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Find your NCGA Rep

Submitted by Naz on August 6, 2013 - 11:13am

The state of North Carolina has 120 state House districts and 50 senate districts. To find your representatives from both houses in the North Carolina General Assembly:

Navigate to the "Who Represents Me?" page on the NCGA site: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/representation/WhoRepresentsMe.aspx.

Enter your address in the search bar on the NC House of Representatives district map and hit enter .

The map will zoom in to the address searched and a district number will appear. Clicking anywhere within the district lines on the map will create a pop-up box with a link to the that location's representative. Click Open Member Page to see that person's bio and information.

If you scroll further down the NCGA page linked above, there are maps with similar functionality for the NC Senate, and the US House of Representatives.

Salsa donation page best practices

Submitted by Autumn on July 16, 2013 - 6:13pm

Salsa is a powerful CRM that integrates donations (among other tools). Below are the guidelines we suggest when creating a new donation page in Salsa for your organization.

  • Always provide donation amounts. We recommend starting at $10.
  • Always provide at least these two follow-up emails.
  • Reply email thanking the donor and acting as a receipt.
    • "Dear ..."
    • donation amount
    • what the donations are used for
    • any relevant tax information
  • Individual email notifying organizers of a new donation.
    • donation amount
    • link to donate page
    • link to donation information page
  • Redirect to a thank-you page OR fill in the thank-you page text.
    • In either case, you should have "tell a friend" links so donors can share the page with their peers.
  • Ensure you fill in a Default Tracking Code that is descriptive of the donation page.

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Editing the User Registration From in Drupal

Submitted by Nicole on July 15, 2013 - 5:29pm

Drupal 7 provides you a lot of great options to customize the user registration form. The first place to look is under the configuration menu in the administration menu. Select "People" and then "Account Settings". Select the "Manage Fields" tab. Here you will see all the fields available to your users. You can add and remove fields here. To determine whether or not a field displays on the registration form, you need to simply edit it and un-check the "Display on user Registration Form" checkbox. Once you save, the field will no longer be available for users on the registration form. Most fields can be edited this way.

Some fields are added to the form on just the "Account Settings" page. Generally, if you scroll to the bottom of the page you may find some fields there to enable or disable. The location module, for example, is changed on this page. Generally you'll want to look for a checkbox that involves registration. For the Location module it's called "Collect during registration".

Importing a static HTML site to Drupal

Submitted by Autumn on July 12, 2013 - 11:00am

Recently, one of our clients was looking to import a static site to Drupal. There was no RSS feed, no XML file, and not all of the pages were terribly similar. On top of that, the structure of the site didn't seem to have any particular file system, making anything sequential out of the question.

Some modules we've looked at when trying to import a static HTML site with no XML or RSS include:

Thus far, this is the workflow we have been able to accomplish using Feeds and Feeds XPath Parser.

  1. Enter a URL from the old site (e.g. http://example.com/directory/tags/mypage.html).
  2. Click the import button.
  3. A node is created.

And even here, we have some problems.

Drupal and Spam

Submitted by Nicole on July 3, 2013 - 7:16pm

If you run a Drupal site with any kind of user submitted content, you have undoubtedly encountered spam. Bots love to spam your comments and user registration forms. It's a problem we deal with on all our Richir Outreach sites, and solving it isn't as easy as you might want. Fortunately, there are a couple of great modules which, when used together, can cut the spam down to a minimum.

The first is the Mollom Module. Mollom is available for many different content management systems, and uses intelligence to determine if something is spam or not. Mollom by itself can do a great deal at determining what is spam, and what isn't.

Another great module is Honeypot. Honeypot has a hidden field on it, which users can't see but bots can. The bots fill it out, and then get banned as being bots. Honeypot is a great, lightweight add-on which catches some of the smarter bots that Mollom misses.

Together these modules can catch almost all the spam that hits your system.

