Tag Archive for 'presentation'

New on SSIR: Organizations and Individuals Fundraising in Social Media

Published in events, fundraising and presentation. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I have a new post up on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog and I’d love to hear your thoughts!  You can read the full post and comment on the SSIR blog or be part of the conversation below.

Last month, I presented at the NCVO Foresight seminar: Changing ICT – what does it mean for your charity with a focus on the future of online revenue generation for nonprofit organizations.  What’s most interesting to me within the nonprofits-in-social-space is the difference between organization-driven and individual-driven fundraising (and other promotion) campaigns.  Social media is a space where the individual reigns, relationships are required, and conversations are public.  That’s not exactly the way business normally goes down offline.  And it has real impact on the way organizations fundraise.

Online, the process and attributes that succeed are traits you’d normally associate with an individual: authenticity, relationships, conversations, etc. Organizations should recognize the need for being “real” online and can honor that by, for example, putting in the profile information of organizational presences who is actually speaking from that account, sharing information, resources and links that aren’t only associated with the organization, and responding to people online to have conversations in public (even put a smiley face in there while you’re at it!).  When it comes to fundraising and the options available to individuals to campaign on your behalf online, think of the differences this way:

Offline: you would never have someone that has never met any staff of the organization, or even know where the organization is located, become so excited about the work it’s doing that he or she creates an annual campaign to raise funds on the organizations behalf and then goes through with it each year.

Online: that is already happening with people who use applications like Causes in facebook, which encourages users to fundraise each year on their birthday via their Birthday Cause tool (individuals select an organization, ask their facebook friends to give donations instead of presents, and the funds get distributed to the organization).

Offline: you would probably not have someone who’s had no physical connection with your organization be so excited about your work that they design and produce their own fliers about your work and then canvass their local community to raise awareness or your programs.

Online: that’s exactly what people are doing when they become a fan of your organization on facebook (adding your icon to their profile), add your twibon to their Twitter avatar (a little logo that is placed over the user’s picture), or even when sharing links or messages about your organization (even ones that you didn’t create) with their social networks.

So, how do you respond?

Like I said at the beginning, it’s important for organizations to move into the social media space using the processes that are accepted and successful, with the focus on being transparent and real, and so on.  Some key questions to ask yourself include:

  • If people are supporting you by directly connecting with you on different social media platforms, what are you doing to encourage them to connect with you in a space where you have access to the data? (You can’t access your friends on facebook if the platform is down for maintenance, let alone if it goes down permanently!)
  • If people are fundraising for you online, do you know about it? (Start looking for it!)
  • If people are fundraising for you online, are you saying ‘thank you’ to the fundraisers and to the donors?
  • If people are giving to you online on different social media platforms, are you encouraging them to connect with you directly so you can encourage them to give again later?
  • How are you showing your gratitude for the hard work of your supporters (“volunteer” means something very different online!) online?

What do you think?

In this very different space for organizations, how has your organization adapted to the online culture and opportunities?  Do you have any tips or examples from your social media presences or campaigns to share?

You can review the slides from my whole presentation, as well as all of the speaker notes, here.

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Visit the SSIR blog to comment, or leave your thoughts below!

Published on January 8, 2010 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

The Future of Online Revenue Generation for Charities

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Today, I’m presenting at the NCVO Foresight seminar: Changing ICT – what does it mean for your charity? My session focuses on the pretty obtuse topic of ‘the future of online revenue generation for charities.’  I’m really looking forward to the conversations and examples that emerge after the main presentation and think there will be enough diversity in the participants (at least looking at the delegate list…) to get some debate and forecasting flowing.

Here are my slides:

The Future of Online Revenue Generation for Charities

If you want to dive into the speaker notes, simply click through to the Slideshare presentation here and use the “Notes on Slide” tab beneath the slides.

Some of the research data and other information can be found in detail here:

Last week I participated in NCVO’s ‘Ask the Expert’ leading up to the seminar and you can check out the Q/A here.

Published on December 8, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

NCVO Ask the Expert: They asked me!

Published in interview and resources. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I’m looking forward to being a speaker this Tuesday (8 December) at the Seminar: Changing ICT – What does it mean for your organisation? put on by the NCVO.  In preparation for my involvement at the seminar I’m participating in the NCVO’s “Ask the Expert” – an opportunity for NCVO members to pose questions and get answers prior to the main event.  I don’t consider myself to be an expert and don’t necessarily think there could be “experts” in a field that changes every day!  But I do love to share my ideas and experience with others and hope this is an opportunity to start many new conversations both with readers here and participants at the seminar.  Here goes!

