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History
The Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table was started by David Milner in October 1999. He had spent a few years working as The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' Webmaster, and at the time was employed as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Web Site Producer.
The first meeting took place at the headquarters of The ASPCA.
Along with The ASPCA and Planned Parenthood, the organizations represented were the American Museum of Natural History, Amnesty International, The Museum of Modern Art, Planned Parenthood of New York City, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Queens Borough Public Library and The Alan Guttmacher Institute.
Both technical and nontechnical issues were discussed. Among the issues given the most attention were conducting outreach via the Internet, accepting donations online and outsourcing work.
One of the more innovative ideas raised during the meeting was sending volunteers armed with Palm Pilots and keyboards to concerts, street fairs and other public events in order to gain subscribers to electronic newsletters.
Subsequent meetings of the Round Table have been held on a quarterly basis at the offices of The ASPCA, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other not-for-profit organizations based in Manhattan.
Among the issues discussed at the meetings have been Internet security, marketing, browser compatibility, HTML editors, Web design, volunteer use, Web-based publishing systems and disaster recovery.
Since August 2000, many of the meetings have featured brief presentations given by Web development, hosting and/or marketing firms that provide services either primarily or exclusively for not-for-profits.
Since the beginning of 2001, attendees have had an opportunity at each of the meetings to offer comments about one or more not-for-profit Web sites in order to compare their thoughts on design, navigation, technology implementation and other related issues.