New tools make the Nonprofit FAQ more useful
It has been a few months since the Nonprofit FAQ became part of the Idealist.Org website. In that time, new tools have been added that make the FAQ easier to use, encourage comments and corrections, and make it possible to share its content in new ways.
Searching At the top of every page of the Nonprofit FAQ (of every page at idealist.org in fact) there's a small box for searching through all the content at Idealist.org. Just type in a word or a phrase and touch "search" or "go" and you'll see a list resources at the site that where your search term is found.
If you're looking for a specific organization, typing its name in the box will let you find its Idealist entry among the "Organizations" in the search report; if its name appears in the Nonprofit FAQ, you will also be able to see links to the pages where the organization is mentioned. The numbers tell you how many times your search term was found in each category.
If your search term yields an overwhelming number of responses, the tools in the right hand column will help you refine your inquiry to narrow the results. For the Nonprofit FAQ, that link takes you to the welcome page and lets you look through the pages of the FAQ following the menus. If you're not familiar with this approach, you may find the hints in
About the Nonprofit FAQ helpful.
Commenting At the top of the yellow column to the right of every FAQ page there's a link labeled "Feedback." Clicking on this link will open a form to send any sort of comment to the FAQ editor; the form automatically identifies the specific page you were looking at when it was opened.
You can use this form to let us know if something has changed, to identify a new organization or resource that should be mentioned, or just to let us know if we got something wrong and need to fix it. Comments on the subjects discussed in the FAQ are always welcome. When each item is revised, all the comments that have been received will be considered and my be used to make the item more useful to future readers.
Please use the comment feature liberally. The Nonprofit FAQ has been a collaborative service for the field since it started in the mid-1990s. Continuing that tradition today is an important part of its
raison d'etre.
Sharing At the bottom of every FAQ page there's another useful feature. You'll see a small image of an envelope next to the words "email to a friend." This button allows you to send a link to the page (along with any comments you'd like to add) to up to five email addresses.
This is a convenient way for you to share the information in the FAQ with colleagues or to pass along an observation to someone who is curious about nonprofits and their work. It's also an easy way for you to give yourself a memo of something you found interesting or useful; just email the link to yourself!
The email form has an additional feature you may find useful. Just below the comment box the WWW address for this particular FAQ item is shown. You can cut-and-paste that address to insert it in a web-page of your own, as part of a footnote if you refer to the FAQ in a paper, or wherever you would like the complete link to appear.
New Features We have started adding summary discussions of some of the large complicated topics addressed in the FAQ as separate entries. The first one, called "Board Basics", appears at the top of the
Board of Directors index (and under some other titles where this background may also be helpful).
A more active form of adding observations and commentary on the field of nonprofits is in the works and will be rolled out soon.
We've made good progress restoring access to the "lost" pages that didn't make the transition to the idealist website completely smoothly. If you're still looking for something in the Nonprofit FAQ that doesn't appear as expected, let us know and we will try to find a new way to make it accessible. The "Feedback" form on this page offers an easy way to get in touch.
Please also use the "Feedback" form for this page to let us know if there are topics you would like to see the FAQ address or other improvements that would make it more useful for you.
Thank you for your interest in the Nonprofit FAQ.
Putnam Barber, Editor
(Originally posted October 28, 2005)
Posted by Putnam on February 9, 2006
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