Communicating With Your Constituents

by Bunnie Riedel, Host, Nonprofit Conversation

I do a lot of benchmarking and needs assessment studies focusing on communication.  Whether you manage a nonprofit or a business, effective communication with your constituents (and prospective constituents) is essential.  However, for many, lack of time and resources (both human and financial) are major roadblocks to good communication.

I am fascinated by the results of a recent Focus Group I conducted in Massachusetts.  In the group was a sprinkling of small business people but mostly local nonprofits.  For the Focus Group, which takes about five hours, I go through a series of multiple choice questions and provide opportunities for narrative responses.  We engage in large group discussion and small group discussion.  The session is designed to get them thinking about how they receive information, whether they perceive their communications to be effective, what messages they want to deliver and what vehicles of communication they believe work best for them.

Seventy-two percent of the participants spent less than $5,000 per year on communicating with their constituents or prospective constituents.  In that seventy-two percent were the small community based nonprofits.  Eight percent spent over $25,000 per year, that group included a real estate agency, a tourism agency and a radio station.  Emails, phone calls, word of mouth and website were cited as the vehicles most used for communication.  However, meetings, phone calls, newspapers and word of mouth were rated high for effectiveness, while email and websites were rated low. 

When asked if they thought their communications were effective forty-eight percent answered “Maybe.” 

Again, this group was very local, very micro.  The opportunities to have meetings and word of mouth work for them as communications tools are greater than one would get from a larger organization, such as a national nonprofit.

They had very important, sometimes critical information to convey, such as availability of social services, assistance for problems, solutions for community building and even their own existence.  The group found that obstacles to communicating their messages included an inability to know if the constituent received the message, lack of return phone calls and emails, misunderstanding of what services they provided and competition from too many other messengers (information overload).

Friends, community groups and religious institutions rated quite high as ways they received information about organizations in the community.  While newspaper articles, websites and promotional advertising rated quite low. 

In mulling over these responses it struck me how the “personal touch” worked in this community and it made me wonder how does one take that personal touch and apply it in the larger sense?  Especially if you are talking about a larger regional or national nonprofit.  Could it be that our challenge is to find ways to take the tools we assume have a wide ranging impact, such as our websites, emails, Facebook pages, etc. and personalize them?  Can we make them work and feel like a community meeting or a person to person communication?

In theory, Facebook edges in that direction, it seeks “friends” and “fans,” people who have affirmatively selected to have some sort of an interest in what your organization is doing.  However, Facebook also has a way of de-personalizing messages.  Lost in the clutter that is Facebook, important messages risk becoming just more electronic background noise. 

How do we create websites that provide intimacy and personal interaction rather than simply act as placeholders for information?  Are our websites inviting and friendly?  Do any of us really update them enough that people want to keep coming back to see what’s new?

And those email blasts, like Constant Contact, do they behave more like pop ups intruding on one’s communication experience or can we use them almost like friendly handshakes?

I think smaller communities often have an advantage in communication.  There’s always the chance that you will run into your constituent at the grocery store or on the street corner and be able to pass on the latest information or affirm the personal relationship.  The challenge for all of us is how to create the personal when the geography is so large.

As always, I welcome your thoughts on this article.  Feel free to leave a comment or submit an article for Nonprofit Conversation by contacting me through my website http://www.riedelcommunications.com

Thanks for reading! 

9 Keys to Using Online Video to Increase Your Nonprofit Marketing Impact

Video is everywhere these days.  Video can compel action in ways that no other medium can.  It allows you to tell your organization's in ways you simply cannot do in any other way.  Nancy Schwartz provides excellent advice (as always) on how you should approach your online video.  I would also like to add that your videos can be shown on the hundreds of Public access television channels across the country and certainly the Public access channel in your community.  And...if you need to find a video producer, let me know.  I know of several excellent and talented video producers that can deliver a quality video to your organization.  Bunnie

9 Keys to Using Online Video to Increase Your Nonprofit Marketing Impact

by Nancy Schwartz, Getting Attention

Online video is big and getting bigger. So much so that it’s rapidly changing the communications landscape. And we have some great models to work from.

Online Video is Getting Bigger – Fast

Here’s the proof, drawn from a recent ComScore study:

• Over 133 million Americans watched online video in July 2007 – or 74% of US internet users.
• They watched more than 9 billion videos, 27% of them on Google sites including YouTube.

There’s so much nonprofit video out there on YouTube, DoGooderTV and organizational Web sites. Here’s how distribution breaks out:

• YouTube captures 40% of the current market – This most popular video hosting site receives 50,000 video uploads and streams some 50 million videos to about 6 million viewers daily.
• MySpace, a social networking site, accounts for another 25%.
• The remainder consists of major Internet players like Google, MSN, Yahoo and AOL, and niche venues like the nonprofit-focused DoGooderTV, each of which capture a fraction of the overall market. My guess is that audiences for these niche players will grow fast and furious.

So online video is big. But what’s the best way to put online video to work to strengthen your nonprofit marketing?

Pros Share Online Video Guidelines for Nonprofit Marketers

Here are some critical guidelines for jumping into online video:

