5 Nonprofits, 5000 Responses

I think there’s a lot of potential for the way organizations can use a tool like this, and I’m sure there are plenty more that you can think of! The folks at Qriously think so, too. They are going to give five organizations 5,000 responses each (these could be divided up into multiple questions or used all for one), for free, with just two stipulations:

1. You can only use global or national surveys (not local)
2. You have to share what you learn!

That’s it!

Share Your Questions to Win
So, as a way of opening up the possibilities and participation, I’m asking that organizations “submit” via the comments. If you’re interested in participating, please share:

1. The name of your organization
2. The question you’d like to ask
3. How the question will help inform your work

As you know, I’m a big believer in community-driven processes, and there’s nothing that helps you be community-driven than tapping in and listening directly to the people you want to serve. Hopefully, sharing your questions and reasoning in the comments will help others think about the way they can survey the community at large, and sharing back what you learn will help us all!

Winners

The 5 organizations to get free trials of Qriously include:

Storiesofourcity.org – submitted by Katy Gilber

Katy did a great job of identifying a series of questions that the 5,000 responses can be divided between that can really help with content planning as well as community engagement planning.

EpicChange.org – submitted by Stacey Monk

I love the way Stacey blended the goal of getting feedback that can improve their messaging and content with the goal of spreading awareness/exposure of the brand. Great job!

Austin Civic Orchestra – submitted by Mazarine Treyz

This is a great example of targeting mobile users by asking specifically about those generations most likely to be on a phone! The question needs some work in refining the ask and providing answers, since it isn’t an open response field, though.

Neighborhood Montgomery – submitted by Takoma Horn

I think this is a great topic to break up into multiple questions. You could ask for a sentiment measurement, like “how do you feel about commercial development” and then use some of the other 5,000 responses for specific, similar to the examples Adam shared in the comments.

buildingcommunity WORKSHOP – submitted by romoseki

I’m really interested to see how these questions can be reshaped to better understand sentiment around architecture as well as even start some conversations (guide content development). Adam shared some great examples of reworking the questions to provide answer options, too.

I’m inviting all of the 5 organizations to share a guest post here after you use Qriously to ask your questions to share what you learned and how it contributes to your work!

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• UNICEF Haiti365 – Be Their Voice – I'm really excited to see this new campaign from UNICEF – focused on the children in Haiti, and building on a multimedia effort to move people into engagement. "Haiti 365 will continue to evolve as more people create videos and sign-up to show their support. This project, housed on a social media enhanced micro-site allows people to commit to a year of service via an email sign up. This means throughout the year we will ask them to help send messages to the government to keep the focus in Haiti on the children, we'll update members on progress or specific needs and we'll also engage them in outreach when needed. The most touching piece of this campaign is the ability to read and share a constantly changing selection of stories and anecdotes from the children themselves."
• Why I'm dancing: The Point + Groupon = G-team – My Social Actions – I'm really excited about the news Christine shared on the Social Actions blog: the potential being harnessed by Groupon/The Point to get social impact into the stream of success that Groupon has created. Check it out! "So I'm especially thrilled to see Groupon announce the launch of G-team, an experiment in complementing Groupon's deals with The Point-type campaigns. The sky is clearly the limit in coming up with creative ways to tack social actions campaigns onto Groupon deals. Take a look at the examples on the G-team page and let your imagination run wild."
• MLK2011 – Join Us Live! – "Get HandsOn! and join HandsOn Network and your community in leading deliberate dialogues that turns conversation into action. Don't forget to tell us about your conversation!" Check out these excellent opportunities for turning MLK Day into a day for igniting important, purposeful conversations in your community. What will you be doing on January 17th – I'd love to hear your plans for making the holiday a day of action!
• Animoto – For a Cause – "How can we help your cause? Animoto supports not-for-profits and other humanitarian causes with free pro accounts." Thanks to Stacey Monk for the tip that Animoto let's nonprofits apply for free pro accounts – looking for a tool to help with your video storytelling, multimedia fundraising and more? Check out Animoto!
• Ten for Ten: Philanthropy from 2010-2020 (December 20, 2010) | Opinion Blog | Stanford Social Innovation Review – "Earlier this year, I took a look back at my decade of predictions, 1999-2009. You can find that online here. I’ve also published my annual forecast for what will matter in philanthropy and social investing in 2011—you can find that online here (use the special SSIR discount code). With this post I’m going to take a slightly different tack on the end-of-year ritual top 10 lists. Rather than focus in (anymore than the buzzwords list already does) on the top 10 of the year gone by, let’s think about the factors that will shape philanthropy for the decade ahead."

