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Google Online Marketing Challenge NGO Impact Award Winners 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
We’re pleased to announce the winners of the
NGO Impact Award
, a new award that recognizes
Google Online Marketing Challenge
student teams that made an outstanding difference to their nonprofit partners via superb online marketing campaigns. The deciding factors for these winners were the effectiveness of the campaign and a 200-word report on how the advertising impacted the nonprofit. The reports were judged by an
independent panel
of nonprofit leaders.
Prizes for the winners include:
1st place
- $15,000 donation to the nonprofit partner
2nd place
- $10,000 donation to the nonprofit partner
3rd place
- $5,000 donation to the nonprofit partner
Congratulations to the following winners!
1st Place
Michael Albrecht
and
Christian Pfeifhofer
taught by
Dr. Horst Treiblmaier
from
Vienna University of Economics and Business
worked with
TrashDesignManufaktur
. TrashDesignManufaktur is a non-profit organization in Vienna which offers unemployed persons the opportunity to learn new skills by up-cycling electronic waste and discarded machines into high-quality design objects, such as jewelry and furniture.
2nd Place
Sebastiano Comin, Simone Dolci, Elena Merazzi, Elena Moriondom
and
Giuseppe Scampa
taught by
Dr. Nicoletta Vittadini
from
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
collaborated with
Istituto Oikos
. Istituto Oikos works in Europe and in developing countries to advocate for and promote environmental conservation.
3rd Place
The team of
Erin Blatzer, Lauren Davis, Carolina Thomas,
and
Jeffrei Clifton
taught by
Professor Steven Koch
from
University of Houston
partnered with the Houston Symphony. The Symphony is one of America's oldest performing arts organizations and performs approximately 170 concerts each year for more than 350,000 Houstonians.
If you’re interested in being involved in next year’s Google Online Marketing Challenge NGO Impact award, stay tuned to
our website.
Posted by Jessica Schwartz, Google AdWords Team
Google Person Finder Launched In Turkish
Monday, October 24, 2011
(Cross-posted on
the Google.org Blog
)
After the earthquake in Van, Turkey, Google Person Finder has launched in Turkish for people looking for their loved ones in the region. Through Google Person Finder, people can enter a new record in the list for a person they're looking for. Anyone who has information for the missing people on the list can update the data. All data entered will become publicly available, viewable and usable by anyone. And you can help search and rescue teams by updating the status of missing people. To use Google Person Finder, visit
this site
:
http://turkey-2011.googlepersonfinder.appspot.com/
.
Google Person Finder was developed after the Haiti earthquake in January 2010 to help people who were trying to reach their friends and families, and to reunite them. We hope Person Finder helps people get the latest information on missing persons using one common source. After the Japanese tsunami, 600,000 persons records were entered into Google Person Finder. For more information about how it works,
click here
.
The Google Crisis Response Team
Google Apps Highlights
Monday, October 24, 2011
(Cross-posted from
the Official Google Blog
)
In the spirit of helping people work better together, over the last few weeks we made big improvements to Google presentations, introduced a version of Google Docs optimized for Android tablets, and enabled more dynamic content in Google Sites. We also celebrated the fact that Silicon Valley has gone Google!
Google presentations reloaded
On Tuesday we launched a completely rebuilt version of our web-based presentations application, so you can
build more beautiful presentations
together with colleagues and classmates. Google presentations now lets you make great-looking slides with animated builds, advanced slide transitions and better support for drawings, tables and themes. Plus, we made it easier to create presentations with others, without the hassles of attachments. Your whole team can work together in the same version of a presentation at the same time, and you can see who’s doing what, chat with others, and see a full revision history at any moment in time.
Google Docs on Android tablets
We’ve made it faster and easier to work with
Google Docs on Android tablets
with a new version of the Android application that takes full advantage of larger screen real estate. The three-panel view lets you browse filters and collections, see your document list and view file thumbnails and details simultaneously. You can get the Google Docs Android app for free from the
Android Market
.
