2009’s Nonprofit Technology Conference - the Best Yet

The Nonprofit Technology Conference occurred this week in San Francisco. Technology issues as well as best practices were shared at the many breakout sessions from the 26th to 28th of April. I had the opportunity to present the session: “Building a Stronger and More Secure Online Community” on the first day of the conference.

For many nonprofit organizations, an important step in protecting their community is to protect their .ORG domain name. The domain name, which is the heartbeat of your web presence, is where you engage with your community and in many cases where your community contributes time, money and resources to your cause. Losing your domain name or having your web traffic hijacked unknowingly on your members can have long-lasting and far reaching consequences to your organization.

The first part of the discussion focused on protecting the registration of your domain name. There are number of proactive steps to take and we have outlined them well in our handy “Getting Online with .ORG Guidebook”. This guidebook outlines 6 easy (yet often overlooked) steps to protecting your domain name. The second part of the discussion summarized our effort to secure the Domain Name System (DNS) with security extensions called DNSSEC. While DNSSEC may be unfamiliar to many organizations, it is our intent to take action and leadership within the Internet infrastructure community to bolster the security of the domain space, thereby securing your .ORG community. Read more about our DNSSEC initiative in “The .ORG Advantage” and within our many blog postings on the topic. Please visit our blog often to monitor our progress with DNSSEC, as well as our efforts in leading an industry-wide coalition towards widespread adoption of DNSSEC.

During the last day of the conference, I was excited to attend several of the sessions and hear from the many knowledgeable and innovative companies and individuals within the nonprofit sector. One session I found particularly interesting was the session on “Voices from Abroad: The Best in Nonprofit Technology in Today’s Global Community.” It was at this session that I became aware of a program called Photo Voices International. The program equips people living in the very remote places of our planet with digital cameras, accompanied by introductory lessons in photography, a basic requirement for those who have never held a camera. The program has brought forward numerous photos of everyday life, capturing the culture, lifestyle and customs of those previously unknown.

The NTC was sold out to 1500 nonprofit techies and was a three day learning event marked by heavy participation and a free-flowing exchange of information – we were proud to sponsor such an event. With the excitement and prolific use of social media surrounding the event this year, the conference managed to top the charts in the Twitter community. I’m certain that the Nonprofit Technology Network will carry on their great work to make next year’s NTC event even better – I look forward to returning!