First the helps for non profits.  I have done my share of fundraising and know the challenges of matching the giver's capacity with the message that will motivate a donor to open the pocketbook and give.  In these uncertain times, the site Too Busy to Fundraise has some good advice in this post.  When the going gets tough, build relationships and don't ask for money.  That might be a part of fundraising that non profits overlook.  All donations come from a sense of being connected to a cause or group.  Getting donors to keep contributing, or even raising the level of contribution is directly related to the connection the donor has to where the money ends up.  So don't despair, cultivate.

Which brings up the second topic, and it is an often asked question, "Where do you find this stuff?"  Implied in the question is "where do you find the time to find this stuff?"   The trick is efficiency.  So here's a couple ideas.

If you are interested in fundraising the website Alltop offers aggregation of the major web outlets on that topic.  They offer all sorts of topic areas, but within each you will get the latest 5 posts from each website that publishes content on that topic.  They put it this way:

The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you're already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn't know existed. In other words, our goal is the "cessation of Internet stagnation" by providing "aggregation without aggravation."

By aggravation I think they mean messing with RSS feeds, and feed readers.  They boast if you do not know what RSS means, that's ok you will never need to know.  If you search Alltop on the word "organic" you will have the choices of Agriculture, Food, Pets and a Green/Environment topic.  So this is an easy to use site that might open your world to good links on subjects you care about.

Alltop does well with topical websites, but in Wisconsin we are starting to aggregate "places" by linking together "place blogs" across the state on RootsWire.org (just getting started.)  This site also brings together all the political (left-leaning mostly) blogs in the state.  

And the final way to unleash yourself from Google is to switch over to WikiaSearch.  Its selling points are right under the search bar:  Transparency, Community, Quality and Privacy.  Anyone not comfortable about what information Google collects as you browse the web, and more critically how they are using it, now has a better choice.  I've been using Wikia for a few weeks, and it seems less commercially driven, and supplies the answers I need.  They also let you rate a search link up or down to improve the accuracy of the results.  

So where did I find Wikia?  A couple weeks ago the Friday picks highlighted Guy Kawaski on a FORA.tv program.  Another FORA.tv program that caught my eye was a speech from the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, Free Speech, Free Minds and Free Markets.  He talked about Wikia search in that program and made the case for having a search that is open source, and democratic.  Here's the video and hopefully a little inspiration to wander the web in different ways: