Mimi is eternally grateful for the very thoughtful responses you sent in to the Kabissa member survey! In fact, the entire team is grateful, since your honest answers give us encouragement and guide us in our planning for the coming year. Quite a few respondents asked specific questions about making the best use of Kabissa membership, so we all agreed that it would be very worthwhile devoting this month's advice column to providing some essential information on the subject. New and old members alike will learn something, so read on!

1. Look your best in the Kabissa Profile Directory

Mimi knows that you have a great organization – with a compelling mission and important activities. Make sure visitors to the Kabissa Profile Directory know it too, by ensuring that the information you provide is accurate, up-to-date, and reflects positively on your organization. Also, any time your contact e-mail addresses change, it's very important that you update your profile! Otherwise Kabissa and other new and existing donors and collaborators trying to reach you through your profile won't be able to get through. We'll also be introducing new profile tools in the next few months which will offer more ways to look your best online!

• http://www.kabissa.org/update-your-profile.html

2. Get a FREE Web Hosting Account on Kabissa

Mimi was surprised to learn that a whopping 20% of survey respondents don’t know that we offer a hosting service. Kabissa offers low-cost hosting for our members for Web sites, e-mail addresses, and mailing lists. YOU control your hosting – at any time, you can log in to create or delete e-mail accounts, upload your Web site, or set up and configure your mailing lists. Kabissa won't design and maintain your Web site for you, but Kabissa’s technical support team is always happy to help troubleshoot issues. Best of all, a Starter Account is free! We know that designing a Web site can be a big challenge - we will roll out easy site builder tools later this year to help members develop their own sites.

• http://www.kabissa.org/internet_services_overview.html

3. Spread the word about your work in Kabissa Gong Gong

Several people have asked how they can see their organization’s work in Gong Gong, or featured on our Web site. Simple! Just write up a short announcement, including your organization’s name and a contact person, if applicable, and e-mail it to our editorial team. We’ll post in on the Web site in the Kabissa Announcements section. We include several announcements in Gong Gong each month. We also feature one member every month in our Member Spotlight - please write to us if you would like to be featured.

• http://www.kabissa.org/members

4. Take advantage of the ICT Resource Center

In addition to interesting technology news, and upcoming opportunities, the ICT Resource Center on the Kabissa website contains a wide range of useful information. Web Tools and Software contains many free and low cost tools that you can use to do your work better! For example, loband.org helps low bandwidth users load Web pages faster, saving you time and money at the cybercafé. The Learning Resources section includes manuals, guides, and Web sites to help build your organizational capacity on blogging, word processing software, and Internet basics! Be sure to check out Kabissa’s own TIME TO GET ONLINE training materials.

• http://www.kabissa.org/ict
• http://www.kabissa.org/web_tools_and_software_overview.html
• http://www.kabissa.org/learning
• http://www.kabissa.org/opportunities

5. Having Tech Trouble? Check out the FAQs, or write to us!

FAQ means Frequently Asked Questions. Mimi knows that sometimes, you run into a technology problem you can’t quite solve on your own. Why isn’t your e-mail downloading properly? What causes that nasty "page not found" error to appear on your Web site? How can you tell if an e-mail is fraudulent? In cases like these, Mimi recommends that you consult Kabissa’s library of help resources. If all else fails, contact the Kabissa support team. When you write to us, be sure to include as much detail as possible, so that we can help you quickly.

• http://www.kabissa.org/faq