Lessons and Opportunities for Supporting Technology Innovation

 In the innovation marketplace, adoption is the only currency that matters.

As the speed at which new ideas can step out on the stage continues to increase, it is less about finding a great idea and pitching it for support. Ultimately, it’s the adoption by the community that matters in the long-run, and now can be proven even in the short-term. The advantage of the technology sector is that even if it is rudimentary or preliminary functionality, you can expose a new idea/tool/app/platform to the community from the very beginning, getting their feedback and support. This can help prove the value and need, as well as begin the iteration and development with the community’s engagement from the beginning.

Look to fund projects, not products.

The infrastructure that supports new innovations and social enterprise requires capacity, just like any other organization. Likewise, what we have as far as a product on Day 1, could and should look different on Day 15 and Day 50 and Day 500. Funding projects instead of just a specific product ensures that organizations or teams can fail quickly and softly while working towards something better, can invest in research and evaluation, and engage the community not just market to them.

Recognize the role of technology across all our work.

Technology is a catalyst for data, analysis, scalability, effectiveness and efficiency. It is not something confined to an “IT department” any more as everyone (if we are looking at a nonprofit, for example, staff use the website, database, email marketing, etc.) can be harnessing technology to improve their work and impact. As such, we need to invest in raising the level of technology education and understanding across the social impact space so that the organizational catalysts, those in a nonprofit that are not in the IT department but would be the ones engaging with the community or program, have enough technological familiarity that they can recognize the value and opportunity for adopting a new application or tool and implementing it in their organization. After all, the potential to scale one entrepreneur or organization’s new application is hugely tied to the numbers of organizations and communities that can adopt it and spread it.

Focus on why, not if, something works.

To work on scale and replication of any tool, we have to understand why it is working now, not just whether it is or isn’t. Once we know why it is working, we can know if it is even able to scale or the success is tied too closely to the specific segment already engaged. We can also look at the why to understand the ecosystem for new or complimentary tools. Supporting analysis and evaluation may not sound as exciting to your board as funding a new tool, but it can be at least as important!

Let the community drive the innovations you want to support.

As it turns out, the community knows far more about itself than you do (unless you are actually part of that community, of course!). So, look for opportunities to be a catalyst, supporting an environment for the community to help itself. As a recent MIT study showed, communities were better able to align aid with those that needed it than objective measures were to assigning that same support, and they felt far better about it. The same has been true in my experience with supporting new technologies.

Debunking Myths About Funding Tech Innovation

After the panel remarks, there was some great discussion with questions from participants. One question was raised, and I want to share my response as it is something I’ve been asked by foundations and philanthropists before: what are the biggest mistakes funders can make when supporting tech innovation? I have three key myths to highlight:

“Money is Gold”

For many projects, money is obviously a key ingredient to staying afloat and going forward. But so often, supports (whether financial supporters or other sponsors/partners) overlook the power their endorsement carries. Sometimes what is really needed is a recommendation, or an introduction, or a stamp of approval publicly. When projects are small, involve people that haven’t yet “created something” to get their name out there, a few thousand dollars is important, but so is your support.

“History is Enough”

Just because some person created Facebook, doesn’t mean their next idea will be the “next Facebook.” Obviously that’s an exaggeration. But what I’m really getting at is that the it shouldn’t matter whether someone or some team has created the coolest, shiniest, sexiest application in the past, but whether they can show their new application addresses a real need (and isn’t just another random “solution”) and has community interest. We are all learning from the success and failure of others in this sector, so a first try or a 50th try shouldn’t be the deciding factor.

“New is Better”

If there are funds to give out, they may as well be for something new, right? Not always. Sometimes the funds could actually go much further towards scale and impact by supporting a project that already has a tool but can use your support to fund staff and time to create documentation or clean up code so that it can be released to the open source community, or (as said above) quality investigation can go into the why of it’s success. Looking at deeper or wider can be more exciting than just new.

I’d love to hear your ideas, experiences and additions to these remarks though and especially any examples you have!

