Monthly Capacity Building Resource List - February 2018

Here's your monthly dose of tools, resources, articles, trainings and more, courtesy of Susie Cambria. 

Tools and Resources

• How Nonprofits Can Tweet Effectively During the #SOTU has some terrific advice. Think preparation: Write a minimum of 10 factual tweets with sources in advance, Also write a minimum of five call-to-action tweets in advance, and Create social media graphics for your #SOTU tweets.
• Instagram just announced some fun and useful changes: GIF stickers and soon the ability to upload photos and of any size. "GIF stickers are available today as part of Instagram version 29 on iOS and Android."
• Content Marketing in 5 Easy Steps by LightBox Collaborative makes understanding content management easy. The post walks readers through the steps in an easy-to-understand way and offers some links to tools and ideas to help out.
• Need a typeface that looks like handwriting? Something different than what came with your computer? Check out FontSpace's Free handwriting Fonts. Some are for personal use only while others allow for commercial use.
• Social Media Image & Video Sizes 2018 "explains to you what the best image sizes are for each social network and the image types to use. Every major social media platform is listed on here so you’re up-to-date with social media platform optimization." Bookmark.
• Engage Your Clients With Text Messaging is a must-read. Adding texting to your portfolio of communications tools (for general comms and more importantly connecting with clients) has been demonstrated time and again as a good way to connect with otherwise hard-to-reach clients. Consider whether this is right for your clients and organization.

At work

• Why You Should Actually Stay Home When You're Sick — No, Really. Read, share, do.
• What Happened When I Replied "Call Me" To Every Email I Got For A Week is a good read.
• 4 Reasons To Invite HR To Your Strategic Planning Meetings makes a number of good arguments. Of course, it presupposes that your HR team is top-notch.
• There's 1 Key Thing Millennials Want at Work is short but packed with good links.
• The Importance of Deep Fun discusses real ways to truly engage staff.
• If you need to up your survey and evaluation games, take a look at Asking About Economic Status in a Survey: An Odyssey, PART 1 by Carolyn Fisher, Martina Todaro, and Leah Zallman and Asking About Economic Status in a Survey: An Odyssey, PART 2 by Carolyn Fisher, Martina Todaro, and Leah Zallman. Very helpful.
• Why you should always deliver the bad news first

Learn something

• How to Get Media Attention for Your Community Project, Thursday, February 8: From major news sources to local papers, radio, and TV stations across the country and beyond, the sharing economy and community-driven civic engagement (such as Transition Initiatives) is big news. By following these 10 steps, you can join the buzz and capture media attention for your community project or event.
• Plan Ahead 2018, Part 1: Creating a Voter Engagement Plan and Timeline for Your Nonprofit, Thursday, February 8, 2:00 pm: Learn all you need to know about creating a voter engagement plan for your nonprofit. Attendees will receive a 2018 timeline handout and a planning worksheet. (Tactics will be discussed in Part 2.)
• Slides & Recording Links for January 24, 2018 Technology Trends Round Table: As usual, chock full of interesting tech stuff.
• Here's the Wild Apricot list of free webinars for February. Faves in the first half of the month: Introduction to Project Budgets (February 7); Online Tools that Help Nonprofits Learn, Listen & Engage (February 7); and Managing an Aging Volunteer Corps (February 15).
• Harnessing Pop Culture for Social Change, February 27, 2:00 pm: Join this free webinar from The Communications Network and learn

  • Why it's important to monitor the pop culture conversations around the issues you care about, and how you can do that
  • How to join those conversations and use them as an opportunity to elevate and advance the issues you’re working on

• Transforming Conservation through Technology, Thursday, February 22, 2:00 pm: This free Chesapeake Conservancy webinar will introduce those working in conservation to the new land cover classification to make better, more effective and efficient decisions to achieve better results.
• Want to take an online course but not sure how to choose the right one? Go to Courseroot. There you can search by cost, difficulty, popularity, and more. (h/t Robin Good)
• Strengthen Your Poverty Reduction Work: Engaging with the Health Sector, February 13, 1:00 pm: Free.

Good reads

• Interview with Ursula Le Guin is a transcript-style interview. It starts with a synopsis of Le Guin's accomplishments:

“Ursula K. Le Guin’s first novels—set on alien planets and published as trashy head-to-toe double paperbacks by Ace Books—were first unleashed almost half a century ago, in 1966. She was 36. Two years later she published A Wizard of Earthsea, the defining and enduring classic of the genre of wizards going to wizard school. The Left Hand of Darkness, the book that forced writers everywhere to examine how they wrote gender, was first published the very next year and became one of the most acclaimed books of the last century.

She published a dozen books in that first decade, a pile of words built up largely during her thirties that, once released, changed the American conversation about fiction. She is the reigning queen of writing about “the nature of human nature,” as Margaret Atwood once described it, in regards to Le Guin’s “Ekumen” series. Le Guin is one of the rare authors to have twice taken the Hugo and the Nebula awards in the same year. She published three stories in the New Yorker in 1982 alone.”

— Interview with Ursula Le Guin

• ICYMI, Ursula Le Guin died last week. Two good reads about her: The Category-Defying Genius of Ursula K. Le Guin and Ursula K. Le Guin, Acclaimed for Her Fantasy Fiction, Is Dead at 88 (NYT paywall, limited number of free reads)
• The Power of Small, Strategic Cash Infusions: A Big Idea for 2018 by Rachel Schneider describes Schneider's plans for 2018 including looking for partners.
• Members of Congress respond to more than money – sometimes considers the history of activism in the United States and links to work on voter turnout and more.
• Not a read so much as a look: Crowd Counting Consortium and Count Love.

Tools and Resources

• Engage your community in water conservation and improved water quality by connecting with the River Network's Project Rain Barrel. When you partner, you will receive free "materials, guidance, and promotion to host public rain barrel making workshops. Rain barrels help recharge rivers and aquifers while reducing demand for treated tap and saving money on water bills, limiting stormwater runoff, storing water for use during droughts, and controlling erosion."
• As if there were not enough in 2017, there are 157 new emojis in 2018.

• Looking for greater diversity in stock photos? Jopwell has what you're looking for. Jopwell photos show Blacks, Latinos/Hispanics, and Native Americans in work environments. Images are free to use with credit to Jopwell.

• Need a personalized typeface? Calligraphr.comshould be your first stop. There are free and paid versions and the paid is spectacular: there's no annual plan. Basically, it's pay as you go. Either way, you supply the handwriting samples and Calligraphr.com does the work

• AnyImage creates clickable images for social media. Watch the video (right) for a short tute. Free.

• The Top 10 Sites for Free eCards is way better than a simple list. It includes services such as Fleeting Greetings and somecards which are social media friendly.

• Building Collaborative Readiness: Mapping Community Resources is full of advice and resources to make your community mapping project successful.