1. Online video is an expectation, not an option, for online audiences 25 and younger
   Higher ed marketing guru Bob Johnson suggests that online video is an expectation for most 30-and-under nonprofit audiences (definitely for prospective college students).
2. Keep videos short and sweet – 30 seconds to two minutes max
   Video length is a classic case of less is more, advises Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies Direct. Obviously, a good edit is crucial.She also recommends that online video should complement – not replace – other communications channels.
3. Know your audiences
   This is definitely one of the ten commandments of online video production. You craft your messages and graphics to your audiences. Don’t forget to do the same with your video. The imagery, soundtrack and text you select must appeal to your target demographic. Video is more “in your face” than text or graphics so if you strike out, you strike out big.
4. Make sure your video is more than moving, talking delivery of traditional content.
   Bob Johnson warns against oh-so-deadly talking heads and other staged approaches. Use video to show, not to tell – that’s the beauty of the medium.
5. Tap that funny bone
   Most online videos that succeed in high pass-along rates (and viral distribution is a key strategy to increase views), usually include some humor or satire, say the experts at Online Video Services.Remember how Hillary Clinton grabbed attention when she spoofed the widely-viewed “Sopranos” finale on to motivate participation in her campaign song contest. Not only was she covered everywyere, she was credited with a seldom-seen-before sense of humor.But be careful in being funny. Humor is delicate. and the right timing and broad appeal have to be spot on. Testing humor is a good idea; a bomb can be fatal.
6. Don’t forget the call to action
   It’s great to build awareness and support but you’re stopping short if you don’t include a clickable call to action at the close of your video. This Greenpeace video offers engaged viewers the opportunity to act with a simple click at the very moment they’re processing this very powerful video. Grab ‘em when they’re hot.
7. Work it: Put your online video to work in multiple versions and venues
   Forget the stand-alone gala dinner video that never again sees the light of day. Your organization should milk your video productions for all they’re worth.Your videos, in some form or another, can be projected in your org’s waiting room, at a gala and during programs, as well as distributed online via video sites, your own site,and your blog and e-news. The possibilities are nearly endless, suggests See3′s Michael Hoffman.
8. Do-it-yourself is fine…for now
   As a matter of fact the authenticity of “amateur” video is au courant right now. Just take a look at this video Katya Andresen “produced” as her blog post response to my query.
   However, my guess is that amateur video will soon become tedious as the novelty of the medium erodes. Expectations for higher-end production values will begin to increase very quickly. I’ve watched this cycle before, most recently with blogging. Meanwhile, you can produce your own videos for almost nothing with a WebCam or video camera.
9. Budget $1,000 per minute of finished content for a professionally-shot and edited video
   The OVS experts feel strongly that quality counts, cautioning that you get what you pay for. OVS estimates the cost for a professional video shoot, including editing, at $1K for each minute of on-demand finished content. Live Webcasts are much more costly.Another firm – Charity Docs – produces online on-demand (e.g. not live) videos for a flat fee of $2,500.

What’s working best with your online video production? Please share your tips with me as a comment below and I’ll pass them along to Getting Attention readers.  Contact Nancy Schwartz

Social Media IS Effective for Nonprofits and Small Business

I always enjoy the insights of Debra Askanese of Community Organizer 2.0.  And this article is a great one to give the naysayers in your membership or on your board of directors who may not be using social media tools and may not understand why you should be using Twitter or Facebook to market your nonprofit.  One thing Debra points out, which I have heard elsewhere, is that fundraising using social media is not that successful.  However, that being said, I think social media helps you identify potential donors or members and also helps you keep in touch with those potential donors or members.  It's also a great way to educate people about what it is you do. Bunnie

Social Media IS Effective for Nonprofits and Small Business
by Debra Askanese, Community Organizer 2.0

Two new data sets about the value of social media came across my laptop recently: Idealware’s “ Using Social Media to Meet Nonprofit Goals” survey of nonprofit staffers using social media, and the State of Small Business report from Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service.


The results are so similar to the nonprofit survey results that the conclusion is hard to ignore: social media actually is an effective tool for customer retention and attraction.

Social media is actually perceived by those doing it to work! In particular, the top benefits are seen as reaching new audiences and enhancing existing customer/audience relationships.

Here are some highlights from the Idealware survey of 459 nonprofit staffers using social media:

1. Nonprofits believe that social media is helping them to enhance relations with their existing audience and reach new audiences through the top platforms.

Most organizations feel that most social media channels are effective for enhancing existing relationships and reaching new supporters. The least effective platforms are MySpace and Linkedin. Blogs, video-sharing, Twitter, and Facebook are felt to be the most effective tools. The surprise to me is that video-sharing is perceived as highly effective for enhancing relationships.

2. Most nonprofits are using a combination of Facebook, Twitter, video-sharing and blogs to reach out and enrich relationships online. The data shows that there isn’t a relationship between the size of the organization and the number of channels it is using. The responses show that, in general, nonprofits are using and regularly updating one to three social media channels.

I’m not surprised that Facebook is the most popular channel used, but I am surprised that 56% of nonprofits are using Twitter and 80% of them update Twitter regularly. Two other points to consider: the blog is not dead (45% of nonprofits have one) and video sharing sites once again prove to be popular (49% have them).

Conclusions: Nonprofits are finding value in Twitter, Facebook is widely adopted and “known to work.” These platforms must be seen as engagement tools to be taken seriously at this point. The blog, though time consuming, is the long form to express your message and enhance relationships with existing supporters. Video-sharing is the crouching tiger. Regularly maintaining one to three platforms is an industry standard.

3. Nonprofits are not yet satisfied with the results of social network fundraising. I don’t think this is any big surprise, as both social network donors and donation strategies are still in their infancy. The survey reveals that, of all the social networks, 41% of respondants believe that Facebook is most effective for raising money. (And that is the highest percentage of approval of any network channel.) I suspect respondents mention Facebook because it has an affiliated fundraising platform, Causes, that is simple to use and easily accessible. Let’s see what next year’s survey results bring: I’m guessing that they will bring higher satisfaction and a stronger sense of nonprofit social network fundraising effectiveness.

This is also the only platform where Linkedin is rated on par with Twitter, video-sharing, and blogging, at 30% effeciveness. The Idealware study remarks that this is surprising, but I don’t find it surprising at all: Linkedin is an incredibly effective channel for targeted donor research and deeper interaction with potential donors and foundations within Linkedin Groups.

Here’s one more set of similar survey results: the performance of social media tactics for US small businesses in December 2009.

According to “The State of Small Business” report, small businesses are also using social media to successfully attract new customers, increase awareness, and stay engaged with existing customers.

Two data sets, two different user groups, same results: social media is effective for reaching new customers and strengthening existing relationships. Irrefutable evidence of the power of engagement.

