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Whether you are part of a nonprofit organization, an action campaign, a local community, or a school, you know that it is through stories you can showcase your work, change people’s minds, inspire them to make change, or join you to make a difference. As we all continue exploring the vast horizons of the internet and the social tools it offers, be sure to check out the applications that help you continue telling stories with the power of video, maps and more. Here are four that currently have my vote – please share yours!

1. Historypin

Historypin is a new (and free) application for Android, iPhone, or the web that arranges photos, videos, and text in the context of time and location (leveraging the Google Maps API). Ever since it launched earlier this summer, I haven’t been able to stop using it both to learn and to share. For example, when I travel to a new neighborhood or city, I open the app as I walk down the street to explore photos and stories of my exact location across history. I also have been taking photos of buildings and locations and sharing them back to the community to continue documenting the world around us. The potential for how organizations can use a tool like this is endless – the ability to easily and accessibly put together your stories and content with the locations where it all takes place is so exciting! Be sure to check it out for yourself or watch this video to take a tour.

2. Animoto

Animoto isn’t a new tool, but it is still in my top five. And for good reason: I love tools that help make quality content and storytelling something that all of us can create. With Animoto, you can put together photos, slides, and text with audio and video to create a compelling story from all the various elements you may have created separately or gathered at an event. There are terrific examples I’ve seen, like Epic Change’s Tweetsgiving campaign video, and you can previous more examples on the Animoto website. Bonus: nonprofits can apply to get Animoto Pro for free!

3. Posterous

When it comes to sharing stories, we all have our preferred methods of how to post, and where, and even who to share with each time. Posterous is a blogging tool, that is really so much more. You can, as with traditional blogs, have a site that shares your posts with the world. You can also create groups to share privately across a team, and organization, or a network. Plus, you can add authors to a blog to be sure it isn’t just you that’s responsible for posting. The best part is that you can post in a manner of ways: from the platform, from your email, from your phone, etc. This way, you can build community amongst your volunteers with a private group for sharing lessons, build momentum during a campaign with all your organizers posting to one stream, or create a dynamic blog for your organization with all kinds of media and posts. Oh, and it even has auto-posting so when you’re spending your time creating change, you don’t have to remember to cross post to Twitter! Check it out and see if it’s right for your team.

4. Storify

Have you been to an event or conference where many people were tweeting highlights from speakers and taking photos, but then when you searched for the content there was just SO much of it? With Storify, you can search across multiple social platforms and pull together the content that’s of interest, as well as add additional text, to create a story (whether it’s a recap of an event or a chat, or highlights from the news) that’s shareable and includes voices from across the community. You can also use it to pull together content you and your organization have shared across the web to tell the story of your work. You do need a Twitter account to use it. Even if you don’t have an event or campaign going today, try out Storify with a topic of interest or just use “#nptech” to pull together content from the nonprofit technology sector. Give it a go!

5. Bonus: Instagram

I couldn’t include this one in the main list since Instagram is only available for iPhone users at this time, so I’ve added it as a bonus. I am an Adroid user, but all of my friends with iPhones have great feedback about this application that allows you to take photos, apply filters, and share all from your phone. There are also complimentary tools like Tweegram to add Twitter text to your Instagram timeline. I definitely think there’s potential here for building out features and opening up the application, as with anything, if the community calls for it. So join me in saying, “I’ll try that, please!”

Looking for more resources for turning your organization’s stories into digital engagement? Want to check out examples from other organizations already testing and learning? Be sure to visit TechSoup Global’s digital storytelling section for webinar archives, blog posts, and chat archives!

What are your favorite tools or tips for telling the story of your work and impact online? Be sure to share links to the tools you love so others can check them out!

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Over on the NetSquared platform right now we are in the midst of the 2010 FACT Social Justice Challenge. NetSquared supports the community at the intersection of technology and social impact in a few ways, including open innovation competitions. We are very invested in sharing our experiences and learning as we go, including opportunities to put thoughts together formally like the whitepaper on collaboration we published last year.  I serve as the Community Development Manager for TechSoup Global’s CDI (Community-Driven Innovation) program, which includes managing community and content strategy for NetSquared.org.  In this role, and through opportunities to spur innovation and collaboration in local communities, with government groups, and with other nonprofits, I’ve learned a lot – and am excited to share 5 tips I’ve found to be valuable in creating successful competitions.

Tip #1: Set the stage

The more information you can provide before you open your competition up for submissions, the better! This doesn’t mean you need to be promoting the competition as much as it means you have ample resources already on your website, blog, group, or wherever you’re hosting the challenge, so that people looking to learn more can do so without emailing you! Things to consider include:

• About: Landing page that provides important dates, basic overview of the concept and purpose, and mentions prizes, partners and so on.
• FAQ: page with as many questions and answers as possible; when you’re creating this page, get a friend or family member (preferably someone not intimately aware of your work) to review the landing page and what you have on the FAQ to provide you with more ideas or questions to cover.
• How to Participate: this page should be written specifically for the target audience and provide as much information as possible about who should and how to participate. Remember to also provide opportunities for people to promote or support your competition like links to your social media outlets and ready-to-use messages.

Tip #2: Pay attention

Are people having trouble participating? Are people talking about the competition (negatively or positively)? Are people participating or not? Does it seem to be reaching the community you hoped?

These are just a few of the questions to consider in real time. Listening and paying attention will help you adjust quickly – whether it’s adding more information on the FAQ page, understanding difficult aspects of participation and finding ways to improve them, or simply understanding what those outside your organization think of your efforts.