Charts in Google Sites
Charts are often created in spreadsheets, but sometimes you want charts to appear in other places, like your
team or project sites
. In Google Sites, now you can select “Chart” from the “Insert” menu, and navigate to the Google Spreadsheet where your chart or data is located. You can also choose to have your site’s chart update in real-time when someone updates the underlying spreadsheet.
New look for Google Docs and Sites
We started rolling out a new look in Google Docs a couple months ago, and now this new design is available
throughout all our collaboration tools
. In addition to a cleaner, simpler design, we’ve made it more clear when your files are being auto-saved and added new icons to help you see at-a-glance who your docs are shared with. You can also customize the overall “density” of screen information, a great feature if you want to fit more onto a smaller display.
Who’s gone Google?
Successful small businesses tend to stay laser-focused on improving their core businesses, without getting distracted by peripheral activities that don’t make them more competitive. For example, most small businesses don’t want to spend time or money developing in-house expertise to run email and other IT systems. Case in point:
97 percent of Business Insider’s “Silicon Valley Startups to Watch” use Google Apps
.
More than 5,000 businesses and thousands of other organizations start using Google Apps every single day, and more of our customers have shared their stories recently so you can hear why. A warm welcome goes out to
Philz Coffee
,
Mid-Atlantic Door Group
,
Bradford & Barthel, LLP
and the
City of Mesquite, Nevada
.
I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the
Google Apps Blog
.
Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
Document Hosting With Google Products
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Part Two Of A Two Part Series
Last week
we told you about Children’s Radio Foundation and how they use Google Docs to act like a file server for their organization. This week, we’ll talk about another nonprofit, Grassroot Soccer who uses a different Google product - Google Sites - to host files for their organization.
Also headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa,
Grassroot Soccer
is a nonprofit organization that uses the power of soccer to educate, inspire, and mobilize communities to stop the spread of HIV. Located in approximately 15 countries, Grassroot Soccer uses Google Sites to allow its dispersed employees to access important organizational wide documents. But how exactly do they do this?
The staff has created a number of sites to organize and share information. The organization is made up of various departments including Communications, Programs, Monitoring and Evaluation, and Curriculum & Development. Here’s a snapshot of the nonprofit’s site dashboard.
Let’s dig deeper into a few of the individual sites and see what Site features they utilize. Under the Programs category, there is a site dedicated to one of GRS’s most popular program types called a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) Tournament. Essentially these are large youth soccer tournaments where there is a testing center on site for youth and spectators to be tested for HIV. You can imagine how much planning goes into one of these events, and the VCT Google Site is a repository for all the key documents needed to put on this event.
The programs team uses the
File Cabinet
feature of Google Sites to host all the document templates needed when running a VCT. Using a File Cabinet allows GRS to:
Create folders to categorize their documents for easier organization.
The File Cabinet holds everything from vendor contact lists, to letters to schools informing them of the tournament, to the surveys used for monitoring and evaluation at the event, being able to categorize these templates into folders makes them easier to find.
Allows them to add, delete, or move files within the cabinet.
The File Cabinet allows the easy ability of editing what’s included in the File Cabinet, by doing so directly in the site. Your changes are reflected on the site and anybody can subscribe to receive emails when a change is made to the cabinet.
For more details on how GRS users the File Cabinet see the screenshot below:
Google Sites, like Google Docs, can also store more than just documents, so if you want an eclectic range of file types together, it’s possible. Under the Communications category, Grassroot Soccer has a site called the “Brand Book.” This site holds documents, photos and videos related to their marketing, communications, and branding strategy. Let’s say for example, a GRS staff member in Zimbabwe is curious as to what letterhead to use to write an official document to the ministry of health, or they want to order business cards for themselves, they can check the “Brand Book” to access the most up-to-date templates for letterhead or business cards. Grassroot Soccer uses
Attachments
to simply attach the relevant documents to the bottom of the sites page. Because hosting your documents on sites allows you to easily mix documents with other media, on the Brand Book site you’ll also find top GRS photos and videos.
In terms of site management, the staff members of each departments manage their departments’ sites, and everyone within Grassroot Soccer can see every site.
