People have a lot of ideas, but many fall through the cracks. Also, some ideas are not really feasible or not thought out well enough. IdeaScale has a free package where people can create a community where people can submit ideas that others can vote/comment on. You can upgrade for more features if desired. There are other sites and software. However, I picked IdeaScale as it has a good implementation and is used by some organizations that can be demanding of needs. http://ideascale.com/ is the website. http://ideascale.com/a/createUser.do?application=IdeaScale
is where you signup.
The White House uses IdeaScale. Wired Magazine, Reuters, the Boy Scouts, and Mozilla (makers of Firefox) also use IdeaScale. There is widget code allows you to get ideas via a blog or website by including the widget code in your blog or website. There is a free “Civic Engagement License” for government agencies. http://ideascale.com/opengov There are no free licenses to non-profit entities (other than the standard free package). Hopefully, we might be able to convince them to change their mind. 🙂
IdeaScale has 508 government compliance, restricted access, curse filtering, and SSL security (if
you upgrade). There are iPhone and Facebook Apps available and you can link to Twitter and Facebook, so new ideas get posted on Twitter and your Facebook page. There is a Terms of Use section. Having an idea submission system makes it easier to find those with great ideas. Might find a great volunteer or new staff member. Users can flag improper posts (if enabled). When a predefined threshold is reached, the comment is hidden and the moderator is notified. If approved, the comment will
reappear and not be flaggable.
Creating an account requires an email address and passing the CAPTCHA. You can login with Google
Account, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, AOL, and OpenID. Can customize Call-to-action and pick one of two voting systems. Up/Down ala Digg, or Poker style where an user gets a predefined number of votes that they can use (some or all) on ideas that they think are most important. I recommend Up/Down. Changing voting system removes current votes. The different status’ that an idea can have are: Inbound (if not signed in), Active (if signed in), Under Review, In Progress, Complete, Closed (hides it), Off-Topic.
You can edit the webpage code for headers, footers, Home Page, Terms of Use, and Contact info. You can customize name and email address that notifications are sent from, as well as the invitation emails. You can specify a daily or weekly digest, or none. You get 5 free categories (you can do more if you specify more than 5 at the beginning). You can also specify an end date for a category. You can also export ideas (except for custom fields in CSV) and member data. You can get a report on: total users; unsubscribed, bounced, new, and verified users; email domains.
Take a look at (and submit ideas at) http://nonprofitcommons.ideascale.com/
Written by: morriscox