported that their program uses a wiki, 46% of respondents reported that their program uses HotDocs, nearly 50% of respondents reported that they use VOIP, and 50% of respondents reported using web conferencing to attend or host remote presentations. A summary of the survey results are available here. -M

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Recognizing that nonprofits have integrated teleconferences, videoconferences, and webinars into their daily routine,  The Goodman Center, which helps nonprofit organizations improve their communications with funders, stakeholders, and the public, surveyed the community to find out the good, the bad, and the ugly about these events. The result: Dialing In, Logging On, Nodding Off: The True Costs of Teleconferences, Videoconferences and Webinars, a report that suggests the nonprofit community has a lot of not-so-good meetings, trainings, and conferences.

The Goodman Center is sponsoring a webinar on July 17, 2009 to review the results of their report. Registration information is available on The Goodman Center's website. - K

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The Nonprofit Technology Network, together with the Nonprofit Times, released its 3rd annual report on IT staffing and spending today. You can download it here. [Note that submitting your name and email address is required to download the report.] -M

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M+R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network recently released the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, which analyzes online messaging, fundraising, and advocacy metrics from 32 leading nonprofits. Benchmarks, which are broken down by sector (including civil/legal rights), include open rates, click-through, response rates, attrition, page conversion rates, online giving, average gift size and monthly giving, among others. The study also includes a handy reference sheet with key benchmarks. -M

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The Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), Common Knowledge, and ThePort Network, Inc. have just released the Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report, which is based on a survey of 929 nonprofits conducted in March 2009.  Highlights include:

• 74.1% of respondents have a presence on Facebook, the most popular social network among nonprofits;
• 31% of nonprofits have one or more social networking communities on their own web site;
• 80% of respondents said that they commit at least one-quarter of a staff position to social networking; and
• For the most part, social networks have not proven to be effective at fundraising (see the recent Washington Post article on this topic).

The full report can be downloaded here. [Note that downloading the report requires you provide your name, organization and email address.] -M
 

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NPower and Accenture have joined together to ask nonprofits, "What software do you use?" They hope to find out whether nonprofits are happy with their options as well as what support the community needs to use the software effectively. You can participate in their survey here.

NPower has promised to share the survey responses with the community; however, for those of you who are motivated by material rewards, three random people who complete the survey will receive a new IPod Shuffle. - K

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This week Idealware released a report that compares four open source content management systems: Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and Plone. After a brief introduction to content management systems (CMSs), the report looks at several important areas, including ease of configuration, scalabilty and security, and user roles and workflow, and assesses the positives and negatives of each system. Then the authors take a few pages to provide recommendations on when you might consider using each of the CMSs. I haven't had time to read the report yet, but based on the people involved and the quality of Idealware's previous reports, this should be a great reference for people who are investigating open source CMSs. - K

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When writing instructions, your word choice isn't the only factor that determines whether people follow through. The font that you choose also plays an important role. Lifehacker reports that using clear fonts, like Arial, makes instructions seem easier to follow and the tasks more likely to get done. - K

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comScore, Inc. recently released a report that for the first time shows the demographics of iPhone owners. It reveals that "while 43 percent of iPhone owners earn in excess of $100,000 annually, the strongest growth in users is coming from those earning less than the median household income." Specifically, the report indicates that "iPhone adoption since June 2008 rose 48 percent among those earning between $25,000 and $50,000 per year and by 46 percent among those earning between $25,000 and $75,000. These growth rates are three times that of those earning more than $100,000 per year." As we've suggested in the past, mobile technology has enormous potential for delivering legal information and advice to low and moderate-income individuals. -M

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The National Center for State Courts just released its 20th Anniversary Edition of Future Trends in State Courts, which includes an article on online document assembly by Kate Bladow and Claudia Johnson, as well as an article by Richard Zorza on a judicial curriculum and leadership package developed by the Self Represented Litigation Network. Other topics in this edition that may be of interest include website disability access, language access, cultural competency and several articles on court technology. -M

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The Pew Internet and American Life Project has just published a new report called "Networked Families":

A national survey has found that households with a married couple and minor children are more likely than other household types -- such as single adults, homes with unrelated adults, or couples without children to have cell phones and use the internet. The survey shows that these high rates of technology ownership affect family life. In particular, cell phones allow family members to stay more regularly in touch even when they are not physically together. Moreover, many members of married-with-children households view material online together.

View the full report here. Last month Pew published a related report called "Networked Workers" that may also be of interest. -M

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An interesting AP article on the recent Pew Internet and the American Life Survey, "Teens, Video Games and Civics." The survey found that ninety-seven percent of young respondents play video games. That's 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls, with little difference in the percentages among various racial and ethnic groups and incomes." Will the Wii be the great equalizer? Only time will tell, but for now my wife and I still have to travel all the way to Baltimore to visit Kate and her husband for our marathon Rock Band sessions. -M

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An interesting article from the ABA Journal that discusses the results of the ABA's annual Legal Technology Survey Report. -M

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An ABA Journal article about the Standing Committee on The Delivery of Legal Services hearings on the delivery of legal services through technology at the ABA Annual Meeting in New York City. -M

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LSC recently released its 2007 Fact Book, which contains a wealth of information on client demographics, private attorney involvement and staffing at LSC-funded organizations. According the Fact Book, there were 116 full-time IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations in 2007, with an average salary of $50,959 (comparable to that of a Staff Attorney at $51,680).

