Where are you supporters - right now?

The new "Loopt" application, currently available on some Sprint and Boost phones, uses phone's GPS abilities to display your position graphically on a map on the cell phone's display -- and on the displays of your friends who use the application. Sure, you can now find out "who else is at the mall" as Loopt pitches the service ($2.99 per month), but think of the applications in the nonprofit world:

Locate potential visitors to your museum, church, etc. and guide them to you;
Attract fellow activists to the rally;
Encourage supporters to meet the candidate;
Pinpoint the location of today's blood drive;
Follow your teammates on the bike-a-thon;

Cell phone companies, according to an article in the Washington Post, are eager to recoup some of the money they've invested in meeting federal requirements to provide precise positioning along with 911 calls. So they're finding fun ways to package the information and sell it to subscribers.

The result is potential for nonprofits beyond the obvious. It also provides a real-time authenticity to web activism and fundraising. And it's new, hip and cool. So who's using it? Let us know.

Paul Clolery is officially a "Point of Light"

Paul Clolery is Editor in Chief of NonProfit Times Publishing, which produces the what's-happening and how-to news of fundraising, including 24 print issues and hundreds of online issues per year. (NPA's Rick Christ is a Contributing Editor of the NPT Direct Marketing Edition.)

Paul is a tell-it-like-it-is journalist who models himself after the cigar-smoking curmudgeons of the 1950's newspaper business, before they were replaced by the blow-dried teleprompter-readers of today. He'll just as soon tear your non-profit apart in his paper (if you deserve it) as praise you.

He also walks the walk, inside and outside his official duties. He doesn't just report on conferences; he usually arranges many of the big-name speakers. Not only is he a long-time volunteer rescue squad leader in his community, he's become a well-respected instructor of Emergency Medical Technicians in New Jersey. He trained some of the responders to the terror attacks of the 11th.

So now he's officially been recognized by the Points of Light Foundation. Way cool, friend. You deserve it.