Tip #3: Operate in public

The idea of “operating in public” is a concept I recommend often, especially when talking about community building and community “management.” The idea is that to build trust, reinforce dedication, and show authentic engagement, you need to operate in public using the same tools that your community has access to. Here are a few ways to do this, for example:

• Respond to questions and comments publicly whenever possible
• If members ask a question on Twitter, respond on Twitter, and so on
• If members have access to a community blog, use the same space for your announcements
• Be honest and public about changes or modifications to the site, programs, or services before the changes are made

Tip #4: Be prepared to change

You can never get everything right, no matter how hard you try. Expect that you’ll find bugs or problems, or even things that aren’t bad but just ways to be even better, only after you’ve invited your community in. And then expect that they will be the ones to point out the issues and things to change. Take the finger-pointing as opportunities to fix things in real time! If people are consistently having trouble finding the FAQ page, for example, look for additional places to post the link (maybe you have it in the footer but you could try listing it at the top of the page, too).  Ensure that you have staff capacity ready to jump in and fix things as they emerge – it’ll show that you’re listening and paying attention, as well as dedicated to making the user experience as positive as possible.

Tip #5: Keep things in perspective

I grew up being reminded that even if I ran as fast as I could and got first place in a track meet, that someone else, maybe at another school or in another city, was faster than me. It may sound harsh and negative, but it wasn’t. It was keeping things in perspective that I can always get better. That all of us can always get better.

So, whether things are going really well, or not as well as you had hoped: remember that you have the opportunity to improve next time! No matter what you do, someone will complain. And no matter how poorly you think things are going, there will be someone who says thank you. You won’t position yourself or your organization very well for growth if you don’t stay positive and keep things in perspective. We’re all learning as we go!

Seeing it in action:

For an example of all 5 of these tips in action, I posted on the NetSquared Community Blog earlier this week with a list of some of the feedback (mostly bad) that we had received from users taking part in the Community Vote phase of the FACT Challenge. I provided responses or explanation, as well as notes about how we had used the feedback to improve the voting process right away. We saw a marked decrease in the number of emails after publishing on the blog because we provided a way for users to see responses to their questions before writing us, and showed that we really were listening and in it together with the community.

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What do you think?

Has your organization run a competition online or offline? What tips would you share from your experience? Have you found any of the tips above to be helpful in your work? We’d love to hear your examples!

[Photo Credit: Flickr tableatny]

Last year, my friend and colleague Debra Askanase posted her responses to frequently used objections to using social media that she was fielding from clients. It was a great start to conversations about what fears or misconceptions still exist about using social media in nonprofit organizations. Taking that conversation as a lead, I would love to examine objections and corresponding responses around collaboration (within organizations and across organization/sectors/geographies). Collaboration is one of my focus areas to explore this year so I hope this will be the start to an evolving conversation!

What are the objections to collaboration at your organization?

Some of the general objections that I’ve experienced firsthand and know others have heard time and again as well, include:

Collaboration is great in theory but doesn’t work in practice.

When I get this objection, it’s usually rooted in the fact that potential partners don’t share a definition of what collaboration is or how it works. There are so many buzzwords in our sector, or words that used to have a meaning but are now used so often and in so many diverse contexts that it’s hard to keep them straight. I have a definition of what collaboration means to me, but that may not be what it is to someone I’m collaborating with!

It’s incredibly important to define:

• what your particular collaboration includes and how it operates (including the work no one wants to do, as well as accountability for all partners)
• how it benefits partners
• how all contributors actually contribute
• how those benefiting (both the contributors and whomever is being served) will be informed, involved and empowered to be part of sustainability

The collaboration not working in practice all comes back to the definition and setting up a collaboration that will work in the first place!

Collaboration just means more work without any added value.

This statement is one I separate into two parts: Firstly, when anything requires that the way you work changes, sure, it can mean “more work.” The first step here is to create processes within your organization that are collaborative by nature so that when any new projects (whether they are collaborations—with other orgs, etc.— or not) emerge, doing them in a collaborative way does not actually create new/more work. The second half of the statement addresses the culture or mindset of those involved, believing that collaboration does not create a more valuable product than going it alone. Regardless of whether the project or work in question is contained within your organization, your physical community, or across the sector/world, collaborating with all those who have a stake in the outcome and the success of the project can ONLY create a more valuable outcome and process. A great voice on this subject is Hildy Gottlieb and her book, The Pollyanna Principles.

Collaboration means we’ll do the work and not get the credit.

This is a response that always goes straight to my heart. When it comes to social change and community impact work, who gets the credit for projects or successes is sadly still part of the picture. The newspaper or the blog will pick up the story when an organization or company pushes out word that they’ve done something great. Not often do you hear a story that simply says, “this place is better because of so many people coming together to make it that way!” Partly, a little, that’s okay. If there wasn’t any credit then many groups wouldn’t have that last bit of incentive to get involved. But, who gets credit can’t be what holds you back from collaborating with others to make the most, widest, deepest impact possible.

Something I like to encourage when this is a constraining issue, is for groups to create a new title that the collaboration or partnership can use to describe the work. This will get rid of the quibbles over who’s name is first, who’s logo listed at top, etc. Participating groups can unite under the shared title and the work can be credited to that name, one defined by all those contributing.

Lastly, what’s most exciting for someone that works at the intersection of social change work and technology is the emergence of many tools, platforms and online spaces that actually support collaboration.  And, like social media in general, using social tools for your collaborative work means it’s far more transparent – and all that credit is visible all the time

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Those are just three examples to get you started – but really, this is a conversation! What are objections to collaboration that you have heard or responded to? And what’s the comeback line?

Looking forward to your ideas!

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Thanks again to Allyson Kapin and the Frogloop blog for providing this fun opportunity to guest post!