"[August 22, 2006] might well be deemed [by Iran] an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world." -Princeton Orientalist Bernard Lewis Not an exact science, the prophecy business. This time last year, NTEN asked would-be seers of the NPTech Black Arts School (est. 1987) to scry out 2006. How'd they do? I'll be grading them according to the following completely arbitrary criteria: +6 to +10 accurate specific-data prediction (e.g., "50% of NGOs will ..."), depending on degree of specificity and boldness of the prediction +3 to +5 specific-data prediction gets the trend right even if it gets the numbers wrong (we're encouraging risk-taking predictions here), depending on how close it comes +1 to +3 accurate "trend" prediction, depending on how accurate and important the trend, and how bold the prediction -1 to -3 wrong "trend" prediction -3 to -5 wrong specific-data prediction 0 every prediction so hedged or overcautious that it would have been virtually impossible to falsify I've taken a fairly strong line against hedges with the idea that only predictions that could actually be wrong are worth anything when they're right. However, those rulings, and my general bloviating, are obviously of no particular authority and certainly haven't been checked for internal consistency, so disputation is not only welcome, it's invited. And most of all, don't take the regime of points to indicate anything more meaningful than a diversion. Some of the most interesting predictions here are the ones that didn't quite happen. Now ... to the scoreboard.

Nick Allen, Donordigital

“Advocacy groups and groups that respond quickly to news and other events will see the greatest gains online.”
Ruling: Hedge.	0
“Groups that are putting time and money into their online work will continue to see online revenue increase as a share of total revenue from individual donors.”
Ruling: Cautious but accurate.	1
“Nonprofits that are active online will continue to invest in list-building, advocacy, and fundraising.”
Ruling: Hedge, tautological class.	0
“Nonprofits will work harder at search engine marketing, trying to figure out how to use the social networks and blogs, and trying to figure out how to get their online folks to do things offline and vice versa.”
Ruling: Accurate, and with the possible exception of search engine marketing, major nptech trends of '06.	3
TOTAL SCORE	4

Gene Austin, Convio

“We’ll see growth in systems integration between online and offline transaction tools.”
Ruling: Accurate, though probably not as far advanced as might have been hoped. A good '07 prediction as well.	1
“The adoption of eCRM software solutions for online marketing will continue to escalate.”
Ruling: Not surprising, but true.	1
“The percentage of funds raised online will double for organizations taking a strategic approach to the Web.”
Ruling: Hedged so that it's pretty tough to prove in a meaningful way, especially since some organizations "taking a strategic approach" were already raising mathematically undoubleable percentages in '05. Nevertheless, spot on an important trend.	3
TOTAL SCORE	5

Ed Batista, Attention Data

“Nonprofits will start to understand the value of attention data and begin making use of it to deliver services, measure impact and improve fundraising.”
Ruling: Inaccurate, unless one counts tagging as a partial exception. "Attention data" buzz dropped generally, and the issue is not on most nonprofits' radars.	-3
TOTAL SCORE	-3

Phil Ferrante-Roseberry, CompuMentor

“We’ll see a shakeout in the nonprofit ASP field, including mergers and acquisitions.”
Ruling: Didn't happen.	-3
“We’ll witness more planning and preparation around the use of social networking tools, such as those used during Hurricane Katrina.”
Ruling: I'm open to correction since this field isn't my daily bread, but I can't think of any sense this prediction really came to pass.	-3
TOTAL SCORE	-6

Sheeraz Haji, GetActive Software

“Fundraising online will grow to over 50% of non-major donations for charitable and public interest organizations.”
Ruling: Credit for tremendous specificity. It's certainly the case for some but, lacking sector-wide data at my fingertips, it's my sense that the percentage is still much too high for most groups' routine operations.	4
“2006 will be the year of integration, reporting and analytics.”
Ruling: A pithy description of significant issues, but this could have been said of any year since nonprofits first went online, and for any foreseeable year to come. Hedge.	0
“2006 will see a convergence in online and offline fundraising.”
Ruling: A trend, though perhaps not yet "a convergence."	2
TOTAL SCORE	6