Image credit: Flickr opensourceway

Location: London, UK

Topic: Fostering Innovation and Enterprise

Description: The Indigo Trust and Institute for Philanthropy, working closely with The Omidyar Network will convene this conference on how the developing world is using information technology to improve social outcomes. This conference is unique in bringing together leading private and corporate philanthropists with leading grassroots talent. Our aim is to help philanthropists and the donor community understand what information and communications technology can do to improve philanthropic interventions across all sectors in the developed and developing world.

Related Links:

• Indigo Trust
• Omidyar Network
• Institute for Philanthropy
• Blog post with remarks
• Hashtag: #giveandtech
• Social reporting links

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).

• Social Media Today | ROI: How to Measure Return on Investment in Social Media – A great post from Brian Solis on Social Media Today discussing the ROI of social media. This is a really great post to read for anyone thinking about how to measure, evaluate, and even consider the impact of social media use (and that should be everyone). "Over the years, Social Media experts attempted to redefine ROI for a new era of influence. While some introduced alternative philosophies for measuring the nuances tied to social media, others wondered aloud whether ROI simply wasn’t necessary as the tools and methodologies for analyzing yields didn’t yet exist. And furthermore, by focusing on justification and metrics, we were distracted from the primary objective of building relationships and cultivating dialogue. … But that was then and this is now. In 2010, we enter in to a new era of social media marketing, one based on information, rationalization, and resolve."
• Cause Fatigue #4Change Recap « 4change – Did you miss the recent #4change twitter chat? The February chat focused on cause fatigue, but if you missed it, Zero Strategist has done a great recap of the conversation and highlights. Check it out!
• The Collaboration Prize – Search Database – Wow! Check out this great resource – a database of collaborations! "The first phase of this database of nonprofit collaboration models (currently consisting of the 176 nominations deemed eligible for The Collaboration Prize in 2008) contains the information submitted by each nominator in response to specific questions about the nominated collaboration. Additional models of collaboration from The Collaboration Prize will be added soon. While the contents of the first phase are limited to data contained in the nominations submitted in 2008, the next phase of the database, to be launched in the next few months, will have an interactive component, whereby the existing data can be updated and the database can be expanded by adding new collaboration models that were not part of The Collaboration Prize project."
• Welcome to Kopernik – "Kopernik — www.thekopernik.org — a new non-profit venture that provides life-changing technology to the poor, launches today. Kopernik makes technology designed for the developing world accessible through the Internet and by harnessing the power of individual donations. Kopernik’s aim is to bring this technology to the poor in developing countries via the site, and link them to individuals willing to make a donation towards the purchase of the products. It is the brain-child of Ewa Wojkowska and Toshi Nakamura who have extensive experience in international development as UN staff members." Check it out!
• New Ideas for Promoting Physical Activity in London – "The Go London social innovation competition is a call for ideas on how to make London more active, the first of its kind to be energised by the groundswell of optimism surrounding London hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. It is a shared movement to create a city where physical activity is a normal part of Londoners lives and contributes to making London a more livable, sustainable and healthy city.

  The project aims to help improve activity levels of everyone by finding out what's already out there as well as asking people for their ideas on how they think London could become more active. In the same way that stories can come from anywhere to inspire others, and we'll hope to capture as many of these as possible, simple, life changing ideas can spring up too. Through the creative use of social media Go London hopes to capture as many of these ideas as possible."

• Facebook Causes: Not just for Individuals: ICT Hub Knowledgebase – The Knowledgebase from LASA is a great place to find articles on all kinds of topics related to technology for organizations. I wrote an article for them on how organizations are using Causes and it's now up. Visit the knowledgebase if you want to learn more about Causes but also head there to find some valuable resources on hardware, software, social media and more.

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).

