It is no secret to those close to me that I love twitter and have become a bit of an addict.

I try to justify my presence there by saying that I get all my best information from the site – and that all my philanthropy news and updates come from there. But when I sat down to make a list for this post of the 13 top philanthropy tweeters in Australia I was stumped.

Why 13 you may ask? Well – that is a whole other story on how I am trying to learn to improve the blog to make it more interesting and stimulating for you – and according to a blog improvement course I am following, a list with an odd number of elements can encourage additions – so please add. Apparently a list with a round number such as 10 or 20 sounds authoritative.

I have now, after serious research, had to revise down from my ingenious idea of 13 to 9 – with a request for you to supply number 10 by letting me know your suggestions for who else should be included.

If I had been making this list without geographic impediments I would have finished writing this hours days ago – but when I looked closely at where I source my Australian information from – it seems that I was only able to initially come up with 5 or 6 tweeps who tweet regularly (tweeps = twitter people). This is not to detract from the large number of charity tweeters who are out there, but I was focussing on what I have been utilising for blog content and ideas in my interest areas of arts and higher education.

So I had to resort to sneaky means – by looking at http://www.search.twitter.com to find key words and locations and various other google stalking methods to come up with a few more names which might be of interest to you, dear readers.

So here we have it:

@strategicgrants Jo Garner – Jo runs Strategic Grants, a consultancy company in fundraising and is always up on deadlines, grant writing strategy, conferences and philanthropy news. She is also very generous in relaying other people’s news and comments in the philanthropy area.

@thomstac Stacey Thomas is “passionate about community sector and the ways philanthropy can change the world”. An alumna of the Swinburne Philanthropy course, Stacey provides great information on Australian Bureau of Statistics and Australian Tax Office data in relation to the not for profit sector, such as what percentage of donors are motivated by their tax deduction, scholarships for not for profit practitioners, opinions on microfinance and Dick Smith’s Giving Pledge. Stacey will also be presenting at the Best Practice in Grants Management Conference in a couple of weeks.

@sarallenconsult Sarah Allen Consulting makes me smile because of her amazing enthusiasm and energy. She has Manic Mondays where people can ask her social media/marketing questions and an engaging baby boy who tweets his support for her work @captain_morgs.

@artfulJohn John Godfrey runs Artful Training which provides fundraising training for the third sector with courses such as Elegantly Making the Ask, and Essentials of Major Gift Fundraising. I first came across John through LinkedIn which has groups on philanthropy and fundraising which are great for discussion and debate and provides a good reference point for finding new colleagues and collaborators in the sector.

@ThirdSectorMag Third Sector Magazine is a quarterly hard copy publication published by Great Southern Press. As well as a free e-news and daily updates on their website and twitter is is useful for not for profit/philanthropy/fundraising jobs.

@PhilanthropyAus – Philanthropy Australia is the peak body for philanthropic organisations in Australia – if things are happening they will know about it and will tweet it, but are relatively new to social media – I couldn’t find a reference to their twitter feed on their website.

@ProBonoNews ProBono Australia brings together news, jobs and events. They publish an Australian Directory of Not for Profit organisations (you can be included for a fee) as well as a volunteer matching service.

@cat_fay Caitriona Fay is a Program Manager with the Ian Potter Foundation. Her tweets are personal rather than organisational – always enjoyable for their mix of personal observation as well as current philanthropy news from Australia and overseas.

@OurCommunityAU Our Community is another not for profit resource for community groups, individuals, business and government. They run GiveNow which acts as a conduit for small organisations to receive tax deductible donations, the Australian Institute of Community Practice and Governance which provides training in the sector, and Smarty Grants – an online grants management system for funders.

So – that is my top 9 Australian philanthropy tweeters. I use them to find links to information, up to the minute news, keep up with changes in personnel (through monitoring job opportunities) and to feel part of a vibrant and active philanthropic community.

Do you use twitter for information on philanthropy? Who do you follow/read and why?

I look forward to your suggestions for tweeter number 10. Hint @sharonnagoanna can be good reading.

PS: if you are completely new to the twitterverse you can find all of the abovementioned by going to http://www.twitter.com/ and then type in the username – ie: http://www.twitter.com/sharonnagoanna to see their history (known as a twitter feed).