Elijah van der Giessen

I help nonprofits build community.

I’m recruiting two interns for my team at the David Suzuki Foundation — August 26, 2011

I’m recruiting two interns for my team at the David Suzuki Foundation

I’m looking for two interns to join the David Suzuki Foundation Creative Services team.

  • Print designer (4 days/week)
  • web developer (2 days/week)
These are paid positions based out of the Vancouver office.
The application deadline is Sunday, August 28, 2011.
The gig is super fun and I’ll feed you cookies unless you’re all gluten-free.
For more details please go to http://davidsuzuki.org/about/employment/
I’m looking for a web intern in Vancouver — February 14, 2011
Net Tuesday December – Group buying and conversion-tracking in Google Analytics — November 24, 2010

Net Tuesday December – Group buying and conversion-tracking in Google Analytics

Hey Net Tuesday-ers,

I’m thrilled to announce that the December Net Tuesday will feature a panel on group buying sites (like Groupon) and a case study demonstrating the use of conversion tracking in Google Analytics. It’s gonna be awesome, so please RSVP.

Date: Tuesday, December 7
Doors: 5:30pm
Duration: 6:00 – 7:30pm
Venue:  W2 Storyeum, 151 W Cordova

RSVP on Facebook or Meetup

Group buying and deals panel

You’ve probably heard about Groupon, the daily deal site that offers discounts if a minimum number of purchase commitments are made. They’ve already got 18 million subscribers and are continuing to grow rapidly. But did you know that Groupon evolved out of  the social-change focused online community The Point?

  • How can nonprofits and social entrepreneurs make use of Groupon and Groupon-like sites?
  • What’s the best way to structure the deal?
  • Is it right for you and your organization?

Join panelists Annalea Krebs of ethicalDeal and Chris Mathieson of the Vancouver Police Museum as they share their experiences from both the business and client sides of the relationship.

Case study: Conversion tracking with Google Analytics goals

Eli van der Giessen rips apart the David Suzuki Foundation’s recent action alert and uses it as a case study to demonstrate how to use Google Analytics goal-tracking and link tagging to measure which traffic sources are most useful. Which group is more likely to complete an action? Email subscribers or Facebook Like-ers?

Our Sponsor:

A special thanks to our venue sponsor W2 Community Media Arts Society.

Our panelists:

Chris Mathieson is the Executive Director of the Vancouver Police Museum, a self-funded charity that has seen incredible growth (from 3000 to 25,000 visitors a year) over the last five years, partly by being unafraid to take small risks in social media and other emerging technologies.

A few additional notes from Chris:

“- We’ve offered two Groupons since they launched in the Vancouver, one for museum admission and one for our “Sins of the City” walking tour. Both offers were very carefully crafted to benefit us while minimizing our risks, something some companies don’t seem to be doing. Both were significant successes for us, but only because we were thoughtful about what we were doing. (We hope…)”

Annalea Krebs is a passionate social entrepreneur whose vision and energy to build a brighter, more sustainable future inspires those around her. She believes that business can be a powerful force for change, and loves companies that are built to make the world better. For Annalea, ethicalDeal is an opportunity to introduce more people to sustainable businesses, products & services.

Prior to founding ethicalDeal, Annalea managed the sales, marketing and community relations for various social enterprises and green businesses including: TheChange.com, Values-Based Business Network, Organic Islands Festival & Sustainability Expo, ICE Promotions and the Canadian Social Entrepreneurship Foundation. Annalea holds a degree in Commerce from Royal Roads University, a Diploma of Technology from BCIT and is a graduate of Leadership Vancouver.

Facebook Causes donations no longer accepted in Canada — May 9, 2010

Facebook Causes donations no longer accepted in Canada

Update: June 27

Causes offers some back-story on the situation:

CanadaHelps’ donation processor, Chase Payment Tech, contacted Causes and insisted that we drastically alter our security standards as they relate to the processing of donations.  We are working to find a way to meet these standards without adversely affecting users’ experience or undermining Causes’ ability to provide its donation platform to Canadian nonprofits for free.

So as of May 31 Causes will no longer accept donations for Canadian charities.

===================

Most of my lies are unintentional.

Like when I suggested at the last Net Tuesday that Facebook Causes was a good introductory way to experiment with friends-asking-friends donations. That particular lie was unintentional.

Causes on Facebook | HomeThankfully Darian Kovacs of Venus Marketing set me straight by letting Net Tuesday know that as of May 31 Causes and Canada Helps (who processes the donations for Causes) are splitting up. This isn’t going to affect the American charities on Facebook Causes, but it means you won’t be able to donate to your favorite Canadian charity on Facebook. Which would be a shame, because Causes’s Birthday feature actually works at raising money.

Damn. I hate it when Mom and Dad fight.

Anyone know the full story?

Here’s the message Canada Helps sent out:

Dear charity,

As of May 31st, 2010, Causes on Facebook will no longer support donations to Canadian charities. Charities and donors will be unable to fundraise using the Causes on Facebook application after this date.

While CanadaHelps has attempted to work with Causes for a different outcome, Causes on Facebook has chosen not to meet the security standards that are required to process credit cards and work with CanadaHelps in the Canadian market.

