The NonProfit Times - June 1, 2008 - (Page 18)

TECHNOLOGY Continued from page 17 long way from having a truly robust and supported API offering. As you might imagine, using a vendor’s API can actually lead to more problems than it solves if the vendor’s API is constantly changing or if it lacks any true focus, support and investment from the company. As you are evaluating the maturity and robustness of a product’s API here are a few things to consider: Resiliency. Does the API guarantee backwards compatibility with future releases of the product? This is probably the most important area to investigate, as you must avoid spending valuable time building adornments to the solution only to face a rewrite or conversion when you are ready to install a new version. Of course some changes happen, but make sure the vendor has a well-defined, stated policy around backwards compatibility. Standards-based and Contemporary. Is the API programming model based on standardized Web programming models, or will it require one to learn a proprietary vendor-specific language or process? Proprietary APIs were OK in classic client-server applications that ruled before the emergence of the Web. But today, they are showing their age as many of the benefits outlined in this article might not be reaped. Another thing to look for here is if the vendor simply bolted a contemporary-looking API atop an aging application architecture. Documented. Be sure to ask for the full documentation and samples of the vendor’s API. Most mature APIs will come packaged in a Software Development Kit (SDK). An API that is wrapped in a rich SDK brings with it the comfort that the vendor has invested significantly in this offering. Vibrant Community. A tell-tale sign of an entrenched, powerful API is whether there is a growing developer community sprouting up around it. Flickr and Facebook are two great examples of rich APIs that have led to some amazing extensions built by third parties using their respective APIs. The emergence of open APIs and the commitment to them by most vendors in the nonprofit software arena is quite exciting. Even if your organization is not staffed with the technical resources to build API-based solutions, you will likely benefit at some point from the growing developer ecosystems that are focused on harnessing the power of these APIs. Additionally, we will likely see continued improvement in integration between traditionally closed or competing solutions, resulting in more power and solution flexibility for your organization. NPT Shaun Sullivan is chief technology officer at Blackbaud in Charleston, S.C. His email is Shaun.sullivan@blackbaud.com Endowments Continued from page 14 The concept behind Callcenter Software for Non-proﬁts Whether you measure productivity by contacts-per-hour, dollars-per-hour, pledges-per-hour, or any other metric, DialVision gives you the ultimate combination of maximized performance and ﬂexibility. DialVision is web-based, so you can support multiple call centers or remote callers. Rent DialVision and we’ll host it on our servers, or you can purchase the system. Our expert support staff can manage the technology, and is here to help 24x7 – allowing you to focus on your campaigns. It’s fast and ﬁscally brilliant. Contact Tracy Jones today at 888-666-6347 ext 101. You’ll see that it’s not rocket science!! Moreover, it stands to reason that this spending should benefit students -- the actual hearts and souls of educational institutions. Cost mitigation and affordability measures should be top priorities for schools, but they are not. Instead, even the less than 5 percent of endowment dollars they spend annually are invested in efforts to increase the school’s prestige and rankings. Institutions of higher education are building fancy dorms, designing swanky student centers, and by the way, paying endowment fund managers multimillion-dollar salaries. But, tuitions continue to rise. Colleges and universities easily could mitigate tuition hikes through use of endowment funds. CRS data show that tuition increases represent less than 0.7 percent of the schools’ endowments for each of the 20 institutions with the largest endowments. Clearly these schools could use endowment money to prevent tuition increases, and do so without making a dent in their overall endowment savings. While some schools, including Harvard, have made recent adjustments to their financial aid policies to decrease, and in some cases even eliminate, tuition for low-and middle-income families, their efforts have not gone far enough. Education at some elite institutions has become “tuition-free” for some low-income students, but its cost has continued to rise overall, leading one to wonder why successful multibillion-dollar endowments are not being tapped to mitigate the increases. There is no legitimate reason for such enormous wealth to accumulate without some of it being put to good use. Just think -- what would you do with $28.9 billion? NPT Mary G. Lynch is a Master’s candidate ('09) at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. MoonFire Corporation | 888.666.6347 | www.DialVision.com/NPT 18 JUNE 1, 2008 THE NONPROFIT TIMES www.nptimes.com http://www.DialVision.com/NPT http://www.DialVision.com/NPT http://www.nptimes.com

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The NonProfit Times - June 1, 2008 First Kroc Center Set To Open It’s Layoffs And A Lawsuit At ARC In The Twin Cities Hospices Put On Life Support Contents Who...When...Where...How...What? Idol Charities Still Waiting For Funds Heck Of A Job Play On Words Make Endowments Pay Donor Management Software Who’s Next? Joining The Masses Online Email Evangelism Three Corners Business Briefs Fiduciaries And The 990 Calendar United Way Refocusing On Programs, Reducing Affiliates NPT Jobs Resource Directory

The NonProfit Times - June 1, 2008

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