Now that you’ve seen how Grassroot Soccer uses Google Sites to host their files and documents, try it out and let us know if it’s working for your organization by posting on the
Google Discussion Forum.
Posted by Carolyn Wendell, Consumer Operations Team
Nonprofit Industry Benchmark Report For Mental Health And Crisis Intervention
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Last year we asked participants in the Google Grants program to submit surveys about their experience with Google Grants, AdWords and other products. Of the responses we received, we were able to glean a bit of insight into the industries that make up the nonprofits in our program and would like to share those insights with you for the purposes of creating your own benchmarks and metrics in this
monthly benchmarking series
.
This month we’re featuring the Mental Health and Crisis Intervention category of the nonprofit industry. Look to future months for other
NTEE nonprofit categories
.
Grantees in the Mental Health and Crisis Intervention industry
were most likely to track “new volunteers”
as their most important metric, state
"reaching new constituents"
as their
main mission objective
served via their Grant and state
"raising awareness" as the main marketing objective
served via their Google Grant.
With regard to the performance of their Grants AdWords account, they received an average of
35% of their total site visits from their Grants AdWords account
and an average of
2,100 conversions
over the last year (11/2009 - 11/2010).
An average of
9.5%
of Mental Health and Crisis Intervention organizations who responded to the survey report that they currently
use an agency, SEO or SEM
to manage their Grants AdWords account.
We hope that, as an organization focused on mental health and crisis intervention, you will be able to use these industry benchmarks to gauge your own performance with online marketing and begin to understand the trends of your particular vertical within the nonprofit industry.
Posted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team
Document Hosting With Google Products
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Part One Of A Two Part Series
Recently, I’ve been hearing a fair amount of buzz amongst nonprofits about wanting Google products to act as a “file server” for their organization. Google Docs and Sites can allow for storage and access by all different computers, providing a lot of similar functionality as nonprofits rely on from "file servers”. Children’s Radio Foundation and Grassroot Soccer have used Google Docs and Sites in two very different ways to provide document hosting and sharing across their organization.
We sat down with these two organizations to learn more about how Google has provided a free and easy alternative to server hosted solutions. This week we’ll focus on the Children’s Radio Foundation (CRF). We interviewed Tom Henry, CRF Board Member to learn more about how the organization uses Google Docs to host their files.
The Children’s Radio Foundation
(CRF) is a nonprofit based in Cape Town, South Africa that focuses on using the rich subtext of radio media to give young people a voice, and empower them to contribute to individual and social change.
Tom Henry, a volunteer for CRF has greatly helped the organization by designing a method for them to host and share files using Google Docs. One of Tom’s favorite Google Docs features is
collections
, which allows him to label related files and group them into folders that can then be
shared
with others across the organization.
What benefits does Tom see of using Docs and collections?
Advanced Sharing Options
: With collection’s advanced
sharing options
, Tom can choose who can view, comment and edit the various collections.
Multiple Collections
: Tom can create multiple collections, each representing a key part of the organization (eg. Legal information, Board information, etc.), and program-related collections named by the country where the program exists.
Multiple file types
: Collections can include files of all types including PDF’s, spreadsheets, and text documents.
Direct upload or Convert to Google Docs
: When uploading docs to collections, Tom most frequently uploads text documents and spreadsheets and then
converts them into Google Docs
, allowing employees the ability to edit and collaborate on these docs online, upon upload. However, at times, Tom would prefer to upload them in the original PDF format, without conversion to the Google Doc equivalent, making sure he is holding the integrity of the document.
The most useful feature to Tom was the
Advanced Sharing Options
offered by collections. Tom would share the collections and give people across the organization access, assigning them privileges that made sense for their job role. For example, he would give his admin view access to several of the collections, whereas he would give the other directors edit access to the collection. Everyone could edit or view collections shared with them by going into their Google Docs account and looking in the left hand column under “Collections Shared with me.”
Now that you’ve seen how CRF uses Google Docs, try it out and let us know if it’s working for your organization by posting on the
Google Discussion Forum
.
