Monthly Archive for December, 2007

America’s Giving Challenge: Importance of discussion

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 23, 2007
in fundraising and otherblogs
. 2 Comments

I received an email from Beth Kanter about my decision to join her in championing the cause for the Sharing Foundation, which helps children in Cambodia receive the education and support they need. Beth asked:

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

My initial response was two fold:

1. Build discussion

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

2. Link to discussion

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

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

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

America’s Giving Challenge: Early reflections

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 21, 2007
in fundraising and otherblogs
. 2 Comments

The Case Foundation, Parade Magazine and Facebook Causes have joined forces for America’s Giving Challenge which has been talked about quite a bit by terrific cause champions like Beth Kanter, Soha El-Borno at Wild Apricot, Britt Bravo, and Allison Fine. Participating in the challenge means you could win $50,000 for your favorite nonprofit. Posting a charity badge on your blog or website or facebook profile, joining a facebook cause, and recruiting others to join and donate are all part of the process.

I am supporting the Sharing Foundation and Beth’s work to get $50,000 donated to them. I have a badge in my facebook profile and have encouraged/invited others to do the same. I have joined a cause and also invited others to it.

I could have chosen a different group and selected the badge and cause that corresponded to it, blogged about that cause and told stories of that organization’s work. I chose to support the Sharing Foundation, though, and support Beth’s work in outreach for its cause. Why?

Because when I thought about starting my giving challenge, I couldn’t decide who I would pick! There are so many organization all over the world that I love and support. Whenever I think about making small contributions of money, time, skills, effort, etc. in my life, I always think “together we can make a difference.” To me, this means that if my contribution is going to go the farthest, I will want to be sure that I have many others fighting with me. I decided, then, to team up with Beth for the Sharing Foundation (you should check them out, they are terrific!) and experiment, learn, and enjoying making a difference together.

Will you join us to make a difference? Here are some terrific calls to action from Beth:

  • If you are on Facebook, join the Sharing Foundation’s cause and recruit your friends.
  • Not sure if you want to join the Facebook cause? Watch this video
  • Be ready to celebrate [Beth's] birthday on January 11th with the minimum donation. This is a great way to let her know that you appreciate the blog as well as the work of the Sharing Foundation.
  • Not on Facebook? You can contribute through the widget that Michele Martin set up and is championing. (You can add the widget to your blog, facebook, website, etc!)
  • Are you a blogger? Please sign up to help me! You’ll find the information here

Social media, only a matter of time?

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 14, 2007
in reports and socialmedia
. 1 Comment

A new report out from Strategy Analytics estimates that social media could be touching an enormous amount of people worldwide, very soon: about 1 in 6 people, according to the report, will be using social media around the world by 2012 (that is just five years!).

“It is clear that user generated media will increasingly compete with professional media when it comes to the attention and free time of users,” comments Martin Olausson, Director of Digital Media Research at Strategy Analytics. “However, if professional media companies choose to embrace social media applications it will enable a more direct and positive relationship with consumers, which will in turn drive increased engagement and loyalty.”

Mack Collier suggest some interesting questions to consider given the reports estimates and what they would mean for everyone.

Some additional things to consider with this news, especially for nonprofits:

  • How are you using social media tools now? (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, NetworkForGood, Change.org, Wikis, RSS, Podcasts, YouTube, etc.)
  • How will you engage with new audiences and more people as the online community continues to grow? (Does your social media strategy account for engagement now?)
  • How will you adapt to new tools as they emerge? (With more people using the current tools, the need for additional, different, and evolving tools grows.)
  • How can you do your work and serve your community better with more tools and users? (At the end of the day, you still want to be saving the world and not just connecting, right?)

What are your answers? Or, what other questions do you have?

Forrester helps you create a social strategy

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 12, 2007
in marketing and socialmedia
. 1 Comment

POST is Forrester’s terrific new model for step-by-step strategy development using social media tools. With the ever-growing list of new media tools available for the for- and nonprofit organizations to use, picking the best tool for the project becomes a big issue.

Last Friday, my colleagues and I put on a training event for nonprofits on using social media. As part of the day’s workshop, participants split into small groups and were provided with a scenario about a nonprofit facing a certain dilemma and prompted to create a strategy that involved social media tools. Nearly all of the groups in the jumped right in to discussing tools available and consequently how they might use them. This lead to a lot of circular conversations and frustrated, not to mention overwhelmed, participants. With direction from the group leaders, though, the planning was quickly back on track.

Forrester’s POST approach, keeps you on track by making sure you don’t jump to the icing of the cake before you have decided what you are even baking.

In the POST process, you have four steps including: People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. Addressing the issue of People means looking first at who the audience before doing anything else.