Only 30% of IT Managers were women, which is just slightly higher than the overall percentage of women in professional IT industry positions (26% in 2007, according to the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology). Comparatively, women at LSC-funded organizations represented approximately 82% of Paralegals, 67% of Staff Attorneys, 60% of Supervising Attorneys, 54% of Managing Attorneys, 48% of Deputy Directors, and (notice a trend here?) 32% of Executive Directors.

With regards to race, approximately 62% of IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations in 2007 were Caucasian, 14% African American, 14% Latino, 8% Asian/Pacific Islander and 3% Native American. In 2004, African Americans made up approximately 9% of the overall professional IT workforce, Asians 9% and Latinos just under 6% (NCWIT 2007 Scorecard). Finally, about 8% of IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations were attorneys and their average number of years in the profession was 13.3 (3.3 years longer than the average Staff Attorney and 4.9 years less than the average Supervising Attorney). -M

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The July-August issue of Clearinghouse Review includes an article entitled "Increasing Automation in State Computer Systems: Preventing Technological Barriers to Successful Public Benefits Administration," which argues that "new computer systems in several states have created serious barriers for applicants, and designing technology that works accurately across benefit programs has proven to be a challenge." Also included in the same issue is an article by Peter Edelman entitled "A Challenge for Lawyers: What We Must Do to End Poverty and Reduce Inequality." (A subscription to Clearinghouse Review is required to view both articles.) -M

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An interesting article from Law Technology News today on how IT is transforming legal services, which makes a great point (and one that certainly applies to our clients):

Technology will create the most change for people who have been shut out of legal information sources and services -- small business and individuals. These clients don't offer enough scale to be of interest to existing legal services providers, but technology-based information and service providers are in a position to begin serving that "long tail" of the legal market.

-M

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• An article by Larry Bodine for Law Technology News, "Is the Party Over for Social Networking?", which reports that according to an ongoing ABA Young Lawyer survey, "only 8 percent [of survey participants] said it was "very important" to network with legal colleagues via online social networking."


• A recent post on Care2's frogloop blog, "51% of Donors 'Not At All Interested' in Social Networks," which lit up the Progressive Exchange listserv today, reports that "a majority of donors, 51%, were "not at all interested" in following organizations that they care about through blogs, social networks, and RSS." -M

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A recent article from Jakob Nielsen suggests that "between the ages of 25 and 60, people's ability to use websites declines by 0.8% per year -- mostly because they spend more time per page, but also because of navigation difficulties."

The article also addresses income: "After removing the age effect, the income effect is that people need 2.2% less time to use a website for every $10,000 increase in earnings." While I think that Nielsen's explanation for the latter is woefully inadequate, the numbers are compelling and I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about how both age and income should factor into the technology that we develop for our clients. -M [Thanks, Mark.]

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A nice piece by David Carr with Clay Shirky (who's new book we recently featured here) in the New York Times today: "Forget 15-year-olds; my 4-year old saw a show on broadcast television at our baby sitter's house and asked to see it again when she went back there," Mr. Shirky said. "When told it wasn't on television right then, she asked, 'Is it broken?' " He then told another story: a friend found his 4-year-old fishing around the cables behind the television and asked what she was looking for. She said, "I'm looking for the mouse." -M

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A secret for readers of technola: Every morning, I read The Fargo Forum to see if any of my friends or family have made the news. North Dakota has only 600,000 people, and my husband is related to what feels like 599,999 of them, so this is not an unreasonable expectation.

While there was no stories about family or friends this morning, North Dakotans did receive some good news. They experienced a larger than average increase in personal income over the last year because agriculture and energy did well, and the housing and financial services slump didn't hit the state as hard as other states. Want to see how your state did? Check out the Bureau of Economic Analysis - Regional Economic Accounts website for the news release on State Personal Income 2007. - K

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On Monday, I starting writing about the first of two poverty-related news story that caught my attention last week - the poverty rates in Maryland. Today, I jump to the other coast to talk about the second, which I heard on Thursday.

As It Happens, a Canadian news radio program that covers current news stories from the serious to the ridiculous, ran a segment that talked about Oregon's health care lottery. (You can listen to the podcast, or if you prefer reading, check out the New York Times article instead. )

According to As It Happens, 600,000 Oregon residents are uninsured, and the state's Medicaid program can only cover 24,000 people. While this is not a unique problem, Oregon is trying a unique solution. They are implementing a lottery to select who will be covered. As It Happens conducted great interviews with Melvin Tsosie, a man enrolled in the lottery, and Chris Coon, the Outreach Manager for the Community Clinic of Bend.

But it was the last part of the interview that really caught my attention. Families USA, The Voice for Health Care Consumers, reports that at least one working-aged Oregonian dies every day because they do not have health insurance. Wow. - K

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"Some 62% of adult Americans have taken advantage of mobile access to digital data and tools. The Pew Internet Project's new report, entitled Mobile Access to Data and Information, examines mobile access in two ways and finds that:

• 58% of adult Americans have used a cell phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) to do at least one of ten mobile non-voice data activities, such as texting, emailing, taking a picture, looking for maps or directions, or recording video.
• 41% of adult Americans have logged onto the internet on the go, that is, away from home or work either with a wireless laptop connection or a handheld device.
• Overall, 62% of adult Americans have either accessed the internet with a wireless connection away from home or work or used a non-voice data application using their cell phone or PDA, according to the Pew Internet Project's December 2007 survey."

View the full report here. -M

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First Monday, the wonderful "peer-reviewed journal on the internet," just released its March issue, Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0. An article entitled "Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance" by Anders Albrechtslund is particularly interesting. You can register to be notified when new issues of First Monday are made available here. -M

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