Posted by Carolyn Wendell, Consumer Operations Team
The New Look Of Google For Nonprofits Help
Friday, October 7, 2011
Every nonprofit wishes signing up for Google for Nonprofits was as easy as just clicking a button, but we know this isn’t always the case and occasionally nonprofits need help.
That’s why we just launched the
Google for Nonprofits Help Center
, a one stop shop where you can find support for the Google for Nonprofits Program and all associated products without having to dig through multiple help centers to find the support you need.
You’ll notice that close to 50 new articles have been added to what used to be the Google for Nonprofits FAQ page, and that we have cross-published articles from the Google Apps, Google Earth, and SketchUp help centers. Additionally, you may have noticed that the Google Grants Help Center has moved to the Google for Nonprofits help center.
A few extra special things to point out about the new help center:
There’s information to help you enroll in offerings
Confused about enrolling in Google Apps?
Visit the
Enroll in Products > Google Apps section
of
the help center
and check out
the Sign up Guide
.
Confused about setting up your AdWords account?
See the
Enroll in Products > Google Grants section
to check out the
Grants Account Creation Guide.
There are contact forms to support top issues
We now have contact forms in place to support top issues for the general Google for Nonprofits application process and to support each product. See the
Contacting Us
page for
more details.
We have new troubleshooters
Is something not working the way it’s supposed to?
Check out the
Fix a Problem
section
that includes troubleshooting content for both the enrollment process and post-enrollment product support.
Let us know what you think about
our new help center
! Take a spin, explore the new resources and start up a discussion in the
Google for Nonprofits Discussion Forum
.
Posted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team
Google Earth Outreach And Canadian Nonprofits Connect Over Mapping Tools
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Last week
Google Earth Outreach
launched our program in Canada, offering support to non-profits and aboriginal communities that wish to leverage Google’s mapping tools to improve understanding of critical issues facing Canada today. Our team spent the week in Vancouver inspiring and empowering these groups to spread their message through geographic visualizations.
Google Earth Outreach team member Tanya Birch works with a participant on Fusion Tables.
We kicked off the week with a 3-day workshop co-hosted with our partner
Tides Canada
. With their help, we were able to gather developers, communications and technology professionals from over 50 organizations to be trained on
Google Earth
,
Google Maps
and
Google Fusion Tables
. We met folks from a diverse set of organizations, such as
Ecotrust Canada
,
Social Alterations
,
Living Oceans Society
, and
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
.
These groups came into the
workshop
with varying levels of familiarity with Google’s geo tools. While some participants leveraged the time to master the basics, others focused on advanced coding using the Maps APIs. Non-profits developed and worked on their project ideas with Earth Outreach staff on hand for guidance and technical help. Our team was amazed by some of the projects that came out of these sessions, including a Google Fusion Table map of Inuit communities and a Google Earth tour of the path of a migrating whooping crane.
Whooping crane migration path visualized in Google Earth by Matt Hanneman of
Global Forest Watch Canada
.
Our activities in Vancouver culminated in an event on Wednesday for the wider Vancouver non-profit community. We were honored to have David Suzuki, an influential Canadian scientist, author, broadcaster and co-founder of the
David Suzuki Foundation
, on hand to share his thoughts on how philanthropy, public engagement and technology can advance the reach, scope and impact of Canadian civil society. Our team’s founder, Rebecca Moore, also took the stage to demonstrate how the rich variety of environmental and social issues in Canada can benefit from geographic visualizations as powerful tools for environmental advocacy and social justice. Afterwards, our team got to interact with the community face-to-face at demo stations featuring Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Fusion Tables,
Open Data Kit
as well as already developed Canadian mapping projects.
Inspiring examples of Canadian organizations already using mapping tools to communicate their work.
We are very excited about the next steps for these non-profits who have started their mapping initiatives and we can’t wait to see what comes next! For Canadian organizations looking to learn more, please take a look at our new Canadian website in
English
or
French
.
Posted by Raleigh Seamster, Program Manager, Google Earth Outreach
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