Google for Nonprofits Newsletter - March 2013

[Leslie Hernandez]

Google for Nonprofits Newsletter March 2013

March 29, 2013

In this issue By the way What's new Tools in action Expert corner Connect

By the way TOP

This March, Google for nonprofits has been focused on expanding your reach around the world. From new marketing tools helping you get your message around the globe such as Think Insights to Hangouts with the Google Earth Outreach team featuring tips on how to harness the power of Google Earth, we have lots of information to help you get your message farther. Read on for more information to keep you connected and check out our Google for Nonprofits Google+ page for a world of information tailored to help you reach your goals. Then celebrate with us as we’ve reached Google for Nonprofits’ very own 2nd birthday! Celebrate your impact and join our celebration of two great years of by adding to share your stories at #Heres2You.

What's new TOP

Global Impact Awards’ hunt for U.K.’s most innovative social entrepreneurs starts now This week, we’re kicking off our first Global Impact Challenge in the U.K., inviting British nonprofits to tell us how they would use technology to transform lives. Four nonprofits will each receive a £500,000 Global Impact Award, as well as Chromebooks and technical assistance from Googlers to help make their project a reality. Registered British nonprofits are invited to apply online at g.co/impactchallenge by April 17th to enter. Know a UK nonprofit? Send them this link! Think Insights: Marketer data, information and inspiration just got a new address Think Insights has research, creative brand campaigns, and useful products and tools tailored to nonprofits to help you create amazing campaigns. Check out the nonprofits or education pages for information to help you find scalable solutions to raise awareness for your nonprofit. From inspiring campaigns like Pencils for Promise to innovative media like the Decision 2012 infographic, there are a variety of items to get you thinking. Want more ideas? You can sign up for Think Insights to be delivered regularly to your inbox. Google Keep—Save what’s on your mind Running a successful nonprofit means keeping track of a hoard of different details. This month we launched Google Keep to help make that easier. You can quickly jot ideas down when you think of them and even include checklists and photos to keep track of what’s important to you. Your notes are safely stored in Google Drive and synced to all your devices so you can always have them at hand. Drag your notes around to reflect what matters. You can choose the color for each note too. Check out this video to learn more about how Google Keep can help keep your nonprofit in sync. World Water Day Hangout on Google+ We hosted a panel discussion with +Water For People +WaterAid +charity: water +PEOPLE WATER, +Water.org and +WHOLE WORLD Water and moderated by YouTube star, +Justine Ezarik. These organizations are all focused on long term solutions for solving the growing water crisis and providing safe drinking water access to the world. We discussed what work each organization was doing, how they used technology, and how we as individuals can make a difference. Check out the full hangout here.

Tools in action TOP

This month we caught up with Jeff Spitz, Executive Director of Groundswell Educational Films to discuss how they’re using YouTube. Groundswell Educational Films (www.groundswellfilms.org) collaborates cross-culturally in all facets of documentary filmmaking, transfers media skills into disadvantaged communities, and partners with organizations to create public events that promote documentary and social change. We’ve used the YouTube for Nonprofits Program to drive nearly 60,000 views to our videos. With our YouTube for Nonprofits account, we’ve created clickable call to action overlays that allow people watching our content —wherever our content is embedded on the web —to take action, donate or learn more about our projects like our latest film, Food Patriots. For a small documentary filmmaking nonprofit like us, being able to easily give viewers a way to engage with our content is incredibly important.

Expert corner TOP

This month we were lucky enough to catch up with the entire Google Earth Outreach team via Hangouts on Air. They joined us for a variety of Google+ hangouts covering topics like making a better presentation using maps to creating your own Google Earth overlay. After their hangouts, we asked the team to answer just one more question for us: What is the best expert tip you can share to help nonprofits get the most out of Google Earth? Here’s what they had to say: Nicholas Whitaker, Senior Producer, Google Earth Outreach Think cinematically. Google Earth is a 3D view of the world, and the more dynamically you navigate within that 3D space the more you will be able to see the real beauty of the program. The human eye has been trained to think in terms of film or cinema these days, so if you cover your topic or tour in that way, you'll keep the viewer more engaged. Mimicking natural movements with your camera shots, or revealing and moving around a location in a cinematic way will fit the expectation that the viewer will already have when watching something fly on the screen. Making adjustments using the navigation and view controls, in conjunction with snapshot view will allow you to find additional views and angles beyond the automatic views that are presented when you fly to a location. See the entire interview with Nicholas here. Allie Lieber, Program Manager Google Earth Outreach Knowing how to navigate Google Earth can maximize the value you get out it. Try these three tips to see more of the earth, more quickly. Zoom in/out quickly and easily: right click and move the mouse up (to zoom out) or down (to zoom in) Tilt/Rotate around a point: Click the scroll wheel and move the mouse.  If you do not have a scroll wheel, click on the "shift" button while moving the mouse Recenter the earth with North facing up: Click the "R" button on your keyboard See the entire hangout with Allie here. Christiaan Adams, Developer Advocate, Google Earth Outreach & Google.org Don't worry, nobody else can see your content in Google Earth. Occasionally people ask us whether Google or others can see the content they create in Google Earth.  The answer is definitely No.  When you create content such as points, lines or polygons in Google Earth, it's just like when you type into your text editor, the content only exists on your local machine, and in order to keep it, you need to save it to your hard drive.  Google Earth does need to be connected to the internet in order to download the imagery and other data that you see on the map, but the only thing that gets sent to Google is the background requests for that imagery and data as you pan and zoom around.  Nothing that you create in your ‘My Places panel’ gets sent to Google or anyone else, it only exists on your machine.   See the entire interview with Christiaan here. Want more tips from the Google Earth Outreach team? Check out the full set of videos with the team on our Google for Nonprofits YouTube channel. You can also find more detailed tutorials on the Google Earth Outreach website.

Connect TOP

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