Dot-Org Pride

Nearly a decade ago, when I was working for HandsNet, we put on an annual conference with our partners, CompassPoint and CompuMentor, called something like, "Surviving as a Dot-Org in Dot-Com World."

By the third year of the conference (and as I continued my involvement with the conference as CompassPoint employee) the bust had come, and it was no longer a Dot-Com world. But the Dot-Org world, it seemed, was still a few years away.

Now, TIAA-CREF has taken up the call for taking pride in our nonprofit Dot-Org status. The nonprofit financial services provider's latest ad campaign is all about "the Power of Dot-Org" (powerof.org).

But where our conference so long ago was aimed at other nonprofits (who else would have even understood what Dot-Org meant back then?), the TIAA-CREF campaign is aimed at the general public. Their point? That in the post-Enron world, nonprofits are more trustworthy than their corporate brothers.

This theme is summed up in one of their print headlines, "Ever heard of a .org crash?"

Of course, we know that our nonprofit sector is not entirely scandal-free, and I'm sure the public realizes that as well. But I like this campaign never-the-less, and I think it's good for all of us to take up this calling to Dot-Org pride.

By emphasizing the "power of .org" to the public, TIAA-CREF not only advertises their business, but gives us all a good publicity boost.