Enter Pardot, and their slick infographic below, which provides a workable guide as to how you can rock Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+ in just 30 minutes each day.

How To Rock Social Media In Just 30 Minutes A Day [INFOGRAPHIC] - AllTwitter.

Cadet Lawman gives selected Oklahoma high school seniors-to-be a first hand taste of what it takes to be a Trooper with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol . In this week-long program, young men and women experience training in precision driving, traffic and boating law enforcement, firearm instruction, self-defense, and law enforcement history. Many who attended Cadet Lawman in their teens are found in today's ranks of troopers.

The Cadet Lawman committee made a commitment to begin implementation of Alumni Channel for the organization's online alumni community. Cadet Lawman was started in 1974, sponsored by Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Oklahoma State Troopers Association, Oklahoma Elks Major Projects, and Cudd Pressure Control and has over 4,000 alumni across Oklahoma and beyond. With a growing base of graduates, the Cadet Lawman sponsors wanted to cultivate stronger bonds with and among alumni that would lay the foundation for support of critical programs and assistance. They needed a technology solution that would replace its existing website while reducing costs associated with direct mailings. This would enable them to provide an interactive, customized experience for each visitor, including opportunities to connect with each other, view events, and make online donations.

To this end, the Cadet Lawman committee and its sponsors deployed the services of Alumni Channel for the Cadet Lawman online community. They now have a single point of entry that allows alumni to self-maintain their profile information, which can then be used to update the master database.

"Groups like Cadet Lawman face a real challenge in keeping connected with alumni who, after graduation, scatter throughout the world," said Chris Gehringer, President of Alumni Channel. "The Cadet Lawman Academy is taking a leadership position in how it uses technology to give its alumni - regardless of whether they live in the local area or the Far East - an easy way to stay involved. Having a professional appearance to your alumni organization is just one more step in building lasting relationships with alumni/donors."

Like most other organizations launching a new website, getting people to visit the site is a key step. With only past enrollment records and several hundred alumni fans on Facebook, the group will embark on an integrated marketing campaign to increase awareness and introduce the benefits of registering on the new site. Through this effort, the number of contacts will increase over time.

To visit the Oklahoma Cadet Lawman Academy, please go to cadetlawman.com.

About Alumni Channel

We are a cloud-based membership management suite for alumni and other organizations.  Our clients include public, private, Catholic and Christian schools, small colleges and universities, several non-profit membership groups (camp, youth group, etc.), and corporate-based alumni networks.  Alumni Channel offers organizations a web-based database, and a community for alumni to connect, collaborate and share.  Founded in 1998, Alumni Channel is headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.  For more information, visit alumnichannel.com.

via 28 Statistics Show Growth in Mobile Email | Mass Transit.

via Relationship-Building Doesn't Scale - alumni futures.

(Alumni Futures does not endorse any commercial sites or services.)

Have you ever thought of your alumni relations activities as the preeminent part of your school’s advancement effort? Or do your colleague have an “I-suppose-it’s-important-but-I’m-not-really-sure-what-they-do” mentality about your staff? Far too often, alumni relations is seen as a second-class citizen in development, sort of a simple minded cousin that the family lets hang around.

A Fresh Look at Alumni Relations: Connect to improve fund raising.

- http://fundraisingcoach.com/free-articles/a-fresh-look-at-alumni-relations/

In this article, we’ll be reviewing my top 10 online payment systems for accepting payments on the Web. While many of the companies on this list have been available to online merchants for years, many are also now getting into new areas of online payments such as social commerce and in-store online card reader systems.

10 Excellent Online Payment Systems.

No Software
Unlike traditional client-server systems, in a Cloud (also known as SaaS) deployment it isn't necessary to install software on each user's computer, thus IT departments don't need to install, patch, upgrade, or maintain multiple software configurations.  This saves a great deal of time, money, labor, and frustration.

Low Up-Front Technology Costs
When using a Cloud system, the customer does not have to make large upfront investments in hardware, operating systems, databases, software licenses, IT staff, and ongoing overhead costs. It requires no client-owned or managed infrastructure other than Internet access, and can be entirely supported on an infrastructure provided by the SaaS (cloud) supplier.

Rapid Implementation
Since no installation of on-site hardware or software is required, implementation can start immediately, meaning customers can start realizing benefits right away with limited upfront costs, rather than spending months deploying a client-server solution.

Continual Upgrades
Cloud computing makes upgrades a thing of the past. Upgrades are automatic and free using the Cloud model. Since Cloud suppliers' development resources are not wasted on maintaining many different software versions across many unique platform configurations, they can focus their development efforts on continually adding new innovations to the software. And new features and functionality can be added to the system and made available to all users with no down-time.

Cloud Supplier Does the Heavy Lifting
Software success used to be the sole responsibility of the customer.  In the Cloud world, the supplier is responsible for deployment, maintenance, infrastructure, security, etc. Because Cloud providers generate revenue based on a user subscription model, they are very motivated to get customers up and running quickly and ensure ongoing value and usage.

