Tag Archive for 'research'

Great reads from around the web on January 13th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of January 13th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • Transformative Collaboration « Alison & Associates – Alison Rapping has a terrific, comprehensive blog post today all about jump starting collaborations. It's a must-read! "Collaboration. It was the hottest “buzz word” of the last decade — And if you ask ten people to describe it, you could get ten very different answers. Collaborations are going to be a driving force in building stronger relationships and stronger communities. In the new decade we are in the “perfect collaboration storm:” energy around our “community visions”, enormous critical community needs, myriad of new nonprofit organizations, and desire for greater impact. This can only happen if we work together. Our community is whole and interconnected; we can’t create a powerful vision in silos."
  • Zoetica: Connecting Organizations with Their Networks – Congrats to Beth Kanter, Geoff Livingston and Kami Watson Huyse on the launch of their new adventure: Zoetica! "Zoetica serves nonprofits and socially conscious companies with top-tier, word-of-mouth communication services. A social enterprise, Zoetica provides superior communication consulting, training, and strategy to help mindful organizations affect social change."
  • GreatNonprofits: Find non-profits and charities to review, donate, or volunteer. – "GreatNonprofits and Guidestar want to hear about the great nonprofits providing job training or job placement in your communities. Tell us about YOUR experience – how are these organizations having an impact? Which ones are great? Which ones need improvement? Participate in this campaign to recognize the top-rated nonprofits developing your community through job training or job placement." Deadline: January 31, 2010
  • Surprise! Only 5% of Websites Have a Twitter or Facebook Link – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "Factual, an “open data repository” analyzed 4 million websites via data from Common Crawl, a non-profit group designed to crawl the web and provide data for anyone to use." Check out the stats highlighted by Allyson Kapin in this short but interesting post!
  • Nominees for the Osocio’s Best Campaign of 2009 announced – Osocio, Social Advertising and Non-profit Campaigns – "Osocio is happy to announce a list of ten nominees for the Osocio’s Best Campaign of 2009 award. Osocio has started selecting best campaigns featured on our blog, because we want to put the most creative and innovative social ads into spotlights. So that non-profit organizations can learn and benefit from these best practices. This is the Top 10 list of the best social campaigns featured on Osocio in 2009. One of these campaigns will become the Osocio’s Best Campaign of 2009."
Published on January 13, 2010 by Amy Sample Ward. 5 Comments

Great reads from around the web on November 25th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of November 25th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • E-Commerce News: Customer Loyalty: If You Build a Branded Online Community, Will Customers Come? – "Despite the enormous popularity of peer-to-peer social networking, the adoption cycle for branded online communities has been relatively slow. That a growing number of consumer brands are transforming their existing static Web sites into interactive online communities is a trend that is not only recent, but also rapidly accelerating." What do you think? Do you have a branded online community for your organization or project? How did you ensure participation and membership?
  • ProjectRSS for describing projects (part of the Open Philanthropy effort) – I've recently come across this project from John Brennan (@worldlyjohn on Twitter) and am interested in what you all think about it! "Open source software exists in the computer industry. Open architecture exists in the construction industry. Yet only recently has there been a push for standards in communication of the philanthropic industry. The time is now. Open Philanthropy is about sharing. Open Philanthropy is about community. Open Philanthropy is about working together to increase the size of the proverbial pie (not the piece)."
  • The Report | Think Social – "This is a first draft of a longer effort dedicated to the study and advancement of developments in social media in the public interest that enable people to write history by acting online. It features concept definitions and examples for ten trends that we believe are shaping the use of social media in the public interest. We have compiled this list through interviews with public- and private-sector leaders; analysis of initiatives, organizations and government programs; reviews of industry and mainstream news coverage; and submissions from thousands of online participants."
  • Five Social Media Fundraising Trends for 2009 – Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media – "Over the past six months, I've been collaborating on a book with Allison Fine, titled "The Networked Nonprofit" and we've been sifting through stories, research, and seeing many patterns. So for this post, I'd like to share 5 fundraising trends that we saw emerging in 2009 related to fundraising and social media and that will most definitely continue to have impact in 2010."
  • Miro Community – "Miro Community lets you bring together all the videos about a topic, a community, or product into one elegant website, no matter where the videos are hosted." GetMiro.com is an open-source, non-profit video player and podcast client, check out the tool here: http://getmiro.com
Published on November 25, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Social Media, Nonprofits, and the Role of Individuals

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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

Back to School, Back Online

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This post originally written September 8, 2009.  Posted on Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Opinion blog.  Visit the original post here.

It’s back-to-school time for many countries and that means a switch from summer programs, outdoor community events, and many youth campaigns.  New research out today from nfpSynergy shows that organizations who serve youth may want to be going online to reach them.

