Archive for the 'case studies' Category

Tu Diabetes Fundraises with YouTube, do you?

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on September 11, 2008
in case studies and fundraising
. 2 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

I recently wrote about Tu Diabetes’ use of Twitter and the strategies the online community has employed to find and engage with new people. Today, I want to take a look at another social media tool Tu Diabetes is using successfully: YouTube.

YouTube is an online video tool “allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.”

Tu Diabetes has a YouTube channel with over 60 videos and over 70 subscriptions. Manny Hernandez, community founder, explained the group’s YouTube strategies to me recently.

I asked Manny what the original idea or example was that got Tu Diabetes using YouTube for fundraising. Manny said that Tu Diabetes adopted video as a tool to communicate with members since the very beginning. Early on, before they were even a non-profit (2007) they produced weekly podcasts to summarize the highlights in the community and do a member update. (You can see an example here.) All the videos included on YouTube have previously been posted in the video section on TuDiabetes.com (or EsTuDiabetes.com, if they are in Spanish).

I think the power and success of fundraising with video is one of the most interesting aspects of Tu Diabetes’ use of YouTube. Manny said that, so far, ALL the funds raised through the members (close to $3,500) since they started the fundraising campaign have been tied to video-based-asks. We have had three videos during the campaign so far, which started in June, with each one getting more and more on target:

One of the most frequently asked questions I come across when organizations are considering using videos on organizational websites or places like YouTube is the burden of resources, costs, etc. For Tu Diabetes, the only technical resources used are Mac-based. Manny shot the first two using the built-in iSight camera on his MacBook. The most recent one was done on his wife’s Mac Pro, combining images posted by our members in the community. All videos were edited using iMovie. The most recent one had music donated by the duo Hammock (one of his favorite bands - http://hammockmusic.com).

It is important to keep in mind the goals an organization has when considering the use/adoption of social media tools, because there are just so many to choose from. One of the goals of the Diabetes Hands Foundation is to raise diabetes awareness. Based on that, you have to look at video views. The most viewed videos to date are here: the Drawing Diabetes video with close to 27,000 views, and the Word In Your Hand video with close to 2,500 views + several thousand more views through TuDiabetes and other outlets.

The other goal is to help connect people touched by diabetes (they’ve found diabetes to be a “closet” condition where people that have it barely talk about it with others). Based on this, the Spanish videos have been the most successful, resulting in proportionally many more people touched by diabetes joining the community (EsTuDiabetes.com). Manny thinks this is because there is a bigger need for Spanish content about diabetes and, specifically, content that people can understand easily.

Social media tools are ultimately about building community and making connections between the organization and new members. With YouTube, Tu Diabetes reaches out to new members. They do periodic searches for “diabetes” on YouTube and leave relevant comments to people who also share their diabetes stories on YT. It is very important that the comments be contextual and valuable. We take the opportunity to tell people about the community. Normally invitations to join result in people joining.

Besides YouTube, Tu Diabetes has used:

So, what are the future plans for Tu Diabetes’ use of YouTube? They are currently waiting on the approval of 501c3 status. Once approved, they will be able to take full advantage of the YouTube for Nonprofits program. Tu Diabetes will continue to publish video content, which they do on the YouTube channel, because they feel it is a great means to accomplish the goal of raising diabetes awareness.

What do you think about Tu Diabetes’ use of YouTube? Has your organization considered using videos on your website or on a public channel like YouTube? What goals would you want to address with the help of video?  Comment with the Net Squared community, too!

Twitter at use for Tu Diabetes community

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on September 4, 2008
in case studies and community
. 3 Comments

Originally posted on the Net Squared blog.

Twitter is a service for people to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of short (140 character) messages. This micro-blogging tool has seen growing use over the last two years from individuals, activists, organizations and even news companies. (Click here for the Common Craft video on Twitter.)

Tu Diabetes is a great example of a group using Twitter to engage with communities online.  Tu Diabetes is an online community where members help each other out, educate themslves and share the steps taken every day to stay healthy while living with this very serious condition. Tu Diabetes employs a gamut of web tools in its process of reaching out to new community members, keeping the community informed, and educating the public.

I recently spoke with Manny Hernandez, Tu Diabetes community founder, to take a closer look at Tu Diabetes’ Twitter story.