Read more of Debra's thoughts on all things marketing at http://www.communityorganizer20.com/

Adapting to Social Media

I am not sure why this happens, but nonprofits tend to be late adapters.  I think it may be a matter of time and resources and having too little of each.  I can't imagine any nonprofit not having at least a Facebook page (it is free after all), but I know of many who do not.  Juan Munoz goes through five points regarding social media and gives examples of how social media helps turn interested prospects into donors.  Enjoy.  Bunnie

Adapting to Social Media
by Juan Munoz, CEO, Open Global Marketing

This article might look like repetitive for some of you, but there are many non-profits that have not adapted fully to the new social media boom. Here are five points to successfully convince your Executive Director (or you) about the benefits of using social media in your organization.

The non-profit world has been always reluctant to adapt new technologies. Sometimes they stick to proven techniques and are attached to their Grantors or Founders as a source of income. The new online landscape has changed andnonprofits are flocking to the social web, although mostly in the last two years. Nonprofit organizations that have embraced social media in a short period of time have see astonishing results. But still the masses of nonprofits act late.

Social media is beginning to transform nonprofits both in the way they work as well as their relationships with their donors.

Here are five points about how this is happening:

1. Building stronger relationships with donors and constantly updating them.

Over the past two years, one of the non-profits that we advise have been seeing an increase in their current donor list and have tripled their prospective donor list. The Roberto Clemente Health Clinic, an emergency and primary care clinic located in the south of Nicaragua created a blog to inform their prospective donors about their project while the current donors get a different and more personalize email about their semester performance. Now, the conversion rate using this technique is around 15% compared with 3% in previous years. Many people identify with the project but are not ready to donate immediately. Once you keep them informed they feel at ease to send their money for a good cause! Also we updated the website to make it more donor-friendly, creating different programs and different levels of donations. The website is called http://www.nicaclinic.org

2. Individuals & small groups are self-organizing around non-profit causes

Social media is enabling individuals to create, join, and grow groups around issues they care about outside of the direct control of a non-profit. Whether it is healthcare issues, minority women owned business or fundraising events activities, you can communicate easily by email or using a tweeter account. One example is the Maryland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce where we created a LINKEDIN profile as a group to advertise their events. They also have the regular newsletter and their website. We have created a PowerPoint presentation that teaches you the difference between Social Media and Search Engine Optimization.

Social software design is also helping accelerate this trend. Look no further than the Facebook Causes Birthday application that encourages an individual who is a member of a Cause to use their birthday as an excuse to raise money for a non-profit organization. DonorsChoose recently launched a similar feature called “Birthday Give Back,” with Stephen Colbert leading the charge. And keep an eye out for more social apps with a conscience that will offer even more creative ways for supporters to self-organize and take action around causes.

As non-profits begin to engage their own communities in these online conversations, they are able to reach more people than ever before, and use less effort doing so. 100 letters sent to donors might cost around $350 including the time of putting them together and stuffing envelopes, plus printing and shipping but anEmail campaign cost $0.02 cents per email on average.

3. Facilitating collaboration with international and national organizations.

The social web lets non-profit organizations connect and collaborate formally and informally with international organizations quickly and inexpensively. Nonprofit organizations are also collaborating with their supporters by using them as fundraising battalions. You can bring volunteers (well-known) or regular people within a big network and provide them the tools to fundraise in their name. One example of this is when people jump into running marathons and 5K races and the contributions go towards a specific cause.

Another example is WeAreMedia, a wiki project where over 100 non-profit technology professionals have pooled knowledge resources and developed training materials to help nonprofits learn how to use social media effectively.

4. Social responsibility spreads faster in the green era.

One of the perplexing things about corporate social responsibility (CSR) is that it has long meant different things to different people. To some, an action only counts as true CSR if it is unprofitable and hence motivated by altruism. Socially beneficial actions that increase profits are merely strategic CSR. However, even advocates of altruistic CSR admit that most CSR actions can be viewed through a strategic lens. Nonprofits are taking advantage of this trend using specific causes and spreading the news in blogs and social media sites. This type of project also impact a community specifically when corporations feel identified with the project.

4- A good cause is more important than the Mission of your Nonprofit.

We’re just at the beginning of seeing how social media is impacting how nonprofits engage with their supporters and do their work. As more and more nonprofits adopt social media and their practice improve over time, we will no doubt see a transformation of the nonprofit sector. In our website http://www.openglobalmarketing.com you can see how Search Engine Optimization is as important, if not more, as social media is. SEO is the art of making your website more visible for the searchers.

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the Red Cross has raised over $140 million largely through text message and online donations.

This recent disaster has cast a new light on social media tools for nonprofits. Their benefit is simple: Social media provides a compounding effect on your message.

The element of trust is critical to nonprofits. People trust messages from friends and colleagues more than from organizations. A recent Aberdeen study on the value of online communities states that 77% of people trust friends, family, and other consumers above retailers and manufacturers.

Therefore, using these five points, I hope you can start investing resources and money into Social Media in 2010.

Contact Juan at http://www.openglobalmarketing.com

Don’t Start What You Can’t Maintain: The Backside of Social Media

I've been noticing lately that there is a wide range of nonprofit use or lack of use of social media. Some organizations create their Facebook pages and do a terrific job of updating, providing fresh content, connecting with their fans, etc. Others create their Facebook pages and then rarely update them or rarely connect with their fans. Some organizations do a great job of using Twitter while others seem almost afraid of the commitment it takes. Debra Askanase of Community Organizer 2.0, asks some important questions of organizations and emphasizes the "relationship" building aspect of social media. Bunnie

Don't Start What You Can't Maintain: The Backside of Social Media
by Debra Askanase, Community Organizer 2.0

Social media is FUN. You get to make new friends. And pass along really interesting information. You get to ask others to help you change the world and support your cause. You meet all sorts of wonderful, generous people. But what are you really doing? You are creating gathering places, living rooms for discussion, kitchens for cooking up ideas, in order to develop real stakeholders. Social media is, after all, an engagement strategy. You want to create online ties that engage, create relationships, and move people to act on behalf of a cause, company, or organization. After you spend all that time creating those relationships, you have to commit to maintaining them.

