Come meet Jazkarta at the Nonprofit Technology Conference

NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network, holds a technology conference every year – and the 2009 NTC, to be held April 26-28 in San Francisco, promises to be the best yet. Nearly 1200 people from around the world will come together at the San Francisco Hilton to discuss the technology issues that face the nonprofit sector. Given the current economic climate, nonprofits need to increase their efficiency and effectiveness – and investing in technology is one important avenue to explore.

This year’s conference will pay special attention to the tools and strategies that are reshaping how nonprofits work, by empowering their clients and stakeholders. NTEN has put together a great agenda of breakout sessions covering a wide range of topics. We’re particularly excited about the session An Open Civic Engagement Platform: Plone, Salesforce and Friends, by our friends Jon Stahl and Steve Andersen from ONE/Northwest , and Christopher Johnson from ifPeople. This session will describe the movement towards open, web-based APIs, which makes the integration of previously isolated systems possible. Jon will highlight one such integration that is particularly valuable to nonprofits: between Plone, a powerful and user-friendly open-source content management system, and Salesforce.com, the premier SaaS (software as a service) CRM that has a game-changing nonprofit donation program. We can attest to the power of this combination because it forms the basis of Jazkarta’s JazKit solution. Plone and Salesforce create a software ecosystem that knits together low-cost, high-quality solutions for content management, email broadcasting, relationship management, e-commerce and more.

Comparisons of Plone with other open source CMSs are on our mind since the publication of Idealware’s 60-page report, Comparing Open Source Content Management Systems: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Plone. No less than 3 NTC breakout sessions will address this topic. Laura Quinn, author of the Idealware report, will lead a session discussing the report’s key findings. CMS Sewing Circle, organized by Allen Gunn of Aspiration, will be a participant-driven session of shared stories and questions for CMS consultants – also including a discussion of integrating CMS and CRM platforms. Open Source CMS modules for Nonprofits, designed by Ryan Ozimek of PICnet, will review available Joomla, Drupal and Plone add-ons of interest to nonprofits, and brainstorm what’s missing.

In addition to breakout sessions, affinity groups, and keynote presentations, the Nonprofit Technology Conference will also feature a Science Fair, at which organizations that provide technology services to the nonprofit sector will show off their latest and greatest offerings. The Plone Foundation will be at Booth 86, and Jazkarta founder Nate Aune and developer and Plone 4 Framework Team member Ross Patterson will be helping to staff it. Please stop by if you’re at the conference!