I asked Manny if Tu Diabetes has a policy or strategy for building the followers/following lists.  He explained that, “every week or two, we do a search for the term “diabetes” on Twitter and selectively add certain people. We avoid adding people who are clearly using Twitter for SPAM or strictly commercial purposes. The Twitter search only looks in the people’s profiles, so we go a step further and use TweetScan to do a search in tweets containing the term “diabetes”. Then again, many of them are SPAM but a good number of them are legit and are made by people who could potentially be interested in what our community has to offer. We add those folks to our list of followed people. When you take a look at the product of our “adds” you see a very diabetes-centric timeline, which makes for a very interesting and inspiring reference. Also, we typically see people we add on Twitter joining the community. When people get a chance to see that you are for real, that the community is offering valuable information and support, people take the extra step and join. I don’t think this is something that works this way outside of nonprofit, but it is a model that I highly recommend for non-profits to try.”

I also asked what the specific strategy is for posting content via Twitter. Manny explained that, they “use Twitterfeed to automate the posting of a few of the RSS feeds that TuDiabetes has: forum topics, blog posts, etc. Depending on their volume we have Twitterrific posts to our Twitter account periodically (typically a few times per day) with relevant content (all our content is centered around diabetes). We also post manually periodically, every time there is a relevant topic or announcement that we want to make sure appears in our Twitter timeline.”

Twitter is a great avenue for cultivating and igniting conversations as well as getting your information out. I asked Manny if they had been part of some conversations within Twitter, and not just their online community space, and he confirmed that “occasionally other Twitter users contact us with questions. We’ve had a few media people contact us through Twitter too.”

I think Manny really nailed a great idea for organizations or online communities looking to explore Twitter’s use: “When people get a chance to see that you are for real, that the community is offering valuable information and support, people take the extra step and join. I don’t think this is something that works this way outside of nonprofit, but it is a model that I highly recommend for non-profits to try.”

Twitter, and other micro-blogging tools like Identi.ca and others, is another way organizations can be more open, transparent, and available in real-time to answer questions, provide information, and keep the community informed about both the work being done and ways to get involved. Here are some other organizational Twitter accounts you may want to check out:

Is your organization using Twitter, or are any of your staff members using it? What questions do you have for organizations adopting micro-blogging tools like Twitter?

Make your messaging fun!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on August 27, 2008
in case studies, marketing and storytelling
. 0 Comments

Originally posted on the Net Squared blog.

Sending out yet another email to your members can be painful sometimes when you really want to say the same thing you’ve already tried to tell them countless times. We’ve all been there, either on the sending or receiving end of those messages. But, making something fun that delivers the message means you get to make something new and interesting, your members get to enjoy what you’ve created and the message is in there without any more of the boring blah blah blah. But, how do you do that?

Earth Day Networks’ Lesson in Making the Message Fun

Lesson learned: engage your members first, and actions (both service and donations) will come more naturally.

EDN sent out an email message announcing the new ecological footprint calculator. It doesn’t talk about any other programs nor does it ask for anything other than checking out the tool. (To see the original email, see file below.) With five links back, the messages says:

Earth Day Network has just released its newest tool to combat climate change: The new, updated, and much more fun Ecological Footprint Calculator.

In this new tool created by Global Footprint Network, you can create a three-dimensional avatar of your choosing, and tour your virtual neighborhood. Then you will be asked a series of questions about your food consumption, energy use, favorite mode of transportation, type of residence, recycling commitment, and spending habits. You can even choose to take a long version or a short version of the quiz!

The Footprint Calculator will tell you how many “planets” would be necessary to sustain human life- if everyone lived just like you, and how many acres of land and tons of carbon necessary to sustain your lifestyle. You can even revisit your quiz to see where she “went wrong”, and find out how to reduce your carbon footprint.

If you are a teacher or professor, encourage your students to take the quiz and experiment with the answers. An interesting, engaging and highly educational way to teach sustainability and inspire change.

The message isn’t the most important part of the package, though it is important (and anyone who has tried to write copy for an email announcement knows how true that is). What is important to consider here is what you can do when you click through to the calculator. In a Second Life-like way, visitors create a virtual-self (choose hair, skin, and clothes colors) that walks through a virtual land. As the virtual-self walks down the street, questions pop up asking about consumption, travel and housing. The answers determine what kinds of structures are built up and factor into the carbon footprint calculation. I’ve never had so much fun facing the reality of carbon usage!