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Social Networking Sites Move Into Charity World – NYTimes.com – "Crowdrise, Jumo, Causecast, Causes on Facebook and others try to use social networking and crowdsourcing to build interest in charities and causes, and to help them attract donations. … But to many in the nonprofit world, the value of the sites remains to be seen. For one thing, they hand partial control over charity brand names and trademarks to users who are often unknown to the nonprofit groups they support. And virtually all of them ask users to pay to donate."
• Target community for best return on social media efforts – My recent interview with the Nonprofit Business Advisor is out! I talked with Kelly Sullivan about some of the most common mistakes or myths nonprofits have about social media, as well as opportunities to get started strategically. Would love to hear your thoughts and additional pointers you share with nonprofit leaders looking to dive into social media!
• An Important New Foundation Blog | Tactical Philanthropy – Great post from Sean about a new blog from the Peery Foundation. Does your organization have a blog? I'm interested in what you think about the reflections Sean shares and what you've learned from running your blog. "The reason I’m excited about the Peery Foundation blog is because I think that Dave and Jessamyn get that social media is best understood as a conversation and a conversation is most interesting when you focus on listening and learning. They’re even willing to take listening to extremes, such as this recent post by Jessamyn in which she attempts to crowdsource her own annual review by asking readers who she has interacted with to give her feedback on how she’s doing. While she offers the option of emailing her the response, she encourages people to post their feedback as a public comment."
• Get Your Group On: Introducing Posterous Groups – The Official Posterous Posterous – "Today we’re announcing Posterous Groups, a new service for communicating privately with your friends, family and colleagues." I use Posterous for my personal blog and have found it to be a easy platform – curious if others are using it for their organization or community group and if the groups feature is something you'd like to try!
• Yes, Finds Pew Study, People Will (and Do) Pay For Digital Content – "For a long time – right or wrong – content on the Internet has been synonymous with "free." Free music. Free videos. Free access to your local newspaper. Free blogs. And so some have worried that people might be reluctant to actually spend money to buy digital content if they can already find it (or something similar) online without having to pay. But a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project should assuage some of those fears. In fact, almost two-thirds of Internet users have paid for digital content."

The Ning issue touches on a topic that’s very important to me and I’ve written about a number of times, including: Letting Technology Lead, Why we need a new way of building, How our tools define ‘community’ and Ning saying No to free networks.  As all of these posts mention, the underlying issue here isn’t whether Ning was the best tool on the Web or not, in fact it has nothing to do with that. As community organizers, campaigners, and organizations working to better the world, we know that the tactics and tools we use can dramatically impact our success, and if the tools we have aren’t accessible and aren’t in our control we put ourselves in a position to negatively impact our own success.

Earlier this Fall, I got a message from Laura on the Chain Reaction network (on Ning) that told members the group would be moving to another platform. I followed up with Laura and have her case study below.

Case study: Chain Reaction

The Chain Reaction network is the online space for those who attend or are interested in the Chain Reaction event, an annual conference in London focused on gathering changemakers and igniting more projects and impact. The group was originally set up on Ning, and with the change to a paid-service, Community Links (the organization behind Chain Reaction) helped the network transition to Grou.ps. They did so publicly with a blog post to the community as well as messages to the members of the network directly through the Ning platform.

Read the blog post about the transition here.