What happens when you can't be there all the time that your stakeholders want to drop by? Or if you decide it's just too much work to cook meals regularly for all of those guests? Maybe your organization realizes that it's hard to maintain all those relationships, and just as difficult to post regular content.

This post is a look at the back side of starting a social media presence: the obligations of maintaining it.

It takes three to six months of work to build up an organization's social media presence. I think it takes a minimum of three months to start seeing a return on that engagement. Don't start if you can't commit to maintenance. Select your platforms carefully – what do you have time to maintain, and which platforms will take more time and resources than your organization has currently? The hard truth is that you have to commit to keeping that virtual kitchen stocked with food, and the virtual living room accessible. That means keeping the blog fresh with new content, communicating regularly, creating real relationships on social networks, and offering information and conversation topics on platforms regularly.

If your company's social sites are not tended to with care, then your organization is actually risking its online and offline credibility.

Here are some quick thoughts on the repercussions of not tending to your online presence:

People stop caring.

In the hyper-paced world of social media, your followers and fans quickly lose interest and forget you. Here's the test: the last time you or your company took a break from creating regular online content (conversations, news, articles, etc), how many people asked you where you were? There are a lot of organizations vying for time and attention online. Tend to those relationships regularly and cultivate lasting ones. The real test is creating relationships where someone writes to ask: "How are you? Haven't seen you posting much lately."

People stop spreading your news.

Viralness is a key factor in social media. If you aren't maintaining connections, people are less likely to pass along your content. Relationships strengthens the desire to "do good" for others, whether that's passing along content, recommending your site, or suggesting someone become of fan of your Facebook Page.

You lose friendship credibility.

If you're not there for them now, will you be there later? If you post content randomly, or only sporadically engage online, how can they count on you? If you are a regular news source for information in your field, you need to continue to do that. What if you posted content regularly, gathered a following, then stopped? When your organization decides to resume, it's lost its credibility for being dependable, and for maintaining the site. It may very well have lost viewers it cannot ever regain.

It's tempting to think that "no one will notice" if you are not maintaining your homes regularly, but someone always drives by. It's also tempting to think "it's all right if we don't put up any new content for a month." But someone cares, and misses it. That fan who would've done anything for your cause is a lot less likely to do that when they don't know why you went away for a while…or when you are coming back.

There is a marketing credo that it is much cheaper to keep a regular customer happy than find new customers. No matter what type of organization you are, it's easier to keep your existing following than to build a new one.

What do you think? Is your organization struggling with this very issue? How are you addressing the issues of time/maintenance/engagement?

You can contact Debra at http://www.communityorganizer20.com/

The Case of 4,000 Twitter Followers Who Don't Care

Social media, social media, social media...blah, blah, blah. There is just the existence of social media (all quite fun and good) and then there's the true effectiveness of social media. Debra Askanase, a nonprofit social media consultant in Israel, takes the Twitter and Facebook craze to task by really examining the loyalty numbers on the back end of these applications. Just because someone is your "friend" or "follower" doesn't mean you have a relationship. This one is a good cautionary tale for business too! Bunnie

The Case of the 4,000 Twitter Followers Who Don't Care

by Debra Askanase, Community Organizer 2.0

This is the Case of the 4,000 Twitter Followers Who Don’t Care - and why 4,000 followers means nothing without engagement.

I recently took on a new client that wants to leverage its existing social media assets (Facebook Page/Fans, Twitter followers) to drive more visits to the website. This company has been building a social media presence for over a year, and is unhappy with the lack of website visits resulting from social media.

I was told that the Facebook Group was active with almost 500 fans, and that the Twitter account had over 4,000 followers. I was also briefed that, though there was not a lot of online fan feedback, the Twitter account included some committed followers. The highest priority for the client was to figure out why social media was not driving more people to the website – and come up with a better strategy.

I took on this challenge, and want to share a few observations about why social media isn’t working for this client:

Case Observation #1:

The most important number isn’t the number of followers, it’s the number of engaged followers.

4,000 Twitter followers seems like a lot. But how many really care about your organization? How many are willing to act on its behalf?

I evaluated “the 4,000 followers” on Twitter and “almost 500 fans” of the Facebook Page. I used Twerpscan, Twittalyzer, Twazzup, and Tweetmeme to analyze the Twitter asset, and discovered: almost 400 of their Twitter followers were pure spammers no one cared what the client was tweeting, and…most of the retweets were from twitter profiles related to the company the company did not engage in conversation online, and rarely thanked retweeters there was absolutely no Twitter strategy

What I discovered was that, of the 4,000+ followers, only three were truly interested enough in what the organization was tweeting. Three.

Twitter utilizes the concept of social media karma: give and give and then others will give back. This company didn’t offer help, advice, support or anything else personal. Obviously, Twitter did not drive people to the website – no one cared enough about the company to go there.

Of the 400+ Facebook fans, most didn’t care enough to “like” a Wall post. The ones that did comment or “like” a post were often friends of the CEO or employees. All the posted was to its Facebook Page was company stories or related news. Of the 400+ fans, only one was an (unrelated to the company) engaged fan! Facebook drove little traffic to the website, which again is not surprising.

Case Observation #2:

Be wary when the CEO or Executive Director isn’t using social media on behalf of the organization.

This CEO was absolutely unwilling to be personally involved in using social media for the company. This is indicative of a CEO that does not understand the basic principles of social media. It’s critical that everyone in the organization have some direct contact with social media. An Executive Director that isn’t directly responsible for some piece of the social media is missing important information by not connecting with stakeholders directly. Not every CEO has to be responsible, but he/she should be intimately involved with the social media activities, and understand the basic principles of social media.

This CEO was using social media to “drive numbers to the website,” which completely misunderstands the basic fundamentals of social media. They are:

Engage with people first, create relationships, then move them to act.

