Google encroaches on Facebook and Foursquare turf, pressure increases for Apple to allow in-app donations and getting buy-in for development of your online strategy

Swipegood makes donating even easier, Google updates offering to non-profits, check-in to Facebook events and Twitter may be soon to roll out brand pages

  I read this article from Third Sector magazine about Michael Naidu of Mencap, who is also vice-chair of the PFRA, asking that attrition rates from all channels of fundraising be published.  Currently it is only face to face (F2F) fundraising that reports attrition levels (I’m guessing this also includes door to door). I agree [...]

We are marking Twitter’s game-changing micro-blogging service’s fifth birthday by highlighting five significant charity landmarks that have transpired in 140 characters

I’ve just read, and enjoyed, Mark Phillips’ recent blog post about the effects of re-branding on fundraising. Much of what he says rings true, but there is more to branding than the company clothes and hairstyle. Having spent much of my career working on sizeable branding projects, I’d like to add a few thoughts. 1. [...]

Getting people excited about donating money for an intangible, online product would be considered the pinnacle of skilful digital marketing for most charities. Becoming national water cooler fodder on top of that is a veritable Holy Grail.

Following on from last week’s post, reporting on this, the Red Cross responds admirably and wins…

After last weeks double serving, here’s this weeks equally fattening portion of beautiful bytes.

Over the last week, I don’t think there has been a day go by without someone in the office, or online, mentioning mobile marketing.

Amid the doom and gloom of spending cuts and rising unemployment, I want to focus this week’s beautiful bytes on reasons to be optimistic for the charity sector in 2011:

Happy New Year everyone – welcome to 2011! I hope you all had a great break full of overindulgence – I think my Christmas dinner has just about settled. Time for some tech news I think!

Cash machines should automatically give customers an option of donating to charity, the coalition proposes tomorrow in a green paper designed to define the elusive “big society” in Britain.

Third Sector reported yesterday on some recently published findings by nfpSynergy (I’ve clipped the article on my Posterous), which prompted me to ponder on these points in particular:

Latest Charity Awareness Monitor also indicates that persistent or obtrusive fundraising puts donors off

The proportion of people who think charities work professionally has increased by more than a sixth over the past three years, according to a survey.

What’s great about Steve’s posts is that they come from a place of data – fact – rather than opinion (as Adam is fond of saying). There really isn’t enough hard, meaningful data shared in the UK on charitable giving (with JustGiving being a notable exception). It would be great to see Blackbaud doing something similar to this in the UK.

Welcome to the first of a new weekly blog from beautiful world; beautiful bytes, a roundup of third sector digital news. All in one easy to swallow post.