The document serves as a handout for the presentation on nonprofit technology failures and includes resources for learning from past mistakes. It lists books, articles, and tools related to improving nonprofit practices, emphasizing the importance of iterative learning and design in achieving success. Additionally, it provides information about image sources that are free to use and other presentation tools employed by the presenters.

1. Resources Handout: Nonprofit Technology #Fails
How to Fail Informatively
(#11ntcfailinform)
I. Presenters’ contact info
Marc Baizman Dahna Goldstein Simone Parrish
My Computer Guy PhilanTech Innovation Network
Boston, MA Washington, DC Washington, DC
marc@mcgtraining.com dahna@philantech.com sparrish@innonet.org
II. For Further Reading
Books 1
Godin, Seth. Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? Penguin Group, 2010. (This is one of Seth Godin’s
many books, in which he talks about iterating often—which is another way of looking at
“learning from failure”.)
Giloth, Robert and Austin, Colin. Mistakes to Success: Learning and Adapting When Things Go
Wrong. iUniverse, 2010. (Lessons from the community economic development field.)
Heath, Chip and Heath, Dan. Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard. Broadway Books,
2010. (You got a copy of this in your NTC tote bag.)
Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, 2002. (We didn’t refer to this
directly, but it examines how the design of an object or a process contributes to its success or
failure. A classic.)
Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. The Penguin Press, 2008. (Again, we didn’t talk about it
directly, but this is Clay Shirky’s book that most directly addresses failing informatively,
specifically in the context of social media.)
Foundations’ Self-Published Reports
“Hard Lessons about Philanthropy & Community Change from the Neighborhood Improvement
Initiative” (Hewlett Foundation):
http://hewlett_prod.acesfconsulting.com/uploads/files/HewlettNIIReport.pdf
“Lessons Learned From One Foundation’s Exploratory Decade” (Northwest Area Foundation):
http://www.nwaf.org/content/Lessons
1
If you’re buying books or anything else at Amazon, and you go to www.innonet.org/support and click through to Amazon from there,
Simone’s organization gets a percentage. It’s like making a tiny donation, only it doesn’t cost you anything. No pressure.
Nonprofit Technology #Fails: Resources Handout | Marc Baizman - Dahna Goldstein - Simone Parrish | March 19, 2011

2. (For Further Reading, continued)
Articles in the Stanford Social Innovation Review
“Worst Practices of a Social Entrepreneur”:
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/worst_practices_of_a_social_entrepreneur/
“Fail Faster, Succeed Sooner”:
http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/entry/fail_faster_succeed_sooner/
“The Poster Child for Failure in Philanthropy”:
http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/entry/the_poster_child_for_failure_in_philanthropy
DropBox: Free (up to 2GB) file storage, access, sharing, and syncing. Fantastic for when you
III. Tools we used to make our presentation
would rather not be gumming up your inbox by repeatedly emailing 8MB files.
•
www.dropbox.com
Microsoft PowerPoint: Bad presentations aren’t PowerPoint’s fault. (We thought about using
Prezi but we chickened out.)
•
ReadyTalk: One of the ways we talked to each other. Flexible pay-as-you-go plans—e.g., $0.20
per minute per participant for web conferencing; $0.13 per minute per participant for phone.
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Monthly and annual plans also available. www.readytalk.com.
Screen Capture Tools: We used Jing (http://www.techsmith.com/jing/), SnagIt
(www.snagit.com), and WisdomSoft ScreenHunter (http://www.wisdom-
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soft.com/products/screenhunter_free.htm).
Webex: The other way we talked to each other. $49.95/month for unlimited meetings.
www.webex.com
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IV. Image sources that won’t get you sued
Flickr Creative Commons: Lets you find great images that don’t cost anything and won’t cause
scary lawyers to call you out of the blue and demand three years of back licensing fees for that
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image someone grabbed from a Google image search and put in a .pdf newsletter that sat four
clicks deep on your website. (True story—ask Simone.) www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
WikiMedia Commons: More great images, still lawyer-free!
http://www.commons.wikimedia.org
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Wordle 2: Put words in, get a nice image out. You can control fonts, color schemes, and layout,
and get a screenshot, PDF, or SVG output. It’s nifty. (It’s also a compelling way to analyze text
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frequencies, like referrer logs or tags.) www.wordle.net.
2
We might have used Tagxedo if we had known about it, but we just learned about it at the Ignite sessions on Thursday.
http://www.tagxedo.com/
Nonprofit Technology #Fails: Resources Handout | Marc Baizman - Dahna Goldstein - Simone Parrish | March 19, 2011

3. (Image sources, continued)
Many web comics and blogs are being published under Creative Commons licensing. Look for
the words “Creative Commons” or the symbol.
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If you don’t see any licensing terms on an image, or you see “all rights reserved”, don’t be
afraid to contact the copyright holder to ask for permission. A lot of people are happy to give
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permission (even for free) as long as you don’t alter the work and you attribute it properly.
Nonprofit Technology #Fails: Resources Handout | Marc Baizman - Dahna Goldstein - Simone Parrish | March 19, 2011