Charity staff still not schooled in using email discussion lists

Howard Lake | 12 June 2008 | Blogs

The Google for Non-Profits discussion group kicked off yesterday by inviting some of those who had registered to introduce themselves or get the discussion going.
With 4,500 charity/nonprofit staff signed up to discuss ideas and share tips on how nonprofits can use Google tools and technologies, it promises some useful content.
However, the list was immediately bombarded with dozens (just under 40 last time I counted) of messages from nonprofit staff replying to the list that they wanted to be unsubscribed or to receive just the daily digest. Many of these were senior staff members at US organisations.
Some of these messages consisted of nothing more than the words “me too”.
What these people had forgotten about or perhaps not cared about was that their administrative requests were being copied to 4,500 other nonprofit staff members around the world. How much charity staff time did that waste?
Even worse, each message sent via the list included links and information on how to unsubscribe or change subscription settings.
It’s more than a little depressing that, halfway through 2008, so many nonprofit staff are still so inept at using the email mailing list.
http://groups.google.com/group/googlefornonprofits

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.