Steve Heye, YMCA of the USA

“There’ll be more of a focus on business tactics and processes, as technology becomes more of a commodity.”
Ruling: Accurate, and significant.	3
“Growth in the use of web-based software by nonprofits, resulting in lower hardware costs.”
Ruling: I love the specific and forward-looking nature of this prediction -- probably the single most ambitious trend forecast in the pool. But it may just be too big for one year -- I'm not sure we really saw widespread enough adoption of web-based software to pass back lower hardware costs in the last 12 months.	-1
TOTAL SCORE	2

Beth Kanter, Independent Nonprofit Technology Consultant

“Nonprofits will continue to adopt Web 2.0 tools such as Wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and social tagging.”
Ruling: Hedge.	0
TOTAL SCORE	0

Lynn Labieniec, Beaconfire

“There’s be [sic] an increase in nonprofits who look to Web technology to serve their programs.”
Ruling: Hedge.	0
TOTAL SCORE	0

Jeff Patrick, Common Knowledge

“Software vendors will address the issue of identity validation in online action alerts, so legislators will take online advocacy more seriously.”
Ruling: Maybe next year. With coverage in the Washington Post, the issue certainly came to a head in '06.	-2
“We’ll see more streaming media (video) used in nonprofit email marketing campaigns, because it increases response rates.”
Ruling: As huge a year as it was for online video overall, I haven't seen embedding-in-email as a major frontier on either the outbound side, the inbound side, or in the space's general tactical buzz -- perhaps it was strangled in its crib by inbox spam control tactics, or perhaps I'm just not looking in the right places. Overturned on appeal. (see comments)	-3 3
“The battle between the large on-demand ASP vendors will rage on in 2006.”
Ruling: I'm tempted to call this a hedge, but it could be read as the opposite of Phil Ferrante-Roseberry's "shakeout" prediction above ... and if it's that, it's accurate.	3
TOTAL SCORE	-2 4

Henry Sohn, CiviCRM

“Open source solutions will enjoy greater adoption by more nonprofit organizations than ever.”
Ruling: Without speaking to any particular class of open source solutions or nonprofits, this is a hedge.	0
“Building an online community and establishing a web presence will be easier than ever as technologies become more powerful, easier to use and implement, and cheaper to deploy and maintain.”
Ruling: What's the counterfactual? That existing technology becomes more expensive and less feature-rich? Hedge.	0
TOTAL SCORE	0

Jillaine Smith, Strategic Communications Consultant

“Nonprofit tech assistance providers will continue to broaden their services beyond technology towards a larger framework of organizational effectiveness and program success.”
Ruling: I'd say this is accurate but still a process in formation.	1
TOTAL SCORE	1

Jon Stahl, One Northwest

“The Web 2.0 bubble will burst”
Ruling: Since "Web 2.0" has been famously impossible to define, this is a tough one to score. On the one hand, cognoscenti are pretty sick of hearing about it, and that's bubble-bursty. On the other hand, despite some deflation, the hype of web 2.0 tools and tactics got air from the election cycle (thank you, George Allen) and never truly imploded. It's not a bad prediction for '07 ... nothing like hitting the cover of Time to ossify a trend in its tracks.	-1
“This will be the year of of open-source content management systems.”
Ruling: They're penetrating far and wide.	2
TOTAL SCORE	1

Katrin Verclas, Aspiration

“We’ll see an increasing use of mobile phones on nonprofit work, civic actions, and campaigns.”
Ruling: As big as SMS is worldwide, its stateside growth in '06 was from negligible to marginal. Everyone's still waiting on the bust-out event for U.S. texting, but it might not come until the '08 election cycle.	1 U.S. 3 Europe (like the dollar)
TOTAL SCORE	average of 2

(Katrin also failed to forecast becoming director of the entity responsible for collecting these predictions.)

Ken Weber, Network For Good

“New online technology products with strong features and affordable costs will stir up the nonprofit tech tools marketplace.”
Ruling: Like Network For Good's new fundraising widgets, say? But in what year past or future would it not be the case that some part of the nonprofit tech tools marketplace would be affected by the entry of new tools and lower price points? Without more specificity, I view this as a hedge.	0
TOTAL SCORE	0