Security
In a Cloud deployment, all critical data is stored in a secure, off-site data center. Most IT departments are typically pulled in many directions, and are typically challenged to keep up with the latest in network and physical security strategies. In a Cloud depoyment, data security is core to the SaaS providers offering, meaning that customers can rest assured that their data is almost certainly much more secure in a Cloud deployment than in a client server environment.

Adaptability
The needs of clients are constantly changing, so you need a system that is adaptable to meet future needs.  Cloud systems can efficiently adapt to changing environments by adding new technologies, and new functionalities, and instantly making them available to clients.

Ideal for Small IT Departments
Since users don't need servers, or any special equipment, Cloud is suitable for small or departmental level deployments, and does not impact other IT resources.

IT Expense Predictability
The total cost of using a Cloud system is very predictable since the majority of expenses are the responsibility of the Cloud provider. This is much different than in a client-server environment where once the system is accepted, ongoing maintenance, operation and support is the burden of the end user, and is often unpredictable.  In a Cloud deployment, the provider assumes all of the risk and is therefore motivated to perform.

Accessibility
Cloud is ideal for  users who are mobile, and need to work and access information from different locations.  Cloud software can be securely accessed from any computer (office, home, etc) that has access to the Internet.

Scalability
Cloud-based solutions are designed to scale seamlessly for large numbers of simultaneous users. As such, they are able to easily maintain performance levels and uptime as your organization grows and the volume of data stored expands over time. With an on-premise, client-based solution, managing performance and uptime are burdens the customer must handle, and can involve additional costs in database licenses, skilled personnel, hardware and infrastructure.

This article is a reprint from Christian School Products Magazine, June 2012, and an adaptation of the same that is posted by Sycamore Education (http://www.sycamoreeducation.com/se_rocks/articles/why-is-cloud-computing-the-best-choice.html).

About Alumni Channel
Alumni Channel is a cloud-based membership management suite for alumni, school and various other organizations.  We offer the ability for organizations to store membership data online, giving both the organization, and its members, 24/7/365 access to keep data up-to-date.  Our clients include public, private, Catholic and Christian schools, small colleges and universities, non-profit membership groups (camp, youth group, etc.), and corporate-based alumni networks.

Alumni Channel works with schools, districts, education foundation, dioceses, and alumni associations (and other non-profits) to foster better alumni relations through online alumni communities. Our communities have features such as profiles, news updates, alerts, online payments, message boards, photo galleries and more, and are built specifically for your organization. Each community gives alumni a place to register, keep contact information up-to-date, find and communicate with each other, and at the same time see and receive the news and announcements you want them to see.

From Lara Geragi, Director of Communications at Drexel:

We did a "Get Counted" campaign a couple of years back where we encouraged alumni to register for our Online Directory or update their current record in the Directory. If they did so during a certain period of time, they were entered into a drawing for a grand prize. I think we gave away 3 amazon kindles. The whole idea of "Get Counted" was to make our alumni feel like they were left out if we did not have their updated contact info in our Directory. We also tied it into our alumni population maps on our website which shows the different populations of alumni around the world and in the U.S. We encouraged alumni to "Get Counted" on the map by updating their info with us. This is an example of the language we used for that:

Get On The Map!
Click the globes below to view population maps of alumni across the United States and around the world. These maps reflect only the alumni with a current address as of February, 2010. Does that include you? To make sure, log into the Online Alumni Directory, and provide your most up-do-date contact information. Do it today and get on the map!

Overall the campaign was a success. I don't have the exact numbers off the top of my head, but we got hundreds of address updates. I think it ran over a period of 3 months.

From Doug at Delaware County Community College:

Our school has tripled its email address database from 1,100 to over 4,600 by way of two main activities:

1) Is connecting with graduates on Linked In and when connecting, asking them to update their address and email information while also asking for permission to add them to our mailing list. This has accounted for about 2,000 addresses to date.

2) A new initiative is to have students fill out short surveys at graduation while waiting in line and one of the questions is asking for their preferred email address for future communication. Most provide it, its a captive audience for about an hour, so we get a decent response rate and this has accounted for about 1,500 address from Spring '11 and Spring '12.

Both techniques are somewhat time consuming, but the payoff is one to one interaction while also asking for which address they would like for us to use, avoiding spam and undeliverables.

From Jacob of Aarhus University, Denmark:

We also ask all new members of our Linkedin group for their e-mail - and we've also found it to be successful to include an extra question in the registration form when people sign up for graduation where we ask them for permission to register their e-mail in our alumni database and contact them afterwards.

From Anna at Georgia Gwinnett College:

We are working with our web team to develop an online form for our graduates to fill out. This form will feed right into Raiser's Edge and dump their information in the records. We will be testing this for the winter graduates, so we will see how it goes!

In the past, I had the graduates fill out an information card at a graduation meeting and then we updated their records in RE.

Now, there are numerous mobile wallets out there (Square, Visa, Isis, etc.), but Google Wallet does appear to be the first one to empower nonprofits to fundraise online. In the future, my guess is that when donating or shopping online we will be able to choose which wallet service we want to use with one-click – similar to how we now choose which credit card we want to use when donating or shopping online.

Google Wallet Ushers in a New Era in Online and Mobile Fundraising for Nonprofits « Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog :: A Social Media Guide for Nonprofits.