After you are confident about who you are reaching and some of their online characteristics, you can move on to Objectives. This is where you really think about what you are trying to do. Think small. Saving the world is on everyone’s list, but probably not quite as doable as provide event participants with collaboration and conversation access.

With your audience and goals in check, start thinking about the Strategy. Strategy doesn’t mean the social media tools, though, don’t rush! In this part, you want to focus on what the technology tools will change for you and your audience. How will things be after you have implemented the tools?

Okay, now you can pick the most applicable technology tools to use. It will be easier to see the right tools from the plethora that exists because you are looking through a specific lens that has the audience, goal and strategy layers. You will now be able to also have a more constructive view of why some and not some other options.

I wish that I would have had handouts of the POST method for our event for participants! Conversations and planning could have been much more focused. I am confident that in the future, the POST method will be able to help organizations across the spectrum fine tune their social media strategies and help get more direction to the new technology integration.

The POST process is a terrific way to help nonprofits and for-profits in their media decision making. Forrester, and specifically Josh Bernoff, has done terrific work on this. You should head over to Forrester’s website or to their blog to learn more about POST and the great work happening at Forrester.

POST will be featured in Forrester’s book Groundswell. The book is on pre-order now to be available in April. You can place a pre-order now if you are interested.

Social Media event review

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 11, 2007
in workblog
. 2 Comments

I just posted this review of our new media event from Friday on my work blog. Has anyone taken part in an event on social media tools using scenarios of local nonprofits? What was the outcome?

This past Friday was our third event in the series Communicating in the Age of New Media and focused on social media tools. It was a wonderful success, at least in my opinion, and took place at IRCO (Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization) offering us a chance to have applicable conversations and applications of our small group scenarios, many of which focused on immigrant and refugee or other special needs populations. My standard review process includes noting three positives and one negative, so, here’s my take on the event:

Rose: Facilitator
We were very honored and thrilled to have come out to provide us with an overview of social media and the tools nonprofits are and can be using and then walk us through the day’s workshop. She provided great insight and helped the groups every step of the way with suggestions, ideas, and thought-provoking questions. You can even read Beth’s reflections on the event on her blog!

Rose: Participants
Beth was terrific, but our participants really made the day for me! They were positive about the new media tools and ready to learn. People were jumping right in to the workshop scenarios and energetic in creating strategies using social media to help nonprofits best do their work. When faced with this much new information, people can get scared and overwhelmed, or excited and motivated. I was thrilled to see that our participants were the latter.

Rose: Conversation
At every table around the room, conversations were taking place that proved how energetic and enthused the participants and the leaders were about the topic—what is not to be excited about? After all, some nonprofits are ahead of corporations in adopting social web tools! One great tool that my group touched on was the utility of wikis for organizations and their members. What better place to collaborate and build community through participation and contribution than in a wiki? We even set up a wiki for the event so that the notes, ideas, questions, and great conversation could be recorded and continued.

Thorn: Time
With such a motivated group of participants and a guru facilitator, it was hard to call it a day. We could have easily worked on the scenarios in small groups, had conversations and answered questions together for many more hours. Even this thorn has a rose: Check out the wiki for the event and we can keep discussing and collaborating!

I hope all of you who had the opportunity to be with us on Friday enjoyed it and learned something you can put to use at your organization. To those who could not join us, we hope to put on similar events in the future and I will continue to post here on ideas, issues, news, and information to help you use social media tools in your organization.

Why wikis?

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 10, 2007
in socialmedia and webtools
. 1 Comment

This past Friday, we held our third event in the series Communicating in the Age of New Media for nonprofit organizations to learn, this time, about social media tools. It was quite a success, with a great deal of conversation, learning, ideas, and even Beth Kanter to accompany participants through the day.

One tool that I felt was getting talked about and asked about quite a bit, was the wiki. How would we use it? What is so great about it? What is it to begin with?

We weren’t shy about showing our support of wikis, as the event had a wiki of its own for participants to share notes, questions, and resources. Using a tool for collaboration and shared learning is a terrific place for nonprofits to enter the new media world. There is plenty of free wiki software out there so you can start using it in your office or home to get the feel of it, which kind you are comfortable with, and how you want to use it at work.

After all the conversations I had about wikis at the event, and all the ways I was suggesting people could use a wiki in their organization or with their members, I’m curious how you are already or planning to use them. Does your organization use a wiki internally or externally? What was the biggest hurdle in getting non-new media users on board? I’d love to hear your stories!

Also, a good friend and colleague helped us faciliate our event and has a wealth of knowledge about wikis: Brandon at AboutUs.