Case Observation #3:

Their social media sites offer no real value to fans and followers

The company hadn’t taken the time to figure out what people were interested in reading on their social sites. Since the organization was not actually creating individual relationships with its fans, then it had to offer compelling and relevant news and data. However, it wasn’t giving followers information that mattered to the followers. Not surprisingly, no one wanted to visit the website to find out more.

Case Observation #4:

You need a strategy for each and every social media platform.

Their overall social media strategy consisted of posting news and information. This is an appropriate strategy for social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg, but not at all for social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, the company usually posted the same information on both Twitter and Facebook. Fans of both sites were not even receiving unique value or reward for following the company in two places.

It’s important to realize that no two communities are the same online. Each has its own rules, expectations, and needs. You need an engagement strategy for each one of these communities. The strategy should consider the qualities of each social media platform, the needs of followers, how to best engage, and what your organization can offer its followers in terms of both engagement and value.

It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson

Social media is a tool to help your company meet its goals. But it’s more than that: if you aren’t using these tools properly, then it doesn’t matter how many fans, followers, or linkedin connections you have. They won’t care enough to do anything for your organization or company.

This case illustrates that it’s not about the number of fans and followers. It’s about the engagement. Create a strategy that brings your organization engaged followers and real relationships.

4,000 followers means nothing without engagement. And it never will.

You can contact Debra at: debra at communityorganizer20 dot com

Leveraging Social Media?

Mark Buzan is back with us again on that topic that is all the buzz...social media. Do you know that in the last six months Facebook has exploded with older users, cause groups, politicians and Nonprofits? I just keep finding Facebook to fascinate. I like the way it pushes information out at me and how I can push information out to my "friends." Mark explores how you can use social media to keep your organization in the communications loop, recruit new members and even fundraise. Bunnie

Leveraging Social Media?

(Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, and podcasts - what are all these internet forums and are they really applicable to non-profits?)

by Mark Buzan, Action Strategies

Interestingly, it is the internet’s depth and vastness that mystifies many association executives. Sadly, I hear many associations express veiled excuses for not involving social media in their outreach efforts. Commonly thought of as the domain of Gen-Yers, and twenty-somethings, social media and internet viral marketing offer practical and sensible applications for all audiences. Social media strategy depends from case to case and will require an investment of time. Used correctly, social media can:

· Build networks and community, connect and mobilize members on the key issues confronting your association
· Build a donor base and gather emails
· Tell your story –Put a face and a personality to your organization
· Share information and resources quickly
· Promote brand and cause

If carried out correctly, viral web marketing techniques can be very effective in boosting your member list and getting your organization’s name and message out. Many non-profits are using “Tell a friend” buttons or links on their websites and email newsletters. Whether used for connecting or recruiting members and donors, and developing advocacy can take different channels through the various goals sought.

Recruiting members and soliciting donations:

The very essence of making online “friends” and developing a base of followers through social media extends this ability far beyond the reach of the amount of people or prospects you could physically reach in one day. With one of my charitable clients, the Success Factory, we have just begun an online campaign through Facebook to raise money and build word-of-mouth awareness for its employment training programs. Using the “Causes” application, Facebook is allowing board members and staff of this brand new organization in one full sweep to: 1.) Demonstrate the mission of the Success Factory, 2.) Engage other Facebook members to recruit their friends as supporters of the cause, and 4.) Allow a forum of communication for Success Factory supporters, thereby spawning the creation of new innovative ideas.

Facilitating communication between association staff, members, supporters and the board
The concept of sharing ongoing association business with the entire world on Facebook is less than appealing. To answer this situation, there are social media options such as Ning.com and Google Friend Connect that can create either a separate network for an association or integrate social networking elements right within an association’s website. The Canadian Table Soccer Association is one association that has effectively utilized Ning (http://tablesoccerca.ning.com/) as an opportunity for members to connect, share ideas, and announce events.

Within an association website, there are means a communications team can take to ensure that it remains current and relevant for members. Using Google Friend Connect, a free set of customizable tools offered by Google, associations can embed html code within their website that easily invites friends from social networks and contact lists to visit and join your site.

If associations are not blogging, they need to begin. Integrating a blog into your web presence provides regular information for members and board to follow. For those associations less inclined towards a full blog, Twitter comes to the rescue offering a micro-blog option. Creating an account is free and each blog entry is limited to 140 characters. As a result, your association’s ability to be found in search engines is increased.

Building recognition with the Media and Influential Bloggers

The internet is crawling with bloggers on issues as vast as the internet itself. Social media also changes the presence of how non-profits present information to journalists. With the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC), I have been working their media relations and internet teams to promote collaboration between these two fields. Journalists will also be kept up to date with every story development of via an RSS subscribe option. Even the delivery of traditional press releases changes with social media. Instead of the typical boiler plate press release, a photo was embedded along with clickable links over to the organization’s website. To best ensure the internet is leveraged as a communications vehicle, make sure the message you devise is clear, well presented, and easy-to-follow. This includes replying to personal messages and posting constant updates. Online profiles can be time-consuming, but their targeted visibility is unparalleled.
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Mark Buzan is Principal and Chief Magnifier in Action Strategies, a full service Strategic Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs Consultancy for non-profits and associations. His blog can be found at: http://actionstrategies.blogspot.com/

Giving Members and Donors Value

by Bunnie Riedel, Host of Nonprofit Conversation

The latest news is that the economy has “bottomed out.” But as I recently said, nonprofit fiscal health will lag some twelve to eighteen months behind the for-profit sector. So even if tons of new jobs were created tomorrow and the economy had a complete turn-around in the next twelve months, nonprofits will still be feeling the pain for at least the next two years.

What does that mean for you? It means you have to be as sharp and entrepreneurial as you can be because you are in hot competition for membership and donor money. You must make sure that you provide value to your members and donors and if you’re already providing value, you must make sure you communicate that value.