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Understanding File Types

Submitted by Katie on June 18, 2013 - 12:44pm

Cross posted from Sisarina

Understanding File Types

Managing design projects sometimes feels like swimming in a sea of acronyms. So much terminology, so many file extensions, so little time! There are png, psd, pdf, vector, gif, ai, high res files... just to name a few. Fun terms like lossy compression, bitmap and lossless data compression abound. Technology is miraculous, life-changing and often kind of confusing.

To make sense of it all, I decided to do a bit of research and consult with our Director of Pixels, Jason Malmberg. In the process, I discovered a few things:

RO Solutions Products

Submitted by Naz on June 4, 2013 - 1:57pm

Read more about all the products RO Solutions offers to help maximize your NationBuilder site's engagement, visual appeal and social connectivity!

Themes for NationBuilder:

Currently, six theme designs for NationBuilder are sold on Richir Outreach's storefront. Themes vary in style and display and are available in a price range from $190-250. Some are geared towards political campaigns (Campaigner), others toward food-oriented movements (Coop), while several (Bantam, Council, Bright Board) can be used by a variety of organizations and campaigns. All features, including colors and images, can be further customized after purchase by following configuration instructions. All themes are offered "as is" by Richir Outreach. Beyond initial installation, no further support is offered by Richir Outreach or 3dna.

Bantam: $200.00

The Bantam theme makes it easy for supporters to engage with your cause with a customization, visually-engaging sidebar and social media connectivity options.

(http://bit.ly/LfXz8k)

NationBuilder Themes Available from RO Solutions

Submitted by Naz on May 23, 2013 - 12:43pm

Richir Outreach's storefront allows users to purchase NationBuilder themes that can be further customized and adapted to fit their organization's needs. Each theme is specifically designed to help organizations reach their main digital objectives, from increasing and engaging supporter bases to accessing and connecting with new audiences. Themes are geared towards eye-catching visual appeal, up-to-date content feed regions and easily accessible social media buttons.

Campaigner is designed to help kick-start and grow a campaign's supporter base. The theme offers a prominent image slideshow and content feed region to provide supporters with up-to-the-minute information on your campaign's actions. Prominently displayed social media icons and sign-up buttons help increase audience engagement and your site's reach.

Richir Outreach also offers all of the official NationBuilder themes in Spanish, translated and reconfigured to ensure that your website has immediate Spanish language defaults for all context. Spanish language themes allow website administrators to engage and communicate with Spanish-speaking audiences.

Converting Facebook Likes to Dollars

Submitted by Jason on May 13, 2013 - 12:42pm

“So we have 100 new Facebook followers, how does that help our bottom line?”

How to convert people who simply like a page into folks who will take more concrete action is a common discussion among organizers. Luckily the book Measuring the Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Katie Delahaye Paine does an excellent job of providing an in depth explanation on how to convert low level engagement such as liking a post or group on Facebook into concrete actions such as volunteering or donating to a cause.

Measuring the Networked Non-Profit provides us with an excellent tool in the “Ladder of Engagement”. The Ladder of Engagement is a tool to analyze and improve the various ways supporters increase their engagement with your organization by taking a look at every step of the engagement process and finding ways to encourage folks at each rung of the ladder to the next, more involved rung.

So what are the levels of engagement you ask? Measuring the Networked Non-Profit breaks engagement into 3 levels:

Must read for any organizer: Measuring the Networked Nonprofit

Submitted by Jason on May 10, 2013 - 6:09pm

Affecting social change is without a doubt the ultimate goal for nonprofit organizations. Along the journey of social change there are several bumps in the road, detours, and organizations at times get lost and can't find their way. Measuring the Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Katie Delahaye Paine provides the perfect road map to help nonprofits use modern technology to take advantage of the various digital tools at our disposal. Whether your organization is trying to convert Facebook likes into real world volunteers, or is looking to launch it’s first crowdfunding campaign, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit has a treasure trove of useful tools, tips and strategies for becoming an effectively networked nonprofit.

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