Some people are beginning to use twitter for adverts…and doing ‘paid tweets’ Is this going against the whole ethos of SM and especially Twitter, when authenticity is the key?” -Claire

I’ll be posting my slides and speaking notes on Tuesday for my session on the topic of “the future of online revenue generation for charities.”  More to come on this question then!  For more:

“I work in a small organisation and have heard a lot about web 2.0 and social media but have not thought it through in relation to my organisation. What are the key things we should think about if we are going to use social media?” -Jenny

To start with, remember that social media isn’t one of your projects or mission areas.  Social media is a tool for you to use to help you achieve your mission.  Including various social media tools in the way you do your work (whether it’s communications, fundraising, outreach, volunteer recruitment or service delivery) comes from strategically identifying the right tools for the right things.  Key questions to ask include: who is your audience? where are they online already and how do they want to interact with you online (is it in the same spaces or different ones, is it conversations or promotion, etc.)?  One you know who you are interacting with, why you want to interact with them, and why they would want to interact with you, choosing the appropriate platforms or tools to do it is much easier.  For more:

“How do you convince technophobes and people who are resistant (or a bit afraid) of the value of social media tools?” -Ellie

I have looked resistance in the face, many times.  When it happens, I always take a deep breath and remember that the resistance isn’t particular to me or to social media.  The resistance for your organization, staff, leadership or board is probably the same that would come if you presented opportunity for any kind of change.  Change is, far too often, scary.  The best thing to do, then, is to show why it isn’t scary but necessary!  If you’ve set up any social media experiments of your own, either representing yourself or the organization, measure your work and the success to share back (how has using those tools increased volunteers, grown your email list, saved you time on promotion, etc.).  If you don’t have any examples to use of your own, look at what others are doing in social media that are in your same sector, geographic location or interest area and use their examples (many organization are public about the work they do in social media, check their blog and see if they share their own case studies).  For more:

“Can you give an example of how a voluntary organization has used Social media effectively to engage with their supporters to generate income for their campaign/cause?” -Claire

There are many different examples out there, ranging from small organization fundraising locally to organizations leveraging the global community for change.  Twestival and Tweetsgiving are relevant and recent with many different people coming together to make them happen.  The difference with using social media for fundraising is that your organization may not even be involved anymore, the way it was offline.  I could create a fundraising page or campaign for your organization, maybe tie it into my running a marathon or my birthday, and would never need to ask your permission, get your information, or even handle the funds!  Social media enables individuals to become your fundraising department, as well as your communications department, etc.  The best tip I can give in this regard is to make sure you put enough information out that people can support you the way they want (don’t get mad that people have the wrong mission statement about your organization, just send them the correct one and say “thanks!” for supporting us; and make sure your real one is prominent to begin with, like on your profiles in social media platforms and so on).  For more:

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    About ‘Ask the Expert’

    “Ask the expert” is a new benefit for NCVO Members. They can ask questions to experts in the voluntary sector and to NCVO advisors.

    About NCVO

    NCVO is a highly effective lobbying organisation and represents the views of its members, and the wider voluntary sector to government, the European Union and other bodies. We are also at the leading edge of research into, and analysis of, the voluntary sector.  We campaign on generic issues affecting the voluntary sector, such as the role of the voluntary organisations in public service delivery and the future of local government. Learn more about the NCVO here.

    Published on December 6, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

    Social Media, Nonprofits, and the Role of Individuals

    Published in presentation. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

    This morning I had the pleasure (and some anxiety, to be honest) of presenting to the SANGONeT Conference taking place this week and next in South Africa.  My presentation includes some brief highlights from research done in the US and the UK around social media use by nonprofit organizations (including the Nonprofit Social Networking Survey and the eCampaigning Report).  I also use a story of a friend and colleague, Leah Williams, to help highlight the role individuals play in moving and informing the social media strategy and practice of their organizations (her story of discovering social media tools on her own and applying her knowledge and experiences to social media application for the Women’s Resource Center).

    You can view the slides below or view the PDF w/ Speaker Notes for more information about the slides.

    Social Media, Nonprofits, and the Role of Individuals

    What do you think?

    I’d love to hear your stories about how you’ve used social media on your own, discovered something that could work for your organization and made it happen!  I’d also love to hear any questions you have or other ideas you want to share!

    Published on October 15, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

    NTEN Webinar: Social Media Building Blocks

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    NTEN & TechSoup have teamed up to deliver a series of webinars on storytelling and social media – and I’m the presenter for the first one!

    First, what’s a web-inar?

    Wikipedia says:

    A webinar is a neologism to describe a specific type of web conference. It is typically one-way,[1] from the speaker to the audience with limited audience interaction, such as in a webcast. A webinar can be collaborative[1] and include polling and question & answer sessions to allow full participation between the audience and the presenter. In some cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen and the audience can respond over their own telephones…

    Social Media Building Blocks

    Is sharing really caring?  Well, it can at least boost your internal staff knowledge and your positioning as a resource in the community!

    In this webinar we’ll discuss the fundamentals of sharing information with social media tools.  You don’t have to know how to do this already to take part—this is for those just starting out!  We’ll cover social bookmarking, tagging, RSS and more, plus the tools you can start using for free to do it all.

    More Information and Register Now!