After answering all of the questions and determining a score, visitors are provided with a few options, including editing the footprint questions, exploring scenarios to change the footprint in real-life, learning more, taking action, and joining the network. These are all great options for further engaging a now more-knowledgeable visitor, and further building a relationship based not only on the organization’s mission/work, but on what he or she can get out of the relationship with the organization that further supports that mission/work (more of the changing the world business!). Engaging with new (and return) visitors first is the key to building a lasting relationship with members/funders online.

Check out the Earth Day Network’s Footprint Calculator!

What unique techniques have you or your organization used in sending out a message in a new way? Is there an organization you think does this well?

Leave a comment on the Net Squared blog, too!

Organizations putting blogs to good use

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on August 25, 2008
in blogging and case studies
. 7 Comments

Posted first on the Net Squared blog

The number of people blogging is still growing (just check Technorati for numbers), but the number of organizations starting blogs is rising, too. After enough staff members and volunteers touted the usefulness of blogs for conversation, news, and general transparency, it seems organizations are looking to give blogs a chance. Organizations of all sizes and sectors are utilizing this community building tool. Here are some examples of how far and wide blogs are being used to reach out to the community.

ARK Adventure

The ARK Adventure is a small organization working to facilitate random acts of kindness and passion in the communities of members/participants.The ARK Adventure Blog provides a space for the organization’s directors/staff to share ideas and ignite conversation about social change and community involvement.

African American Environmentalist Association

AAEA is dedicated to protecting the environment, enhancing human, animal and plant ecologies, promoting the efficient use of natural resources and increasing African American participation in the environmental movement. The AAEnironmental Blog is a great example of a successful organizational blog. It doesn’t get a high number of comments, but it does get some and is providing thoughtful, timely, and important pieces of news, information and commentary to the community. It also makes terrific use of the side bar panel to provide more information, relevant links (like to the organization’s main website), and actions for readers.

Dining for Women

Dining for Women empowers women living in extreme poverty by funding programs fostering good health, education, and economic self-sufficiency and cultivates educational dinner circles inspiring individuals to make a difference through the power of collective giving. The DFW Blog covers big questions like sustainable program funding, as well as personal and fun stories like trips and meetups. Members have a valuable contribution to make to this volunteer-driven organization by participating in the blog; you can see this by reading comments to questions posed regarding the organization itself.

PolicyLink

The EquityBlog is a project of PolicyLink to help nurture and inspire the nation’s equity movement. It does a good job of providing relevant and fresh content in an engaging way, as well as provide additional resource links for visitors. Keeping the recent comments list at the top of the page encourages visitors to participate right away.

Meyer Memorial Trust

Meyer Memorial Trust is a private foundation serving Oregon and southwest Washington providing general purpose and strategic funding for over 25 years. MMT uses a few different blogs to engage different constiuents and provide tailored pockets of information. Most notably, the MMT Main Blog, which covers organizational updates and sector-wide news, engages nonprofits and other foundations alike in an open and conversational way—just check out the responses to the blog entry discussing what the name ‘non-profit’ means to the sector.

Does your organization have a blog? Who maintains/contributes to it? How does it fit in with other communications, fundraising, or campaign work?

Digital Makeover Update: SYFAB’s first steps

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on August 19, 2008
in case studies and socialmedia
. 3 Comments

I just posted an update on the Digital Makeover project to the Net Squared site.  I’ve blogged about the Digital Makeover Project from Simon Fairway before (you can read those posts here and here) ad think the steps being taken are really interesting, and a great learning showcase for other organizations.

South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau is a voluntary organisation and registered charity set up to help voluntary and community organisations get the resources they need and was selected as the featured organization in the Digital Makeover project because of the organization’s openness to technology and change, and the capacity and culture to adopt new approaches. You can read more about the organization and the assessed overview here.

The first steps of the digital makeover, lead by Simon Fairway of Juvi Media and Danny Antrobus from SYFAB, have been to start a blog, a news website, and install Google Analytics.  You can review Simon’s posts to the Net Squared community about the Digital Makeover steps.  Here are some of my key questions, read more about the strategy ideas on the Net Squared blog here!