Take a long, hard look at your organization. What are your members and donors getting out of giving you money?

Everywhere I look there are lots of sales. Business understands that shoppers are seeking the greatest value return on their purchases. What I might have spent $10 on a year ago, I now want that same product for $7 (or even less), I am seeking bargains. Is your organization a “bargain”? Will I, as a member or donor, feel like I am really getting my money’s worth?

Let’s look at overhead. What percentage of your budget is spent on creating products or services or programs that meet the needs of the members/donors? Have you looked at your rating on Charity Navigator recently? Is your organization listed on Guidestar or with the Better Business Bureau? And if so, what information is available on those websites? Is it good or is it less than stellar? If your organization is too top heavy, meaning too much of your income is being spent on non-programmatic expenses, it’s time to do some trimming.

People are very savvy these days and certainly electronically connected, and they are looking for value. I would even urge you to hire a consultant to assess your organization with fresh eyes. And if you haven’t Googled your organization lately, I urge you to do so; you should always see how your organization comes up and who is saying what about you and your organization. Googling every week or so can save you a lot of aggravation and certainly make sure your members/donors (and potential members/donors) have a good impression of the organization.

What do your members/donors want in exchange for their money? Networking? Training? Discounts? Good will? To help others? To build something? A cause they believe in? If you think of your members/donors as shoppers and your services as products you are selling, it will be easier to look at your services and assign value to them. And if you can’t, if there is no value, then perhaps it’s time to get rid of those valueless services. When is the last time you surveyed your members/donors and asked them what they want? It’s called “market research” when for- profits do it, maybe it’s time for you to do some market research. I recommend you consider conducting in-person focus groups with your members/donors so you can really get a feel for what they think is important.

So let’s say that your non-programmatic expenses are in line and you know exactly what your member/donors want and you have created the ultimate value and your services are really a bargain. Now what? It does no good to have fabulous services and programs if nobody knows about it. For-profits advertise constantly “We are the best! You have to shop here! You can’t miss out on this terrific product! You can’t get this kind of value anywhere else!” However, one of the line items most ignored by nonprofits is the marketing budget. These days you can do so much marketing for free on the internet, and you certainly can be constantly marketing how fabulous you are to members/donors. Here’s a few tips:

• Facebook (get your members/donors to become your fans)



• Twitter (get your members/donors to follow you)



• Blogs (yes, have a blog and spend some time getting others to blog about you)



• Digg (write articles and Digg them)



• Pitchengine (I love those guys! Free social media releases!)



• Ezine articles (put your blog out there as an expert article)



• Your story (write about your organization)



• Constant Contact (go green, save trees and deliver newsletters)



• Direct Mail



• Public Service Announcements and videos (spend a couple of bucks on a quick video to post on your website and Youtube, etc.)
  

Wait! Did she say “direct mail?” Yes. While it’s great to go green and do everything electronically, there’s still nothing like that direct mail appeal. As I said in a previous post on writing membership renewal letters, the beauty is that your members/donors can add your appeal to their bill box, so it gets paid just like every other obligation.

Everything in the above paragraphs is really dependent on your members/donors, their demographics and their technical savvy. If you have a constituency that is not “wired” you will still need to employ the old fashioned methods, which is perfectly fine although may cost you more.

At the next Board meeting have this discussion: How do we give value to our members/donors? By constantly striving to give value you can beat out your competition for dollars and make sure that when the economy does finally recover, your organization will still be standing.


Calling Nonprofit Executives, Board Members and Consultants! Want to write for Nonprofit Conversation? Email Bunnie at info at riedelcommunications dot com. Pitch your idea! I'm all ears!

Contact Bunnie at info at riedelcommunications dot com

Impromptu Fundraising Using Facebook

Yesterday, the New York Times reported a study that shows that online donors don't return to repeat donations. I'm not terribly surprised. The internet is a noisy place that requires extreme competition for attention. The article talked about using internet fundraising as a way to find donors, but then following up with those new donors in more traditional ways, such as direct mail.

Liz Bazini, Young Hadassah International Chair, illustrates how using your organization's cause page on Facebook, can lead to an instant fundraiser. Cause pages are great because you have an interested audience, people have to opt-in to a "cause" and those who opt-in are much more likely to respond to an appeal. As an additional bonus, Young Hadassah International gained 100 new Facebook members. Not bad for a day's work. Bunnie

Impromptu Fundraising Using Facebook

by Liz Bazini

Young Hadassah International Chair

Using Facebook Young Hadassah International (YHI) raised $2,500 in 48 hours for the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem.

The impromptu “event,” part of the “Help Hadassah Heal” campaign, was held in response to the significant decline in donations made to the organization due to the economic crisis. “Help Hadassah Heal” was launched on the Hadassah International website--www.hadassah-international.org--in January 2009 featuring podcasts from the Shlomo Mor-Yosef, Director General, Hadassah University Medical Center and the Hadassah National President Nancy Falchuk.

The virtual YHI Facebook fundraiser reached 1500 people; the majority of the money raised was in the form of $20 contributions. In addition, during the 48-hour period individuals changed their profile pictures to the YHI logo which increased exposure for the hospital and the fundraising organization. As a result, we now have over 100 new members of the Young Hadassah International Facebook Cause Group (www.causes.com/younghadassah).

The money raised will benefit the much-needed renovations of Hadassah’s Pediatrics Department on Mount Scopus, and provide crucial state-of-the art diagnostic and treatment equipment to give the children the best care possible. Hadassah Hospital-Mount Scopus has a special history, as it was the region’s first modern medical facility when it opened in 1939. Today, the hospital serves both Arabs and Jews from the northern neighborhoods of Jerusalem, the surrounding towns and villages, the Palestinian Authority, as well as patients who come from all parts of the country.