CanadaHelps puts the safety and security of your donors first. As part of our mandate as a charitable foundation, we provide charities with cost-effective online fundraising solutions that are safe, secure, and trustworthy. We thank you for your continued use of CanadaHelps. We continue to look for alternatives for charities and donors to use Facebook as a fundraising platform.

If you have questions or comments about the decision to stop supporting Canadian fundraising on Facebook, please direct them to Causes on Facebook at partner@causes.com, (510) 981-0790 or
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about. If you have questions for CanadaHelps, please don’t hesitate to be in touch with our Director of Program Development, Zenia Wadhwani (zenia@canadahelps.org).

Sincerely,
Owen Charters
Executive Director

Causes sent this to Canadian charities on May 12, 2010

We are writing to let you know you that after May 31, 2010 it may no longer be possible for users to make donations to Canadian charities on the Causes platform.

Recently, CanadaHelps’ donation processor, Chase Payment Tech, contacted Causes and insisted that we drastically alter our security standards as they relate to the processing of donations.  We are working to find a way to meet these standards without adversely affecting users’ experience or undermining Causes’ ability to provide its donation platform to Canadian nonprofits for free.

We will keep you updated as these discussions progress.  Moreover, the Causes Team will continue to support your work and answer any questions you may have.  Whatever the outcome, all other cause functionality will remain operational after May.  Do not hesitate to reach out to us at support@causes.com.

Sincerely,

The Causes Team
support@causes.com

Causes sent this to Canadian charities on May 14, 2010

Dear THE DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION (Canada),
We are writing to let you know you that after May 31, 2010 it may no longer be possible for users to make donations to Canadian charities on the Causes platform.
Recently, CanadaHelps’ donation processor, Chase Payment Tech, contacted Causes and insisted that we drastically alter our security standards as they relate to the processing of donations.  We are working to find a way to meet these standards without adversely affecting users’ experience or undermining Causes’ ability to provide its donation platform to Canadian nonprofits for free.
We will keep you updated as these discussions progress.  Moreover, the Causes Team will continue to support your work and answer any questions you may have.  Whatever the outcome, all other cause functionality will remain operational after May.  Do not hesitate to reach out to us at support@causes.com.
Sincerely,
The Causes Team
support@causes.com
Our mailing address is:
Causes
2105 Martin Luther King Jr Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
Causes sent this to Canadian charities June 1, 2010

Last month, you should have received an email from Causes about our donation services in Canada. We regret to inform you that we have been unable to reach an agreement with our transaction-processing provider that would allow us to continue processing donations in Canada without introducing substantial fees. As a result, Causes has temporarily suspended donation collection for Canadian charities. We will continue to look for ways to re-open this functionality in the near future.

The good news is that while Canadian charities will not be able to collect donations on Causes, they will be able to use the other tools on the platform to build communities, spread awareness, and run advocacy campaigns. We very much value each of our Canadian partners and hope that Causes remains a core part of their online strategy.

We apologize for the inconvenience and welcome your feedback at support@causes.com

It has always been our goal to provide nonprofits and activists with online fundraising tools that are both easy to use and affordable. This vision will continue to guide our work and we look forward to helping you achieve your mission.
Sincerely,

The Causes Team
support@causes.com

How to add captions to your Youtube videos in English and French — April 11, 2010

How to add captions to your Youtube videos in English and French

My parents have a hell of a time explaining to their friends just what it is I do at work. And who can blame them, since it’s a bit jack-of-all-trades-y.

And so, for their edification, I present a summary of a recent project.

====

Subtitling videos used to be VERY time consuming. It would take a volunteer all day to transcribe the video, time the in and out points for each line of dialog, and then enter it all into Final Cut Pro. Ick!

Naturally, we avoided translating most of the video clips we produce. Which makes the David Suzuki Foundation’s Quebec office very sad. <le boo hoo. le sigh>

But now, through the magic of Google’s translation service and Youtube’s automatic transcription and timing features, we can subtitle a video with 30 minutes of effort.  That means we can easily make all our videos bilingual.

Check it out!


(to turn on the captioning click the triangle button in the bottom right of the Youtube player and then hover over your language)

Here’s step-by-step instructions on how to add French subtitles to a Youtube video:

  1. Upload your video to Youtube.com
  2. Get Youtube to transcribe your video by going to the “Captions and Subtitles” tab Youtube Captions and Subtitle tab
  3. Instruct Youtube to transcribe your video, then wait about an hour.
  4. Download the “English:Machine Transcription” file
  5. Clean up the Transcription file in a text editor, because Youtube’s translation is wonky! (“police team is wasted energy”??)
  6. Upload your corrected text file (but keep the “.sbv” extension” to Youtube

Congratulations! You now have a clean caption file in Youtube that can be automatically translated into dozens of languages.
Translation magic from Youtube

But what if “good-enough” isn’t good enough for you? What if you need a perfect translation?

  1. Cut and paste your timed caption text into Google Translate and let it work its magic
  2. Get a native-speaker to review and correct the translation
  3. Upload the corrected text to Youtube (remember to change your text file’s extension to “.sbv ” and if you’re dealing with a language with accents save the file in UTF-8 format.)

And you’re done!

Helpful links: