A few months back, I read about ThankYourDonor.ca — an online social media initiative of The Canadian Blood Services. The site provides donor recipients with the platform to tell their story in their own way, on their own terms - with text, pictures, and video - but, ultimately, to thank their donors for receiving the gift of life. Each story also has accompanying viral features that allow visitors to email stories to friends, or share to Facebook, StumbleUpon, digg and del.icio.us.

In this age of Web 2.0 and social media, I can imagine the many challenges that not-for-profits face; many simply don’t have the staff, budget, nor other technical resources to even consider a social media strategy. So, for those of you in that particular boat, Alltop’s Non-Profit collection can be a source of info — but it contains a wealth of links and could be a bit overwhelming; as an initial starting point and to cut to the chase, below is a short list of web resources I’ve come across that may be of value:

• MikeKujawski.ca
• the Non-profit Technology Network (NTEN)
• WeAreMedia
• Small Dots
  
• Giving in a Digital World

(And, if I lost you at “Web 2.0″ and “social media”, you can check out a good white paper here, written by SmashLab’s Eric Karjaluoto.)