Earlier this week, I posted my review of Amy Sample Ward and Allyson Kapin's new book, Social Change Anytime Everywhere. After reading the book, I sent Amy and Allyson six questions about the book, following up on some of the concepts and examples presented in the book. In the following Q&A, Amy and Allyson share their thoughts on what inspired them to write the book, how real-time web and mobile has changed how we do business internally and externally, which nonprofits are successful at building online community, what assets an organization should have in place before launching a multichannel campaign, and the investment needed to raise money online.

While some organizations used Giving Tuesday as an opportunity to ask for donations during the nationwide event, the American Diabetes Association took the opportunity to plan an extremely creative peer-to-peer fundraising opportunity, Step It Out. While it was a fundraising campaign, I was intrigued by how the organization used it as an opportunity to deepen and engage its community. The result was bountiful: $21,000 in donations, increased involvement from fundraisers, and deeper fundraiser loyalty to the American Diabetes Association. For more, read this guest post by Shana Masterson, National Associate Director for Interactive Fundraising and Engagement with the American Diabetes Association.

Lynne Wester, Director of Stewardship and Donor Recognition at Yeshiva University in New York City and a fundraising stewardship consultant, conducted a brilliant donor user experience test this week during Giving Tuesday, effectively doubling the value of Giving Tuesday for 15 organizations. She donated to all, carefully documenting the experience, assessed the donation process, and blogged about it. This is what she found...

On June 14, hundreds of communities across America will compete to win $30,000 in awards for local nonprofits in the first 24-hour national community giving day, called Twive and Receive. The event, sponsored by Razoo, uses its fundraising platform. Ahead of the event, I wanted to know more about what led to Twive and Receive, and lessons learned from past giving day events. Ifdy Perez, community manager for Razoo, wrote this guest post on the development of Twive and Receive, and what lessons they built upon for Twive's design and implementation. The nationwide community fundraising event begins tomorrow, June 14, at 12am PST/3am EST.

Our social media experiences often boils down to one question: Do you want engagement? On Twitter, it’s going to require a two-way relationship, with communication that addresses questions and comments from your followers. Guest post author Susan Perri sees a lot of self-promotion and lack of common courtesy lately on Twitter. She offers examples of tweeps using Twitter expertly for real engagement, and three simple rules for using Twitter well. Ultimately, it’s quality, not quantity, and the same rules from your childhood playground still apply. Make friends, be nice, take turns, say please and thank you. Oh, yes, and have fun while you’re at it.

Follow the Leader is the second of three interactive service challenges sponsored by the Points of Light Institute to inspire people to become involved in community service. FTL integrates social media and game dynamics to move people to make commitments to service. In this interview with Michael Nealis, Interactive Strategy Coordinator for HandsOn Network, he outlines the goals, social media elements, and potential learnings from this unique social media activism campaign.

NP Tech, the Israeli organization designed to make technology more accessible to social organizations in Israel, recently launched GuideStar Israel. In this interview, Royi Biller, CEO of NP Tech, talks about the technology needs of Israeli nonprofit organizations, why it is important to have a GuideStar Israel, and the launch of TechSoup Global in late 2010.

The challenge: Help Oceana unlock the potential of its 10,000 Facebook Fans. John Haydon explains how his company, Inbound Zombie, helped Oceana acquire 5,000 new email addresses and 4,277 new Facebook Page connections during a 60-day campaign.

In early 2009, TuDiabetes.org, a social network for people touched by diabetes, asked members to share their diabetes poems as part of a contest called No-Sugar Added Poetry. The end result was the No-Sugar Added Poetry book. Manny Hernandez writes of the many lessons learned from crowdsourcing, publishing, and selling a community book.

Florence Broder, Social Media Manager for the Jewish Agency for Israel, writes about how the Jewish Agency uses social media, especially Twitter, to successfully and meaningfully connect with stakeholders online.