We are all connected in immensely powerful and inextricably poignant ways.

Today, what fuels this connectivity is an online landscape driven by clicks, likes, tweets and links. And even though the tools that connect us online are often simple and foolproof, the ‘digital network’ they construct is actually rather complex!

Digital Leap 2011 was held at The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, Ontario on April 12.

We can’t really see it – even though we try our best to visualize these relationships – but we can feel it. And our actions are most certainly guided by it.

At Digital Leap this year, we learned the web is growing at an exponential rate – with the anticipation of 50 billion connected devices by the year 2020.

And yet, there is an undeniable sense that the nonprofits that excel at facilitating change in our world are falling behind – only 28% of visitors to charities’ websites found it easy to donate online!

So, what’s the barrier? What’s stopping you from getting your charity where it needs to be online?

I have no doubt that you have your own personal digital network. Whether you’re actively conscious of it or not, it exists. It lives and breathes like any organism: inside your inbox; on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn; on blogs, comment boards and forums; on PCs, Macs and mobile devices everywhere.

But still there’s a gap. A 50-foot stretch of unfinished freeway only Keanu Reeves can jump with a speeding bus!

Maybe your gap is dollars or knowledge or resources. Maybe it’s all of these combined. Even if it is, what it shouldn’t be is insurmountable.

If Digital Leap taught us anything this year, it is that digital marketing is no longer “new media” but “now media”. If you don’t hear the bells of INTEGRATION ringing every time your charity talks marketing, then start training yourself now.

Don’t wait around for Keanu to save you, speed up your marketing bus and bridge the gap of dollars and resources with some expertly developed integrated strategy.

How should you start? Easy, start with the people you know: your personal digital network.