Later this month will be the largest nonprofit technology convergence in the country, the NTEN 
Nonprofit Technology Conference. This year’s event is held in San Francisco, CA April 26-28. Last I heard it was already over 1100 attendees and approaching sold out!
I’m excited to be sharing some of the work and technologies ifPeople has been using at this year’s conference! I’m giving a session jointly with Jon Stahl and Steve Andersen of One/Northwest. Here’s what we will be talking about:
An Open Civic Engagement Platform: Plone, Salesforce and Friends
A quiet revolution is happening in how software is built and delivered. No, we’re not talking about “Web 2.0″, but about a more profound change towards software that is built from the ground up to talk to other software. The world is moving strongly towards “Open APIs,” and software systems that are flexible enough to accommodate both for-profit and nonprofit needs. A new breed of software is emerging from this sea of innovation: an “Open Civic Engagement Platform” that knits together low-cost, high-quality solutions for content management, email broadcasting, relationship management, online activism, e-commerce and more. Key players in this new software ecosystem include:
* Salesforce.com and their game-changing software + services donation program
* Plone, a powerful and user-friendly open-source content management system
* Salsa/Democracy In Action, an online advocacy and donation system
* Vertical Response: a powerful email broadcasting tool In this workshop, we’ll explain how software development is evolving, and demonstrate some of what’s possible with this leading edge set of tools.
Takeaways:
1. Understand why “nonprofit software” is now a mostly-obsolete concept
2. What the new age of open, connected, software flexible enough to meet nonprofit needs looks like
3. Real-world demonstrations of production-quality integration between best-of-breed systems like Plone, Salesforce, Salsa/Democracy In Action and Vertical Response.
If you’re planning to be there, our session is April 27, at 1:30pm. Check out session details. Hope you can join us! Slides will be posted online following conference if you can’t make it.