• JustGiving blog: Seven-year-old Charlie raises more than £100,000 for Haiti! – Read this great case study from JustGiving about Charlie's bike ride to raise money for Haiti relief support. "Charlie was really upset by the television footage of the Haiti disaster, so, in conversation with his mum, he came up with idea of cycling around South Park near his home in Fulham, London as many times as possible. As Charlie puts on his JG page, ‘at least 10 laps, I hope!’. Charlie set himself a fundraising target of £500 for UNICEF – not an insubstantial amount for a seven-year-old."
• Why We're In the Age of the Citizen Philanthropist – There's a great post up on Mashable with quotes from Britt Bravo (Have Fun Do Good), Kari Dunn Saratovsky (Case Foundation), and Peter Panepento (Chronicle of Philanthropy). "Our new communications technologies have empowered the individual, and caused a disruptive effect on the non-profit sector. Here are five examples of the citizen philanthropist’s immediate impact."
• Footnotes: Online Outreach on a Budget – January Nonprofit Blog Carnival – "This month we spent some time collecting posts about nonprofit communications on a budget. Below you'll find a combination of great resources that were submitted, and information I've found useful in my own research on online outreach. So bookmark this post and take the time to apply this knowledge to marketing and communications at your organization – it's cheap (or free) and has worked for others!"
• Online Branded Communities: Misguided and Missing the Point – Marketing News Blog – This is an excellent review of best practices and case studies for online community management. Even though the authors (Kathy Baughman and Steve Hershberger) are focused on for-profit brands, the lessons ring true across sectors. "If you ask brand managers the purpose of online communities, the reply you’ll most often hear is “customer engagement.” Among marketers, this term is more prevalent than Frisbees at a dog beach. But the real question is this: Are brands providing meaningful and engaging experiences to their customers through their online communities? Our research on 135 online communities representing 45 major brands indicates that, with few exceptions, the answer is no."
• Idealware Field Guide to Software for Nonprofits by Laura Quinn in Computers & Internet – "What types of software should your nonprofit be using? It’s hard to even know even what types exist, let alone what might work for you. Through a friendly, easy-reference format, this book helps you pinpoint the types of software that can help your organization based on your needs and your level of technology savvy, and provides user-friendly summaries to demystify all the possible options.

  The 84-page Field Guide includes an overview of 35 different types of software, helping you to understand what each is, how it fits in with your needs, how much you might expect to pay, and some of the most common vendors in the area."

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:

• What Will Online Giving Look Like Next Year
• 2009 eNonprofit Benchmark Study

“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:

• Messages, Stories, and Conversations: Creating a Strategy for your organization and your supporters
• 5 Steps to a Successful Social Media Strategy
• Social by Social, a handbook in using social technologies for social impact
• We Are Media, a wiki-based community project curating resources about using social media in nonprofit organizations

“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:

• The Social Media Ready Nonprofit: Dealing with Resistance
• Why Should Your Nonprofit Embrace Social Media (Or Not)?
• Dealing with Resistance

“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:

• International Fundraising on The Baudcast (Podcast)
• Birthday Cause Wrapped Up
• Social Networks for Fundraising
• See the Charities that were Awarded a $10,000 Grant from Hanes
• The Wired Fundraiser: A Study on Technology and Online Fundraising
• Online Fundraising: Harnessing Technology to Build and Maintain Relationships

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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.

The game will be similar in form to those you’ll find here: we’ll invent a place, break into groups around some social challenges or themes, then use sets of cards to plan how to engage people, choose social media tools, and work out how to fund the package. However, although the format is pretty standard, I’m sure the ideas will be highly creative. The cards and other props are there to stimulate conversation – and that always works.

We’ve tweaked the cards from the last play, as you can see below. Each card has an image (so they don’t all look the same), a description, and budget points from 1-3. The green budget points are for engagement cards, yellow for tools, red for funding. We’ll set a budget for green and yellow, that has to be matched by red.

I wanted to get this preview up so we can do a little promotion of the workshop, and also have an immediate link for anyone who asks where they can get the cards on the day. We’ll shoot some video and report back later.

The official Twitter stream is cr_event, and you should be able to follow tweets tagged #cr09 through a search here. Follow us, too! @socialbysocial

Social by Social game cards for Chain Reaction

Learn more and connect with Chain Reaction!

We succeed when we work together… Chain Reaction is a community of people, passionate about social change, who are saying ‘we can make a difference’.

Chain Reaction is a unique and challenging project based on a very simple idea – that we all have the power of our own actions, but that none of us on our own can change the world, not governments, not businesses, not charities. We succeed when we work together The Chain Reaction Networks helps individuals and organisations to connect together. We provide spaces – at ‘real life events’ and on line – in which people can collaborate with others across the boundaries that divide us and commit their energy to new ideas and new ways of working that will change the world.