Blog

Key Questions: How is the new blog going to affect website traffic and SIFT (SYFAB’s interactive guide to fundraising)?  What are the goals for the blog’s affect on these two areas? How do you hope visitors will interact with the site and with each other?  Read more

News Site

Key Questions: What are the goals and differences in purpose for the news site vs the blog?  How can each be identified by visitors so that they can pick whether the blog or the news site is where they want to be?  Why don’t think link prominently to each other? How do you hope visitors will interact with the site and with each other?  Read more

Google Analytics

Key Questions: This is the fun stuff!  Are you using Google Analytics (or the blog software’s built-in analytics) for the website, blog, and news blog?  You should be!  Which pages or posts get the most visitors?  Which get the most comments?  Which do the most people find via a search engine?  Which statistics are most useful to SYFAB in identifying whether the website/blog/news site is reaching its goals?  Read more

Next Step

A quick next step that aligns with the above areas is to set up free Google Alerts about the organization name and industry. Creating alerts on ‘SYFAB’ and ‘South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau’ will let SYFAB staff know who is talking about the organization (whether it is resources, the website, the blog, the news site, or more) and where that conversation is taking place.  Staff can then highlight these links or news stories on the blogs or check out the other site to add information to the conversation.  It’s also useful to create alerts about the services or industry, like ‘funding advice’ or ‘fundraising in uk.’  This will let you identify other blogs, news articles, or websites discussing the same topic, so SYFAB can get involved (whether by commenting on that site, linking to it, or blogging about it).

Read more strategy ideas on the Net Squared blog post.

What experiences has your organization had using Google Analytics or Google Alerts?  What advice do you have for SYFAB while it under goes this Digital Makeover?

We Are Media Project: Reflections at 6 weeks

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on August 6, 2008
in case studies and wiki
. 0 Comments

The We Are Media Project just hit the 6-week mark! There has been a lot of activity, contributions, collaboration and learning taking place on the project wiki. I just posted to the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog with some reflections at the 6 week mark.

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!

Awards x3!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on July 25, 2008
in case studies
. 1 Comment

There are lots of awards and contests lately all showcasing great examples of nonprofits and uses of technology.  There’s a lot of good you and your organization can learn from!  I blogged about all of them on the Net Squared community blog, so check it out!

Does your organization have a great story about using technology to connect with your community?  What has been your organization’s biggest challenge in adopting social technologies?  I’d love to share your stories!

BlogHer08: The Second Life Experience

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on July 22, 2008
in case studies and otherblogs
. 1 Comment

This week I’m filling in for Britt Bravo on the Net Squared community blog.  I just posted there with some of my thoughts about using Second Life for conferences.  Check it out!

This was my first conference in Second Life and I really learned a lot.  What makes Second Life such a unique option for conference organizers is how much of the face-to-face nature of in-person conferences can be replicated. The biggest ones to me were:

  • I can SEE you!
  • I can TALK to you!
  • I can FIND you!

Have you used Second Life to attend a conference or event? Have you participated in any of the free weekly meetings from the Nonprofit Commons? What advice do you have for organizations and individuals exploring this new tool?

Check out the full article on the Net Squared community blog and let me know what you think!

Digital Makeover Project

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on July 7, 2008
in case studies and socialmedia
. 3 Comments

Simon Fairway is up to something across the pond: He is coordinating a digital makeover of South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau, a “voluntary organisation and registered charity set up to help voluntary and community organisations get the resources they need.”  The digital makeover project will focus on SYFAB and come to “grips with their organisational challenges, and dreaming up some innovative but appropriate digital solutions for a few of them.”

SYFAB was chosen from many nominations to the Charity Technology Trust because of their pattern of innovation and openness to new technologies.  They also have a staff of 12, making them comparable to many nonprofits.

Here are some of the first areas identified by Simon and the team working on the Digital Makeover.  (Take a look at the SYFAB website and the blog as reference for the below options.)

1.  Introducing Google Analytics to the website to get a stronger understanding of the volume and demographic of site visitors and the most useful content for service users.

I think this is a great way to begin identifying and learning about core usage of the website.  Many organizations are surprised by patterns that emerge and pages that are popular, as often the view of the organization’s website by staff is very different by users.  Some things that I would look for are

2. Adding an RSS feed to the website’s funding news page, so that regular visitors can be informed of updates to the website.

I think adding RSS is a must; the news page (which is the home page with the current site configuration) as well as the training and IT Project sections (you want RSS wherever content will change and people will want to know about it!).  The blog is in wordpress and automatically has RSS.

3. Establishing a regular email newsletter, initially with events and training information. In the longer term this could provide an alternative to the funding newsletter or members’ case studies.

