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.

I’m bummed that I cannot participate this time around (will be traveling with my family, enjoying some offline adventures) but am already looking forward to the next opportunity!

REGISTER HERE!

The Format

This immersive, interactive webinar experience(tm) will begin with a plenary session providing an overview of social media strategy, organizational adoption issues, capacity, metrics, and strategy execution. Because we know you’d be disappointed in us if we didn’t include them, we’ll have a live question and answer and a back channel discussion.

After a ten minute break, participants will have the option of joining one of four break out sessions: Listening/Engaging; Storytelling; Generating Buzz; Online Networking. Each of the 60 minute sessions will include a drill down in the topic area, presented by an expert in field (see below). The back channel will be moderated by even more experts, who will add additional insights and answer participants questions.

After a ten-minute break, participants will reconvene as a group to grill the presenters in each of the areas.

The Flow

Opening Plenary: 45 minutes
Q&A & Backchannel: 15 minutes
Break: 10 minutes
Breakout Sessions (choose one): 60 minute
Break: 10 minutes
Final Q&A: 40 minutes

The Learning Objectives

• Identify objectives, audience, and strategy execution to effectively integrate social media into your organization’s overall web communications plan so it supports your organization’s mission
• Explore the organizational change management issues that social media raises and how to talk about them
• Experience a variety of social web tools that are essential in listening/engaging, storytelling, generating buzz, and online networking
• Have access to experts and peers to answer your specific questions via live question and answer and backchannel chat

REGISTER HERE!

More about We Are Media:
The We Are Media Project is a community of people from nonprofits who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world.

Curated by NTEN, the community will work in a networked way to help identify the best existing resources, people, and case studies that will give nonprofit organizations the knowledge and resources they need to be the media. The community will help identify and point to the best how-to guides and useful resources that cover all aspects of creating, aggregating, and distributing social media. The resulting curriculum which will live on this wiki and will also cover important organizational adoption issues, strategy, ROI analysis, as well as the tools.

Location: Phone

Topic: 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference

Description: 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference, WeAreMedia.org, SXSW, ROI Poetry Slam, affinity groups, ignite sessions, community roadblocks, Day of Service, new Facebook pages, Twitter search integration, BackTweets, AFP widget, Blackbaud Delivers, and more. Featuring Chad Norman, Holly Ross, Danielle Brigida, Amy Sample Ward, and Melissa Dodge.

Related Links:

• Download the podcast

I think this has been a great experiment in eating our own dog food: the people who advocate for the use of social media, having to come together and work via social media.  Part of my post includes the three areas that I think are most crucial in achieving success of a project like this.

Some of the the hardest parts of the project so far for the organizer (Beth), from my perspective, include:

• Managing participation of topic-related experts as the list of participants grows over time (and perhaps after the most applicable topic for him or her passes):  As more attention is given to the project across the blogosphere and elsewhere, more people who want to contribute sign on to the wiki.  It’s great to get more people involved, but it can be difficult for an organizer to be managing so many different areas of interest and expertise once the project modules are underway.
• Maintaining a natural flow or progression of topics within the wiki:  Working wikily can sometimes mean that too many side conversations and tangents turn into stranded pages or that pages get started for a topic that seems important but folks lose track of it.  Maintaining an orderly flow of information has really kept this project wiki to a manageable and navigable resource.
• Making it easy for very busy people to contribute beneficial information and knowledge efficiently: If you create it, they won’t necessarily come. Or, if they do, they may not hang out long and contribute. People, even if they are the ‘experts’ in the topic, are busy. A very effective approach is to send an email or Twitter message (or any other tool you are using to ping the participants) that asks a specific question and links to the exact area where you want the information entered. Basically, think of ways to make it hard for your participants to NOT contribute!

What do you think?  Check out the full post on the SSIR blog and share your thoughts on projects you have participated in that required remote collaboration in a wiki, or other examples of eating your own dog food!

This is week 5, which focuses on: Online Community Engagement Strategy and Skills.  I weighed in today on the first two questions, including Do you really need a community? Or something else? and What questions do you need to ask to guide your online community building strategy?, and hope you’ll check it out!

Here is one of the examples I contributed today:

Sometimes the best online community for your organization’s members/network, is one that has more direct benefits for the community members, than you. I know that sounds backward at first, but let me explain…

Here’s an example: You are an organization that focuses on after school programs and alternative programs for elementary school students. You have a large base of volunteers who run the after school programs, including mentoring and homework help. Creating a place on your website that allows volunteers to talk to each other, post questions, provide answers (peer to peer learning), share ideas and success stories, and more, means the volunteers have access to a huge pool of support (which for volunteers usually means better retention) and networking.

At first, it may seem the organization doesn’t really get much from the network. But, with a network of volunteers who are engaged and supporting each other online, interested people to your programs can be more inclined to get involved, you have resources in that network like best practices and success stories to share with other organizations and can even find leaders in the group to help advise the organization on new programs or changes to existing practices.

So, what do you think?  Does your organization need an online community?  What questions do you ask yourself to help figure it out?  If you decide you do need a community, what questions do you ask to help shape its development?

Week 1:  Why Should Your Nonprofit Embrace Social Media?  (or not?)

Learn about basic social media concepts and principles, as well as the situations in which social media would or would not help your organization.  Here is a great presentation that introduces social media.

Week 2:  Thinking Strategically About Social Media

Learn about the key ingredients you should use for putting together a great social media strategy, how social media strategy relates to your organization’s other internet and communications strategies, and more!  You can even check out the example group exercise I contributed for creating a social media strategy!

Week 3:  The Social Media Ready Nonprofit: Dealing with Resistance

Learn about the signs of resistence in an organization, how to get organizational buy-in for social media strategies, and which policies are useful for dealing with social media in an organization.  Week 3 collaboration and contribution is happening now – join in or learn more!

What have been some of the hardest obstacles to over come in getting buy-in for social media at your organization?  Were the main evangelist, or did you have partners?

Some terrific folks are signing on to collaborate and share their knowledge of social media tools, strategies, and success stories. (You can see the list of participants here.)

Be The Media is based on the beliefs that:

• With the advent of Web 2.0, more and more nonprofits understand the opportunity of using social media strategies and tools to realize outcomes.
• Nonprofits that want to integrate social media strategies and tool need practical skills, advice, examples, and methods that will improve their effectiveness.
• There are many excellent existing social media guides, articles, resources, checklists, and training materials in the nonprofit sector and beyond. Building the curriculum in a networked way on a wiki and offering it through a creative commons license will allow nonprofit practitioners to share ideas and avoid duplication.

Be The Media will:

• Pull together a wide variety of individuals who will collectively help contribute ideas and pointers to content that is meaningful to the nonprofit leaders and staffers who are charged with integrating social media into their communications strategy
• Provide a hub for the vetted resources, connections, and conversation on this topic.
• Provide access to resources such as articles, tips, checklists, presentations, case studies, and individuals offered by people in the network.

I’m really excited to be part of this process! What I am most excited about is to see the way the organizing/participating/leading network grows and changes the content and the way the following/learning network grows and changes the project’s goals and deliverables.  By this I mean to say that I predict those following the project as ‘students’ or listeners, etc., have quite the potential to shift where the project goes based on voicing opinions, questions, and needs.  Those participating as leaders/experts will have a responsibility to listen to those voices and steer this experiment in the appropriate direction.

I think it will be a great opportunity for all of those involved to learn a lot about the power of networks as well as the topic areas/individual tools/etc.  You can check out the Be The Media project here.

What questions do you have about social media that you hope to learn more about and want the Be The Media project to address?