Mobilizing Youth

Online Volunteering RSS

When: 06/06

Link: http://www.mys.ca/aov/index.php/2006/06/09/virtual-volunteering-news-rss-feed-launched-by-leading-canadian-charity/

Reading Notes:
Macdonald Youth Services (MYS), a leading Winnipeg-based registered charitable organization, launched their Virtual Volunteering News and Online Volunteering Announcements RSS Feed. MYS can now easily syndicate their virtual volunteering and online volunteering news to other non-profits and charitable organizations (as well as audio enclosures that may accompany their news items). To help other non-profits use RSS subscribe to r their volunteering services, MYS has set up an easy to use instructional site along with a list of RSS Feed Readers at: http://www.mys.ca/aov/index.php/how-to-subscribe-to-rss/

More RSS Approaches for Nonprofits

Link: http://www.webhostingsearch.com/articles/publish-your-own-rss-feeds.php

Reading Notes: Adding an RSS or Atom feed to your Web site displays creativity and is easy to do. It is cost effective and does not require great technical skills.

A. Blog-Driven News Feeds: While many blogging services allow you to create an RSS feed, others instead support Atom, a type of syndicated XML feed that is very similar to RSS. If your nonprofit is seeking a Web-based blogging service that supports both Atom and RSS feeds, consider LiveJournal or TypePad. By contrast, Blogger only creates feeds in the Atom format, while WordPress only offers support for RSS.

B. RSS from Your CMS: Content Management Software is an application that is designed to organize, store, and publish content and include varied tools for adding RSS feeds to your site. The best examples are Drupal and Plone, two free, open source CMS applications. Consider RSS support of you are installing content management software.

C. Online Services for Building Feeds: Smaller organizations that are looking for a low-maintenance RSS-creation option might want to check out FeedYes or Ponyfish. Both of these services work by "scraping" the links and text off a given page on your Web site and saving the links and text into an XML document. Both FeedYes and PonyFish are similar in configuration and simple to use although you will have some ads to negotiate along with refresh restrictions.

D. Feed-Creation Software: A free web-based service may not offer any kind of tech support. To ensure stability, you could host it on your own servers. Nonprofits new to feeds might consider simpler applications such as Alnera FeedWorkshop, ExtraLabs Feed Editor, FeedForAll, and Jitbit RSS Feed Creator. All offer step-by-step, interactive guides

E. Getting That Feed on Your Site: All you need to do is add a link to the feed’s URL in your HTML file for it to appear on the your non-profit's site. With a software package, you will need to upload the file to your server before you link out to it. Either way, visitors to your nonprofit's site can then subscribe to your feed by simply copying and pasting its URL into their news readers. Besides a link to your feed, you may also want to add a graphical icon that says "RSS" or "XML. Many site owners also make their news feeds available through Mozilla Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature.

Importance of RSS and How to Start

When: 07/07

Link: http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/page7325.cfm?rss=1

Reading Notes:
RSS is crucial to nonprofits to gather information about your cause and your people. To get started, do the following:

- get a feed aggregator (most recent browser have them built in, but for large amounts of feeds, you’ll need a news reader such as Bloglines or Google Reader.

- Get some feeds (in RSS, Atom, XML, format) , LOTS of feeds most relevant to you, such as opponents, webzines, major bloggers in your sector, etc.

- Repeat Step 2 (Times 20, 50, or 500)

Nonprofit Guide to Getting Started With RSS

When: 03/05

Link: http://www.consultantcommons.org/node/105

Reading Notes:  RSS is explained with regard to the pros and cons of the following:

1. What type of aggregator do you want to use? (web-based, email, etc.,)
2. Stand alone applications (Feed Demon; NetNewsWire)
3. Signing up for feeds of interest.
4. Signing up for an account (PubSub, Feedster and Technorati)
5. Sharing the information you find.