As entire frameworks and bundled Web 2.0 applications are becoming abundant on the open source front, the assumption that only profit-earning businesses can have the luxury of functional application add-ons to their sites such as social networking features, blogs, and wikis is quickly dissolving. This article is geared toward providing some uses for these frameworks for nonprofit organizations and a few resources for free (or cheap) out of the box solutions that can be integrated or even become the backbone of a nonprofit site.

At Object Adjective, we’ve been working to develop such components for some of our nonprofit sector clients. And as awareness of the accessibility of web 2.0 application frameworks is becoming abundant, more non-profits are beginning to ask, is there something out there that could benefit my organization at an affordable rate? In most cases, the answer is yes. Both prepackaged frameworks and sites that host these featured services are readily available, and there are solutions to meet nonprofit initiatives, regardless of organization size.

Prepackaged frameworks can be easily installed by a web developer and can decrease costs enough to allow nonprofits to extend their sites to include new application functionalities and features without breaking the bank. Someone still has to install and customize these packages to accommodate the specific needs and objectives of the organization, and design the front end visual elements/UI, so it’s not a freebee, but development dollars are significantly cut down. Many medium to large size organizations stand to benefit greatly from putting some funding into extending their site: with an enhanced web presence, comes more recognition and more public involvement, and can be a great tool to grow a non-profit organization and increase donor awareness as well as program awareness. Read the rest of this entry »