When these children are first admitted to the hospital, families from diverse backgrounds oftentimes do not appreciate the common bonds that unite them. As contact between Arab and Jewish families increases, there is a gradual dissipation of the pervasive suspicion, fear, and hostility. In time, one family goes down to the cafeteria for coffee and brings back snacks for the other families. As parents from opposite sides of the divide come to know one another as individuals, perspectives gradually begin to change and stereotypes blur. To one another, they are now only parents of sick children, battling a common enemy—disease.

Today, the Pediatrics Department has an annual occupancy of well over 100%, reaching 150% in winter months. The needed renovation and expansion will:

• Reduce the number of children in a room

• Allow parents to stay with their child overnight

• Provide consultation rooms for parents and medical staff

• Add staff and seminar meeting rooms

• Provide for the purchase of advanced medical equipment

The mission of YHI is to build awareness and generate long term support among young adults for the Hadassah Medical Centre which impacts medical care globally. Serving the Middle East, the Hadassah Medical Centre is a pioneering university hospital that provides cutting-edge research and healthcare without discrimination. Its global outreach ranges from offering aid to African communities to being first on the scene at natural disasters.

The men and women who comprise YHI organize fundraising events and promote networking among likeminded people. YHI chapters include Argentina, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. To learn more visit http://www.young-hadassah.org/.

Contact Liz at http://www.young-hadassah.org/

Braving the Fast Lane on the Social Networking Infobahn

Buzz Harris, Executive Director of the Development Resource Center is a great guy with a great sense of humor! I know, everyone reading this blog is super-duper connected to the "Social Networking Infobahn" but in case you aren't, Buzz lays out a lot of options for getting connected. Bunnie

Braving the Fast Lane on the Social Networking Infobahn

by Buzz Harris,

Executive Director Development Resource Center

It’s Wednesday in the digital workplace. You’re a Luddite. An anxious Luddite. One of the office twentysomethings is in urgent monologue with you about “Web Two-Point-Oh.” Your digital footprint is “so 1995” and you need a “MyFace” account immediately! You’ve heard this before. You’ve read about it. And the kid is smart.

What’s a manager a shade greyer than the cybergeneration to do? First, don’t panic. Yes there is a new generation of marketing and communications tools out there: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, RSS feeds, and the fast-evolving Blog, among others. Your anxiety is natural. Society has hit one of those moments of rapid technological change when what was true for generations suddenly isn’t.

Nothing New Under the Sun

It’s 1439 all over again, and Johan Gutenberg’s printing press has all the scriveners in a tizzy! They’d just adjusted to pamphleteers flooding the streets with thousands of handbills (the blogs of their day) when Moveable Type 2.0 brought out newspapers. The post-medieval younger set was all over them.

So you’re driving an old Citroën 2C “Double Horse” down the Infobahn; how do you merge left? First decide why you want to. Are you looking to raise your organization’s profile?, attract donors?, recruit volunteers? We stress to our students that they shouldn’t jump in without knowing their goal(s).

Getting Started

Start with a blog (short for “Web Log”). It’s a place for posting documents, news analysis, activist alerts, newsletter articles, imbedded videos, and anything else you like. We call it “content,” and it’s key to your success. Your content should be useful, interesting, and updated at least two to three times a week. New blog material will keep your constituents interested and make them visit often. It should also be framed to move them toward your goal. Provide links in the text for people to volunteer or donate. Offer them the chance to register for an event or receive your e-newsletter. Draw them in. Choose a blog site with high traffic and high visibility and link to it directly from your home page. We recommend WordPress to our students.

Directing Traffic

Use other social networking tools to steer people to your blog. Set up a “cause” page for your group on Facebook and update it regularly with snippets of your blog content. Use links to bring them to the blog for the full text. The search function on Facebook lets you find people that your staff and board members already know and invite them to become “friends.” Your cause page can (and should) be set up to allow donations directly from Facebook users. If your organization is focused on music and the arts do the same thing on MySpace. If you have many business and professional contacts then create a group profile on LinkedIn.

Twitter is a communications system that allows users to send short messages that are accessible to its million-plus subscribers. You can post questions for feedback, put out news of new blog content, and report what your group is up to. People express their interest in your Twitter entries by becoming “followers” on your Twitter profile. RSS feeds (“Real Simple Syndication”) allow those who click on an icon to be notified via email or text message of new content on your site.

Remember, these digital outposts and communications tools are there to steer people to your blog. This is quite similar to good old-fashioned donor acquisition. Throw a net out into the digital sea and draw in those who are interested. Engage with them via your blog, email, invitations to events, etc. to bring them closer and create a relationship between them and your group. Get them invested.

Figure out your goal(s) for these tools, research existing content in each of them that relates to your group’s work, and jump in! To learn more see Beth Kanter’s informative blog.
Buzz Harris is the Executive Director of the Development Resource Center, whose mission is to teach the fundamentals of successful fundraising and governance to nonprofits and NGO’s. The DRC offers inexpensive, web-based distance-learning and in-person courses on fundraising and board service. This spring the DRC will begin offering a new class on social networking media for nonprofits. Buzz can be reached at http://www.developmentresource.org/contact

No research budget? Consider Facebook

In the "why didn't I think of that" category, Erik Evans (Public Relations and Web Information) of the Sons of Norway talks about using Facebook as a virtual focus group. Sure I think of Facebook as a great way to network and keep in touch with friends, but using it to keep constant contact with the pulse of your membership is a great idea! Bunnie

No Research Budget? Consider Facebook

by Erik Evans

Public Relations and Web Information

Sons of Norway

Are you in need of customer/member input? Are you at a point where your non-profit's growth is dependant on the opinions of the people you serve? Are considering an information campaign to change the public's perception of your non-profit? Are you trying to figure out how to accomplish any of these things without a formal budget or enough staff to devote to them?

One word (maybe two depending on whether you're a type A personality or not): Facebook.

For those who have never used it, Facebook is a social networking site where individuals create profiles and build networks of friends. More importantly, it also offers users the opportunity to join common interest groups that relate to everything from social causes to specific companies and employers. Therein lay the potential for non-profits.