The email newsletter is a great transition step from mailing hard copies towards only electronic materials.  SYFAB probably has the email addresses of nearly all the members already, but it is still a good idea to send out an email to everyone explaining that an email newsletter will begin next week (or whenever) and will be distributed from info@syfab.org.uk (as an example) so they can be sure the email address is in their contact list (some spam filters will block messages sent to many people unless they are in the contact list), and to reply if they do not want to be automatically added to the distribution list (an opt-out).

4. Migrating the feedback process on-line to make it more efficient as a whole, and providing an opportunity to provide feedback directly to funders.

By migrating feedback to an online process, especially one that is shared/stored and public, you really can serve more people by doing less work!  People that have a similar situation or question can review what has already been answered instead of starting the question/investigation process over.  Creating a learning center (like Tech Soup) or forum-type approach to the question-investigation-answer process, you can relieve yourself of having to duplicate research/work but also allow for other members to jump in and contirubte their experiences and knowledge to make even better responses.

I would like to see this have two parts: one side is for the funder investigation and process, the other is for case studies and success stories.  I think it is important for a collaborative approach in finding information and researching options, but it is also really important that case studies be public and searchable, as well as include feedback/commenting just like the learning center side.

5. Offering multimedia content through the website.

I hate to see any organization adopt new technologies that aren’t appropriate for the specific goals and projects.  That isn’t to say that multimedia options aren’t applicable to SYFAB, but I don’t want SYFAB to feel obligated to grab at cool, new things.

The most valuable and directly applicable avenue for multimedia in the SYFAB site, that I see, is:

  • Record (either video or just audio) main presentations at events
  • Create a video or audio instead of a text blog entry, like a quick tip on searching for funders, or a commonly misunderstood issue dispelled, etc.
  • When compelling case stories are submitted (see #4), interviews be recorded with a representative from the organization and posted in the learning forum and on the blog

6. Re-establish the blog as an informal counterweight to the website that welcomes contributions from SYFAB’s service users.

In the Issues and Priorities document available in Simon’s initial post, it says, “Danny freely admits that if the blog is to succeed, it needs find its niche alongside the website.” This is very true!

You have a few ways of doing this, and the first is to prominently display the blog/link on the website, and vice versa.  It is also helpful to textually link to the blog when discussing something that is mentioned on the blog, etc. (linking textually means you link the words in a setence, opposed to a graphic, etc.).  The blog, if it is going to be the counterweight to the website, should be updated often, at least as often as the website is updated, which is weekly.  If finding content is the issue (though I assume finding time is the issue), you have many resources for digging up content; my favorites include:

  • subscribe to industry RSS feeds, and report on news
  • watch/subscribe to RSS feeds of social bookmarking sites (like del.icio.us) to see sites and stories that others are discovering in your field
  • share something you or your organization learned
  • interview someone from the office/organization
  • ask for feedback or experiences about a certain topic related to the organization’s work or field

As far as the blog goes, there is very little that is social about it, except that commenting is enabled.  Any other social media adopted by the organization, should be displayed on the blog: ie, if you have a Facebook, Myspace, Ning, or other social network presence, the logo and link should be included; if you have a Twitter, Pownce, Utterz, or other microblogging tool, it should be included; if you have a presence on YouTube, Bebo, Blip TV, or other media sharing sites, it should be included; etc.  There are also widgets you can create using tools like Sprout Builder that ramp up your social media feel.  You can also use widgets from tools like MyBlogLog or Twitter that show recent activity.  Wordpress (which you are using for the blog currently) has a number of widgets you can enable to show recent activity as well, like comments, posts, etc.

7.  Optimise the site for search engines.

This, like adding RSS, is a great first level step to advancing any organization’s website.

8. Development of online training opportunities and provision of interactive online resources to help organisations develop their fundraising skills and knowledge.

It would be wonderful to do either live or archived online trainings in the form of a webinar or a screencast.  You can look at tools like SlideShare as well.  Connecting these with the learning forums and case studies would be a great way to add context and user stories.  The multimedia options (#5) are a great way to begin providing some online resources as well.

Follow along with the updates on Simon’s blog on NetSquared here:  http://www.netsquared.org/blog/simonfairway/

This is a social media project, meaning you can contribute and get involved in myriad ways: blog about some of your ideas (tag it with digitalmakeover), video blog about your ideas (tag it with digitalmakeover), or post to the community blog at NetSquared (tag with digitalmakeover).  You can also speak to Simon about other ways to get involved and the project’s progress by emailing him at simon @ ctt .org

What are your thoughts about the digital makeover project and SYFAB’s options?