    How you can join

    I will be posting my slides on SlideShare and this blog after the event to continue the conversation started during the webinar.  I’m really looking forward to it and have already started putting together some slides and ideas.

    If you have questions you want answered, ideas you want to discuss, or tools you want included, just let me know!

    Click here for more information about the webinar and to register!

    Published on December 23, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

    What is NPTech?

    Published in community and events. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

    Yesterday I had a very fun opportunity to be one of the speakers for Mark Your Mark’s Social Media Afternoon, a casual event for staff members to come together to learn about and discuss ideas, trends, tools and more relating to social media.  I answered, very briefly, the question, “What is NPTech?”

    Here are my slides:

    MakeYourMark-NPTech

    View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: change media)

    To share or not to share

    The main conversation focused on publicly sharing information vs trying to keep information private (whether it’s reports, data, strategy or even success/failure of projects/campaigns).  Some conversations point include:

    • The culture of sharing in the NPTech community is what creates the most value
    • Everyone wins when you share, discuss, create opportunities to learn
    • Mistakes are the most important part of charting new territory, need to talk about them
    • Sharing takes place formally and informally: presentations at conferences or in reports, online in blogs, in collaborative spaces like wiki, webinars, and so on
    • Keeping information private means lots of groups reinvent the wheel without knowing it
    • Not talking about mistakes mean more and more time, capacity, and money wasted with groups doing the same things wrong

    Why social change fits with social media

    Social change relies on communities coming together (whether they are geographic, issue, cause, or characteristic based) to make a profound difference on our world.  Social media allows people to come together online in new ways; the tools are only useful, fun, and successful when used as part of a community (how fun is it to use Facebook without any friends?).  Thus, tools that create community are great for communities making change.

    Twitter

    During the presentation, I was asked about Twitter; specifically what tools I like to use.  I get this question a lot.  My two main Twitter tools are:

    • Twhirl:  I like Twhirl because I can launch a window for both my personal and organizational accounts at the same time, let it run and update constantly whether I am reading it or not (unlike having to visit and then refresh a browser over and over), and let it alert me to replies, direct messages, etc. so I can be as much a part of the conversation as I want throughout the day.
    • Tweetscan:  Sometimes I’m just too busy to give Twitter all the attention it may want :) That’s why I like Tweetscan.  I can set up alerts for different words, like Google Alerts, and have it email me a round up so I can reply when I need to and not miss important opportunities to connect other users to information I may have.

    Would have loved to have you all there for Social Media Afternoon!

    Let’s keep the conversation going here – what do you think about the world of NPTech (the community that has made a tag a self-identifier) or about social media and social change?

    Published on December 12, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

    Online Engagement: London Fundraising Summit

    Published in events and fundraising. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

    Today was the second day of the London Fundraising Summit from the Center for Nonprofit Success.  I presented with Jonathan Waddingham, the Charity Champion at JustGiving.org, about online engagement and fundraising.  It was a three-hour session and we could have gone all day!  Great attendees, conversations, and learning taking place.

    Jonathan’s presentation focused on some great examples of nonprofits using a range of social media tools.  My presentation concentrated on the why and how side of things, including some examples from the e-Nonprofit Benchmarks report.  You can see Jonathan’s slides here.  After our presentations, we had a few rounds of small group activities with short scenarios and prompts calling on the new online engagement and fundraising ideas Jonathan and I talked about.  The groups did an excellent job creating strategies for engaging their fake organizations’ communities.  Thanks so much to everyone who was there!

    Here is my presentation:

    Lfs Online Fundraising Preso Asw

    View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: engagement fundraising)

    Here is the PDF version with all my speaker notes:

    LFS Online Fundraising PDF Asw
    View SlideShare document or Upload your own. (tags: engagement fundraising)

    My main points included:

    Conversations = Conversions

    • shouting rarely works!
    • two way conversation empowers your constituents and the larger community to:
      - give you feedback when things are bad
      - give you praise when they are happy
      - ask questions
      - get involved
    • two way conversations also turn your staff into real people.
    • if a conversation is taking place online and you aren’t there to hear it, does it still happen?  YES!
    • by putting yourself and your organization online, you can be part of the conversation that is already taking place.

    Management = Messages

    • people are all different, even if they are all interested in your organization.  what they want to do for you, how they want to hear from you, what they plan to say about you and even how they want to support you.
    • comprehensive donor/volunteer/constituent management software will let you track, trace, separate
      and sort your members.
    • better messages means more messages, but not drastically different.  just enough so that your online
      activists have something they can do when they get an email from you, your donors can donate, your
      supporters can spread the word, and your lurkers can keep hanging on.

    Testing

    • testing can be small scale to large scale – really just depends on your budget, your time, and your staff capacity.
    • start small and in-house and see how much you can learn right away
    • try changing simple things with small groups: subject lines, images, calls to action, etc.

    If you were at the session today, what questions did you leave with?  What conversations helped you the most?

    Published on September 25, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 Comments