If you've never checked to see if there is a group dedicated to your non-profit, you may be missing out on a wealth of unsolicited, unedited information/opinions/feedback from the very audience you serve (which could be priceless to your decision-making process). You see, in most Facebook groups there are message boards where members can create discussion threads on a variety of topics related to the group. Within these message boards you have vocal supporters, opinion leaders, dissatisfied customers and everything in between. What's important to know is that these are exactly the kind of people you'd want to recruit if you were conducting focus-group-based research.

Since those of us in the non-profit field are expected to do more for less as often as possible, these Facebook groups offer a unique opportunity to gather opinions and perceptions at no cost. There are a number of member-created groups dedicated to the non-profit I work for and I often find myself reading the user's comments, looking for trends in opinion, potential threats of misperception or misinformation and above all learning about what's important to our members. Other times, if I'm trying to get a feel for how our members will react to certain topics or issues, I'll post a question to all the group members on the message board. Often, this will elicit a number of responses, and it's like having a virtual focus group. The results are often very illuminating and always informative.

However, I would caution, if you do decide to give this a try you need to maintain a high level of credibility. Do not hide the fact that you are employed by the non-profit that is the subject of the group, do not simply troll for information and, above all, add value to the discussions. Remember, these boards are a two way street and if you just throw out a question and then remove yourself entirely from the discussion, members won't want to participate. Be ready to answer questions or to contribute to the conversation sometimes, and always show that you are taking the members comments seriously. Doing so will increase the quality of information you derive and make for a great experience for everyone involved.

To learn more about using social media as a non-profit resource, contact Erik Evans at eevans@sofn.com

Utilizing Social Media in a Non Profit: The Anita Borg Institute Story

I asked the question...how are nonprofits using technology in this "down" economy? Jerri Barrett, Director of Marketing for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, answered with some amazing examples of how they are using social media to stay in touch with their members and drive organizational loyalty.

Utilizing Social Media in a Non Profit: The Anita Borg Institute Story

by Jerri Barrett

One of the new rules of non-profit communications is that you need to communicate in multiple ways so that you reach your constituency in their preferred method of receiving information. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, and Linked In are just some of the ways to reach out to build your communities of supporters.

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology is the host for the online listserv Systers, the oldest online community for women in computing and after 21 years has over 3000 members. Other early social media activities included the launch of a blog, located on our website (http://www.anitaborg.org/) , and My Space pages being established to support our conference “The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.” We learned from these early efforts that our constituency was not using MySpace but that other Online Social Media groups were more promising. In 2008 we invested in the effort by hiring a dedicated Communities Manager.

A central lesson in the successful launch of online communities is tying their activities to one’s nonprofit mission. As opposed to strictly a marketing channel, online communities that become an integral part of delivering your organizations’ mission are poised to significantly increase not only your reach, but your impact.

Late 2007, we launched our LinkedIn for Good Anita Borg group. That group grew rapidly as 2008 progressed. After little more than a year, we now have over 1300 members in our LinkedIn Group. The group exists primarily for networking, though we do continuously communicate to the group about the Institute’s programs and activities. Part of the success can be attributed to the recognition of the critical need for networking in a recession economy for finding new positions. In addition to our core constituency of technical women, this group has attracted recruiters. This combination is a huge benefit to the participants who are seeking support during a job search. We exist to promote the recruitment, retention, and advancement of technical women, so the LinkedIn group has become another tool in our program arsenal.

For the Anita Borg Institute (ABI), 2008 was the year of Twitter. Our Community Manager actively tweets about all aspects of our activities. In addition, our events frequently have participants tweeting throughout. Creating a community of people tweeting is critical to raising the profile of your organization and its events, and keeping your constituency engaged with and inspired about your programs.

Blogging also achieved greater visibility in the organization in 2008. In addition to maintaining our Institute blog, we launched our CEO’s blog (techher.blogspot.com) and a Fast Company blog (http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/caroline-simard/advancing-women-technology/). We engaged more of our community in blogging to support our Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Our Facebook presence has scaled tremendously in the past 18 months. We now host a primary Facebook page that is focused on all things related to the Institute. The content of the page is fed from our website so any new blog posts, articles or press releases on the main site are automatically updated on the Facebook page. The main ABI Facebook Page has 435 fans. In addition to the main page, event pages have also been created that event attendees can check for the most current information and updates about the events. Currently we have the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2009 page and the Women of Vision 2009 Pages in place. Each event page launched in late 2008 and the Grace Hopper page already has over 250 participants.

The Grace Hopper Celebration itself incorporates multiple kinds of social media. The Conference is the largest gathering of Women in Computing in the world and in 2008 attracted 1450 attendees from 22 countries. The attendees range from undergraduates to senior level technical women, so Social Media becomes critical to communicating across a wide ranging constituency. We recruit volunteers to post fresh content into our various groups. Photographers actively post their photos on Flickr; video bloggers post footage on YouTube and their Facebook pages, bloggers sit in sessions and blog, and tweets are flowing from all aspects of the event. We took blogging to a new level last year by having an official blog dedicated to the event and recruited presenters at the conference to preview their presentations and recruit audiences throughout the summer. The role of online communities has taken an increased importance in our annual conference. We estimate that over 40% of our Grace Hopper Celebration attendees were part of our Grace Hopper Facebook group; YouTube, the GHC Blog, and Twitter scored high in terms of participant’s views of which tools most enhanced their conference experience.

So what are our next steps in Social Media? We are currently finding ways to more actively engage people in the communities and call them to action to help support our mission of changing the culture of technology to achieve greater numbers of women in the technology pipeline. We are also constantly working to generate more value added content to each of the communities to keep them engaged in our mission. We work to add new content through both the efforts of our staff, guest bloggers, and guest writers from other non profits and technology companies. You can access all our communities through our website at http://anitaborg.org/community/connect/.


Jerri Barrett, Director of Marketing, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
Email : jerrib@anitaborg.org Web: http://www.anitaborg.org/ http://www.gracehopper.org/