The Research

nfpSynergy, a leading nonprofit sector think-tank and research consultancy in the UK, “tracks a representative sample of over 1000 11-25 year olds throughout mainland Britain twice-yearly, gaining insights into their views and habits, both social and charity-related” in its Youth Engagement Monitor.  The newest report, out today, focused on the use of social networking platforms by young people who are/aren’t also involved with charities.  (Read the full press release here or download the Social Media data slides here.) Some of the results include:

  • Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site amongst young people – used by over 7 in 10 (72%) of all 11-25 year olds; rising to 80% of 17-25 year olds, those of college/university age – and to 83% of those who are currently at, or who have already been to, university.
  • Amongst 11-25 year olds, Facebook is trailed by Bebo (28%), MySpace (25%), Twitter (12%), MSN (9%), YouTube (2%) and “other” (4%)
  • Those involved regularly with charities are far more likely to use such social media than those who are not, with four fifths (79%) of those claiming regular charitable involvement using Facebook, compared with just 69% of those claiming no involvement
  • Bebo is the only major networking site to be more popular amongst 11-16 year olds (35%) than amongst 17-25 year olds (24%)
  • Female respondents reported a significantly higher usage across all the top 4 networking sites

Despite this, less than half (48%) of the 187 charities that were surveyed as part of nfpSynergy’s Virtual Promise (2008) report said that their organization used social networking websites.

What It Means

First, what the research does not mean: Don’t jump into Facebook immediately!  It’s easy for organizations, especially ones with small staff sizes and lots, and lots on the growing “to do” lists to see stats or research like this and automatically say, “Okay, then we should be on Facebook and it’ll solve all of our youth engagement problems.” Or, maybe not that statement exactly, but close to it.  This data does confirm many thing we already knew: that most young people are using social networking platforms of one kind or another, that females are more likely to use networking tools than males, etc.  It also shows that those young people who are engaged or involved with charities are also those using social networking tools. But, it does not say that they want to engage with charities in social networking platforms or, if they do, how they want that connection to start and continue.

So, if your organization serves or engages with youth and you want to think about moving into social networking spaces, here are a few pointers to help you get started!

No running in the halls!

There’s no point rushing into things, so give yourself the time to think strategically about how you want to use social networking platforms in your organization’s work and how it best fits with what you are doing now and the goals you want to achieve.  If you are thinking of using Facebook, for example, you will want to consider whether you want to create an individual account, or Fan page, or a group; each platform has it’s own options for how organizations could be represented and each option has different ways that other users would be able to interact.  You also want to consider which young people you want to connect with: as noted above, different ages may use different platforms; there’s lots of research also discussing the different regions or nationalities using each platform, as well as socioeconomic groups (check out Danah Boyd’s recent dissertation on the way teenagers use social networks!).

Secrets, secrets are no fun!

Regardless of which platform/s you decide to use, remember to be authentic and transparent. No one likes secrets!  Young people you are trying to connect with online (anyone, really) will judge you by your profile information: does it say who you are, which individuals at the organization may be speaking on behalf of the organization via the account? does it give your contact information outside of the social network (website, email, blog, or address)?  how about information – if you provide mental health services, for example, post information about how to get help if you need it, or how to help a friend, and so on. All this will help to make your profile more reliable and trustworthy, as well as put information out into a social space where youth could come across it without necessarily looking for your organization specifically.

Going to Johnny’s party?

The parties, the dances, the school events, they all helped shape many of the memories from being school-aged.  There’s no reason to leave them out of your plan for connecting with young people in social networks!  Create opportunities and events that bring people together online and offline – these activities can help move people up the ladder of engagement, get them volunteering or advocating for your organization, using your services or helping promote them.  Plus, social networking is all about connecting with friends, new and old; if your organization is a catalyst for community by connecting those who are affected or interested in the causes you work on, it will be easier to round up participation for your campaigns (on or offline) and find more supporters to help push your mission and work forward.  So, throw a party or two, and have fun!

What do you think? Are you an organization that works with young people, and are you using social networking sites to connect with them? What lessons or examples do you want to share?

Comment here, or visit the original post at SSIR here.

Published on September 19, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Nonprofit Economic Survey from GuideStar

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GuideStar, an organization that gathers and publishes data on charitable organizations, recently conducted a survey looking to measure impact of the economic downturn on nonprofits.

As GuideStar explains,

“We’ve got good news and bad news.” The old joke fits the findings from our latest nonprofit economic survey, which looked at how charitable organizations fared financially between March and May 2009. The good news is that the proportion of nonprofits reporting decreased contributions, 52 percent, remained unchanged from our previous survey, which covered October 2008 through February 2009. So things apparently didn’t worsen dramatically for charitable organizations between March and May.

The bad news is that the numbers don’t reflect the stress the economy is placing on nonprofits. As one participant put it, “We are hanging on, barely.” Another reported, “The only reason we are still solvent is that we had a financial crisis and could no longer pay our utility bill. After media coverage of the situation, we were inundated with generosity and kindness, and the donations covered the utility bill and the excess paid off outstanding bills, with a little cushion for the future. We were very fortunate. We realize this is a one-time deal, but it has put us back on our feet.”

What’s significant to me? The fact that on every dataset the numbers are nearly exactly the same as the previous year.  Maybe this means those polled were in positions to have a buffer from the downturn; maybe it means that the real impact will show up in the 2010 surveys; or maybe it means that the effects of the downturn aren’t playing out the way speculators thought.

Check out the numbers and results here.

What do you think?  Has your organization seen more significant changes in it’s funding or services “because” of the economic downturn?

Published on August 7, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments