Wendy Harman and Suzy DeFrancis, American Red Cross
David Smith and Michael Weiser, National Conference on Citizenship
Moderated by Kari Dunn, Case Foundation

Intro from Kari:

When the Case Foundation was first discussing with partners what they wanted to get out of the Summit, they talked about how to bridge the generational divide. Both of these organizations have both been able to figure out how to bring people together across ages, cultures, etc. We see a lot of attention on next generation leaders, but not on how they will change our institutions. The Red Cross has been around for 130 years and so much has changed – for example with text-to-give after disasters. It’s been met with fear and excitement. With NCC, both the chairman and the CEO were brought in on the same day – one at 27 and one 56 years old.

As part of the rising generation, what do you see as far as myths about Millennials?

Wendy: First, there’s this idea that Millennials want to go their own way and be outside institutions. But what we found was that they had much higher trust in institutions than genx and boomers. It is not so much a distrust, but more that they really want to be part of the change. There’s also the selfish factor. I’m guilty of calling our community on the social web selfish because what it means is that anything we put out, it needs to be useful for them. They need to take it with them.

David: There’s greater trust with Millennials than other generations. Are there really that many differences between generations? I just had the honor of being part of a new leaders group studying how different generations were leading in the work force and we found there were lots of differences between where people were in life. For example, if two people had just had kids, regardless of age, they had more similarities than just age. It also feels that sometimes genx is being forgotten in this conversations. The Millennial generation has more of the perspective that “the leader is me” instead of waiting for the world to change.

Kari: Carol Phillips wrote an article this morning suggesting that the differences in the work place may have less to go do with generational differences and more with trust. Perhaps there is more that connects us than divides us?

Suzy: I know many people think the boomers like structure in the work place, we are concerned with making money – but we were the age of Aquarius! In the work place, what I love about Millennials is that they seemed really focused on their passions, not necessarily their professions. THey can be given more free reign to do amazing things. But also some Millennials are running into the fact that you want to go after your passions but you have to make a paycheck. I agree though, that there isn’t a divide. As a boomer, we want to be more welcome to Millennials – we are revamping our intranet, etc.

David: I agree there are a lot of things about the nonprofit sector that are attractive to Millennials, but hopefully it continues to become more competitive with forprofits for actually making those paychecks. In the for profit world, though, there’s more leadership development. When you take on a job in a nonprofit, you’re normally doing a lot more than you signed for without a lot of structure. If we could do more to support that growth we could attract more Millennials.

Michael: For all their frustrations about unemployment, they should be frustrated. Millennials come to the work place more prepared to teach than previous generations. When you step in the door, you come prepackaged with skills you can share. Technological expertise and an understanding with social media others don’t know. The ability to teach, with patience, is essential. And I think where Millennials make the greatest impact is when they realize their capabilities to teach and that there’s an audience that wants to teach.

Wendy: I had the chance to talk to 10 Red Cross workers from across the country that are all Millennials yesterday and they all had stories about trying to teach colleagues and try to shift organizational culture. It was beautiful to see how much confidence they had but we are also still all learning.

Kari: I’m so glad you brought that up. For so many organizations that are participating in the Summit, you can see these things can work! What are the conversations that should be happening and what advice do you have for organizations on how to be the teacher?

Wendy: If nothing else, Millennials are collaborative. That works really well at the Red Cross. It’s been a fantastic journey to see the cultural shift mirroring the way business changes. I think collaboration and turning organizations inside out is the way organizations will operate in the future.

Suzy: Collaboration is the best skill someone can have. We have to collaborate across silos, organizations, other partners on the ground. You look around the world at the collaborations happening between organizations and governments, etc. Seeing Millennials with those skills is great. Though, you also have to have focus and structure and I think it’s some times frustrating for Millennials to bump up against not having their idea move forward.

David: I think that goes to different ways you can structure how you bring people together. I suggest creating inter-generational working groups that go from ideation to implementation. It helps learning about the process and learning from each other. And it creates informal and formal opportunities for mentorship. I think mentorship can happen both ways.

Michael: I think it does go both ways. There is no substitute for perspective of power of technology. Social scientists will debate impact and influence of social technologies for a long time. But in building a level of trust, particularly with a chairman 30 years senior, is all about an environment where you can learn. Don’t expect to snap your fingers and have people praise your brilliance. It takes the same sort of intrapersonal elbow grease that it always has. And that’s an important lesson to learn.

Kari: We would be remiss to not talk about the technology a bit. Share with us about a little insight about where you innovation and so on?

Wendy: If we take the text to give campaign, we saw a group of people – Millennials prefer to work together, not against each other and it really manifest in the test to give. What we saw was that by 9 pm on January 12th we were able to launch the program and for the next thee days people only found out about it from Twitter and facebook and so many shared it. We also had accountability and that’s what Millennials are expecting – we can share just what the impact of the $10 is. They want to feel that intimacy and belonging.

Suzy: You can only sell so much, community has to sell it for you. We really saw that with the tsunami and earthquake – when it happened, and we came to the office, we were already trending on Twitter and we hadn’t yet done anything. They are different tools from traditional media and we have to learn how to use it, and not just for marketing. It has to be with the community.

David: What we’ve seen as we moved from a brochure website to one where people could interact and post and learn, we saw the traffic going up 1000s of % a year. But we really saw a lot around our conference. Many are adding hashtags and so on, but we started streaming content and letting people engage online we found we were engaging 10-100 times more people than were in the room and we could actually listen to them. So we are pushing on that and trying to do more. How can you engage a wider audience that isn’t just the same audience?

Michael: Working around and against gatekeepers really seems to be the biggest obstacle to tackle.

Suzy: When we grew up learning to develop a message, and write talking points, and stay on message…and now we are in a world where messages are being shared out there and your message is being controlled by others.

Kari: I imagine there’s some jealousy, that they’ve figured it out and others are still big insittutions. What do you think organizations should be thinking about?

Wendy: I do this all day every day. To me, listening is the absolute most important thing to do. If you aren’t doing it, start it right away. One of the keys to our success is that over the last four years we have moved from part of communications to working with all staff. We are good now at explaining just what is happening on the ground anywhere at any moment. There’s a lot of opportunity there for any nonprofit to carry out their mission on the social web using the power of people and collaboration.

Suzy: DOn’t be afraid that you’re losing control, people want to part of your mission. Find opportunities for them to be part of your mission. It doesn’t always have to be “the Red Cross way” maybe they have something else they can do that we didn’t even know about it. You can’t be afraid to let others be involved in your work.

Michael: Appreciate the power of what new media can do, it requires you to think in three dimensional terms. The message is less important than the push and has to be something is authentic. But at the same time, the message is incredibly important because of it’s ability to reach so many people.

David: For people thinking structurally about engaging Millennials, I would say that one of the big questions out there is whether or not they are going to change things, etc. But finding a mentor and a champion, we were able to make things happen.

Michael: All of my partnerships have been with my contemporaries and now I have a great partnership with someone that is the age of my children. I can’t speak to the kinds of opportunities there are in transcending that.

Kari: Whether or not the panelists are Millennials or not.

Suzy: I’m a baby boomer and have raised 3 Millennials.

Wendy: I’m on the cusp of the genx and Millennials.

Michael: I’m definitely a baby boomer but have never self-identified that way, it’s not part of how I think of myself.

David: I’m a Millennial and I stand by it. I fought for the Millennial name back when people were calling us genY.

Kari: Hierarchy within organizaitons – is it a good thing or bad thing?

Suzy: I think it exists and I think for Millennials, learning to work within the hierarchy is important. Learning to work within structure is important but it doesn’t mean you don’t push for your ideas, etc. A bad example: Millennial was given a performance review, the next day her manager got a call from her mom saying that they could work together to get better performance from the child.

Wendy: I think traditional org structures are going to change and aren’t the best. I think we should look more at spoke and wheel and working across the organization.

Michael: I think human beings develop habits and affinities and express those across gender and ages etc. They come together out of their like-mindedness and the more you can enable that the more learning can take place.

David: I think Millennials are looking at themselves as their own brands and what they can bring to the organization and the world. As organizations realize how to get the most out of people, you’ll see more team-oriented structures.

Kari: How do you track text-based giving?

Wedny: it’s very difficult to track. People can opt-in to getting additional messages from us so we may get their phone number but that’s it.

Suzy: the payment is also different so people give right away but we get the funds once the phone bill goes through.

Kari: What do you see as the future for mobile giving and keeping those people?

Wendy: The trust I have is that the people that gave that way know how to use Google – we aren’t hard to find. I’m not trying to hound anyone to stick around. If we aren’t providing value, they won’t. So we have to relevant.

Kari: How do we move people from fear to collaboration?

Wendy: I think it’s through examples – sharing success stories. I’ve been doing this for 4.5 years now and there’s always been a fair amount of fear. Nothing bad has happened. But I think some great stuff has.

David: If you’re raising money and you say this is going to be a new way to do it, you have a bottom line. But when you’re looking at collaboration, you’re looking at what other positive externatlities can come from that. Is it a better project, a better work place, recruiting talent? Is your organizational culture shifting?

Michael: We publish the civic health index which essentially says does it work? do people respond? Our own work to figure what the impact is, we’ve had great response to do more.

Kari – thanks to everyone and please share via #MDS11

Location: London, UK (via video)

Topic: Online Campaigning and Co-Creation

Description:  This Third Sector Foresight seminar, run in collaboration with Campaigning Effectiveness, will focus on how charities and community groups will be campaigning in the future. We will also consider how changing expectations of participation might affect how organisations campaign in the future, and explore how this trend links to social media use.

Related Links:

• NCVO
• Event information
• Future Focus guide: What will campaigning will be like in 5 years’ time?
• Online discussion forum
• Video interview: Role of co-creation

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).

• 2009 Year-End Fundraising Guide – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – “Is your nonprofit sending out 8-10 online fundraising appeals this holiday season? According to Mark Rovner and Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies who led the recent webinar Procrastinator’s Guide to Year-End Fundraising with Kathryn Powers of Conservation International and moderated by Eric Rardin of Care2 and Rebecca Higman of Network of Good, this tactic has been helping organizations raise a lot of money. Nonprofits can expect 60% of their donations to come in between Christmas and New Year’s.”
• Public ‘want to know how money is spent’ – Third Sector – “More than half of the general public would donate more money to charity if they knew exactly how it was spent, a new survey of 2,000 people indicates. The research was carried out for donation website See the Difference, which will be launched next year. The data shows that 51 per cent of people would give more if they knew how their money was spent and 40 per cent would do so if they could actually see the difference their money was making.”
• Facebook Will Be Google-able (If Your Profile is Set to Public) – “At Google’s event today announcing a number of fantastic new features, including real-time search, a new partnership was announced: real-time search of public Facebook status updates. A Google/Twitter partnership was announced months ago but we assumed that Facebook wouldn’t be allowing Google to index many details of its site because the two are fast becoming big rivals. Thus today’s announcement is a very big surprise.”
• Does Directgov Deliver? – “Directgov (www.direct.gov.uk) is the Government’s official website for the general public. This discussion paper analyses how well Directgov delivers on its promise to consumers to ‘provide information and online services for the public all in one place’. The analysis is approached from a user’s perspective, and highlights the types of problems consumers frequently encounter with the service. It is intended to promote a debate, and at the end of each chapter, suggestions are made for rethinking key areas so that they can deliver more effective online public services. We want to hear your thoughts and ideas on this discussion paper so please add your comments in the ‘Your feedback’ section that appears on each page. The paper will be open to comment til the end of January 2010.”
• 20 Questions To Start a Social Media Discussion | Brand Elevation Through Social Media and Social Business | Altitude Branding – “Let’s make something clear: you can be the person that starts asking the questions and initiating the conversations that move social media forward. You. Sitting right there. Yes, you. I don’t care if you’re the marketing assistant, the PR coordinator, the customer service manager, the HR director, or the mailroom clerk. What it takes is the intent to be part of the progress, the bravery to start an open conversation, the maturity and patience to not make it personal, and the investment in the outcomes to take it a step further.”

What if I could start all my social media and nonprofits work over from scratch? What would I do differently? What lessons have I learned that will stick with me for 2008?

It has garnered some equally great responses. What would I say? Well…

1. Community is key – Talking to and talking with your community are two very different things. Asking questions, responding to answers, and seeking out connections really do make a difference.

2. Blogs are conversations and more – On a blog, you can deliver news and information, start and carry out conversations, and even provide “static” content. What does this really mean? Just as Britta Bravo explained, a blog can be your entire web site!

3. Social media tools assigned last – Forrester’s POST method is one of the best, and simplest, assets for nonprofits designing a social media strategy. I covered the POST method when it was first released and hope I can continue to use it to help make strategy design a less painful experience.

4. Stay optimistic – There is truly such a thing as information (or social media) overload. It is easy to get overwhelmed and walk, or rather run, away. Do not fear! If you stay optimistic and approach your social media strategy and usage calmly (and use the POST method!), you can have the patience to filter out the noise and hear the important conversations.

What lessons have you learned and what lessons do you hope to play by in 2008?

What is the workflow for an effective cause ..? Suppose your
organization wanted to work with an intern to manage the cause with you. What’s on the to do list? How should the staff person manage the intern?

My initial response was two fold:

1. Build discussion

This is achieved by creating posts and questions on the Cause page so that when people click through from a blog or an invitation to join the cause, they are able to see people engaged and learn more immediately, without having to do the research themselves if they are unfamiliar with the organization. Identifying the most active participants in the cause and asking them to post a question, or better yet, asking them to respond to a question posted by the intern would be a good first step to getting conversations started on the Cause page.

2. Link to discussion

This is simply a matter of finding blogs and websites posting about and inviting others to the Cause, then putting links to them on the Cause page and thanking them for their shared support. This cross referencing will add to the information/education on the organization and therefore more people supporting it, while at the same time creating an opportunity for more participants in the conversation.

What do you think? Is conversation, the opportunity to ask or see other’s questions and answers about the work of an organization, something that positively influences your participation and support?

Also, today is Earl Kanter‘s (86th) birthday and Beth is encouraging all of us to donate $10 to our Sharing Foundation cause to celebrate. You can join the Cause now, too!