Social by Social at Chain Reaction

David Wilcox and I will be leading a round of the Social by Social game!

Drawing on the learnings included in Social by Social: a practical guide to using new technology for social impact, the Social by Social Game walks participants through the strategic steps of creating a social media program for your community, whether you’re part of an organization, a geographic community, a campaign, or anything else.  The game is a fun way to collaborate with others and learn more about what’s needed to create a project that leverages social media.  We promise: it’s fun!

NFPTweetUp after Chain Reaction

The next NFPTweetUp will take place in the evening after the main Chain Reaction event.  This is a great way to pull in new people to the tweetup experience and a super opportunity to keep conversations going even longer from the event.

A meet up of social media users and those interested in the potential of social media for themselves or their organisations.  This event brings together organisations for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and networking – it will be part learning, part sharing, part social, collaborative, casual and very friendly. Note:  You need to reserve a ticket for this evening session as spaces are limited – tickets are free of charge. (Read more about NFP Tweetup here)

Connect. Collaborate. Commit.

Chain Reaction is taking place November 12th, 2009, at Canary Warf, London.  To find out more, use these links:

• Why are people coming together this year at Chain Reaction 2009?
• What will happen at Chain Reaction 2009?
• Who is speaking at Chain Reaction 2009?
• Who should attend Chain Reaction 2009?
• How can I register at Chain Reaction 2009?

You can also follow Chain Reaction on Twitter: use the hashtag #cr09 (you can also follow activity @chainreaction or @cr_events).

1. A Gift Economy Event

This is how the myPublicServices conference team explains their ideas about the gift economy:

The web has already transformed the way we book a holiday, buy a camera, and share the snaps. Whole sectors – media, music, finance, publishing – are being turned upside down. But where is the impact on our public services? Why (with a few notable exceptions) are they still so top-down, so inflexible, so hard-to-reach? In sum, so last century?

This conference is about how that can – and already is – changing. It is about how the traditional public sector values of fairness, solidarity and equality are meeting the new networked values of participation, transparency and usability to create new services or add to old ones.

The web has created a new digital gift economy in which everyone can be a contributor and new kinds of public service are becoming possible.

It won’t all be top-down any more (and neither will this conference). We won’t be defined any longer just by what we need from the services we rely on, but also by what we have to give, and how we each can contribute to making our public services better.

This conference is about all that and more. There will be plenty of new ideas – but also plenty of practical examples of how people are already using the extraordinary gift of the web to improve, extend or challenge our public services to be the best they can be.

I think this is a really interesting perspective to build into a conference, especially one about public sector and social services.  I’ll be curious (and will report back after the event) about the kinds of gifts others bring to the event, whether they are workshops, skills, etc.

2. Social Reporting

I’ll be at the conference and my gift is some social reporting!  Along with my Social by Social colleague David Wilcox, we’ll be helping coordinate a team of folks doing video, live-blogging, interviews, tweets, and more!  David and I are really looking forward to it and have already started talking to some interested social reporters.  Visit the myPublicServices blog for more information and to get in touch!

What do you think?

Have you participated in an event that leveraged the gift economy like this? What was your experience – did it work? If you haven’t, what do you think we should watch for, what questions do you have?

Charity Hack Weekend brings together charities and developers to revolutionise the collection of donations. Join us 19-20 September 2009 and be part of this extraordinary event. We’re looking for developers to come up with new and innovative ways of helping charities promote their causes and garner support.

What you will get access to on the day includes

• JustGivings new API (available for the first time at this event)
• MissionFish’s cash giving APIs available for the first time in the UK
• PayPals new Beta Adaptive Payments API’s
• Sneak Preview of other API’s

These are just some of the APIs that will be featured, there is no limit to the APIs that can be used.  Visit the event Wiki for links to documentation, attendees bios, and links to the applications created after the weekend.

What we hope to get from the weekend

We hope by the end of the weekend a number of interesting applications have been born that can be used by any charity under an open source style licence.

Learn more or register today!