Location: London, UK

Topic: The Future of Online Revenue Generation for Charities

Description: Presented a 15 minute examination of the processes that work in social media, the difference between individual-driven and organization-driven fundraising online, and what nonprofits can do to better position themselves in the space, followed by Q & A.

Related Links:

• Blog post with slides
• blog post with ‘Ask the Expert’ Q & A
• slides with speaker notes

Here are my slides:

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:

• http://nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com
• http://e-benchmarksstudy.com
• http://charities.justgiving.com
• http://www.communityorganizer20.com/2009/12/01/what-will-online-giving-look-like-next-year/

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

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.

Could better knowledge sharing and closer communications inside your organisation create stronger relationships, efficiency, insight and effectiveness? In this workshop you will discover how the latest tools for online collaboration and sharing can offer opportunities to improve the way you work. Social Media tools such as wikis, social networking sites like Twitter, FriendFeed, using Tagging and RSS feeds can enable organisations of all sizes to best use and build on its existing collective wisdom and innovation.

Here are the slides that Laura and I used:

Here are the slides that Beth created but we couldn’t actually use during the session as the wifi wasn’t quite holding up for us (and we were using all available connection to keep her on skype!):

Paul Henderson even streamed a bit of the Beth’s presentation with Qik!  You can watch the video here.

Some terrific sessions were taking place at the same time as ours, including Dave Briggs conducting the social media game, and Andy Gibson exploring how to make better use of your most valuable information asset: people.

To start the day, Euan Semple brought all participants up to speed on social media and information sharing online, and shared some great insights with the group.  Here are some of my favorite points from Euan’s talk:

• “Tidying up the noise means you lose the quiet voices.” – When organizations think about ‘cleaning up’ their information, whether it is internal, external or a mix, they risk ‘cleaning out’ the quiet voices that could be really valuable but aren’t necessarily heard enough to stay after the cleaning.
• “Breathe life into information by allowing people to point to it.” – Wherever your information is (if it is in a wiki, a server, a shared drive, Google Docs, or elsewhere on the web), let your staff or even the public point to it, link to it, quote it and more.  Making your information available at least to your staff to reference easily means it will actually be used!  Not end up in an “information coffin.”
• “You have to get your hands dirty with this stuff if you want to deal with it, even if you don’t like it.” – There is no way to really understand social media tools and the ways they could be applied to your organization’s work without diving in and trying them out yourself.  This is true even for staff or executives who wouldn’t be directly responsible for ongoing social media management for the organization.  You can’t make an informed decision on use or strategy without having some dirt on your hands!
• “All that you have had up to now is the pretense of control; these tools give you influence.” – The most common fear about using social media tools is that the organization will lose control over their message, their ‘identity’ and more.  The truth is, organizations don’t have control over it now!  People are already talking about your sector, your services, your work or your organization and not engaging with them online means you are a part of the conversation at all.  Those conversations, criticisms, ideas, and passions are what is forming your message and brand.  You might as well be a part of it!  Social media tools don’t mean you get to have control, but they do give you influence over the direction of the message and the conversation.
• “Obama focuses on positives when faced with someone who disagrees with him and that’s the same thing to do in forums,” etc. – This is a great lesson to keep in mind for organizations with forums, comments on blogs, or other feedback mechanisms.  There is always something positive in common that you can focus on to keep things moving forward!

NCVO’s Information Conference may have only been one short day, but the conversations that were started there will certainly keep going.

Were you there?  What was the biggest question you didn’t have a chance to ask?