Interview

I asked Laura Hyde from Community Links to provide some additional information about the decision and process:

How did your community respond to the news that ning would no longer be free?
There were mixed responses. Generally I think most could understand why ning would begin charging, but for many community organisations such as ours it’s often a struggle to find the ££’s to pay for extra services.

How did your team decide on a new platform?
We tested a few different platforms such as wordpress, webs, social go etc. We also consulted with people in the Chain Reaction network. Grou.ps seemed to be the best in terms of functionality suited to our needs.

What did you like best about Ning previously?
It was easy to update / add content to. Feedback from network members was that it was pretty easy to use as well.

Is that functionality available on grou.ps?
Yes, although grou.ps can be a little clunkier. For example, I find that changes that I make don’t appear straight away which is a little frustrating. The added advantage of grou.ps is that there is a wiki and polls feature that isn’t available on ning. You also don’t have to pay to have a custom domain name as you do with ning.

What was the work load like to switch?
Very easy. In fact, I thought it might take a day or two to transfer all the files over from ning to grou.ps – in fact it only took about an hour which left me a little unprepared (I hadn’t updated the CR blog in time!)

And the catch 22!
As I was posting this today, I visited the new gou.ps network for Chain Reaction and was greeted with a message that the group was temporarily unavailable. I messaged Laura on twitter and here’s her response (read from the bottom up):

So the platform that touted itself as the free alternative to Ning is now no longer free either!

Phoenix or Fizzle

So, where does this leave us? Where are we now? Have most groups stayed on Ning and found a way to deal with the charges, or have most groups, like Laura’s, moved on? And, perhaps more importantly, have we as a sector learned anything from this?

Examples like the Diaspora project saw overwhelmingly positive responses from the community at large, with people donating more than twice what was requested – many obviously hoping to be early adopters of what they hoped would be a revolution on the Web, but others hoping that by contributing they could have a bit of say in where it all goes.

Is Ning going to be a phoenix – rising out of the backlash and outcry about changing to a paid-service to become the platform of choice and provide users with access and ownership in it’s future? Or will it fizzle into the growing ocean of tools that put all users at a loss from lack of control and transparency?

What do you think? What’s your experience so far? Where are you looking to build?

When I start thinking about this, I come back to three main issues with the current way we build:

1. Not All Communities Can Be Treated Equally

Grassroots, hyper-local, nonprofit, and educational communities cannot be expected to operate in the same way as commercial or sponsored communities, online or off.  These kinds of groups can’t even be expected to fall in the same kinds of rubrics for use or application of tools between each other as they are inherently unique, every time.

2. Payment Is More Than Purchase

I truly believe that when it comes to the financial requirements for tools and services in the nonprofit and larger public sector, payment is far more than a purchase, it is an investment.  We are willing to buy in to something if we can be part of shaping what it is, how we can use it, how we can improve it.

3. Investment Is More Than Money

If investment was required to get a tool, I believe many groups would be willing to participate in evaluations, provide feedback, submit user stories and help in the development of the tool.  All things that take time, which is valuable. But not money.  Many groups would much rather have an impact and involvement in the shaping of the tools they use than pay for something that others control.

So, how do we build this marketplace?

When I wrote about this back in November, I closed my post with an invitation.  I’d like to repost that invitation here and then add a next step.

Your invitation:  Join this conversation.  Tell me what the recent Causes/ideablob announcements means for our sector and for you.  And share your ideas with your friends and colleagues to further the breadth of the conversation.  The more voices the better!  Here are some places to start:

• Evaluate your use of social media tools: do you encourage your supporters on other platforms to register on your website, ensuring you have their contact details?
• Evaluate your community: are you reaching a diverse community or operating in a silo?
• Evaluate your relationship with developers: are you using tools that allow you to surface suggestions, ideas, and useful functionality for development? Do you know what the plans are for the tools you are using?

I have already had creative, exciting conversations with others in this sector about how we could build a marketplace that:

1. allows end users surface ideas for tools or new functionality for existing tools
2. allows those ideas get support, gather feedback, get fleshed out by developers and users
3. allows funders (whether they are foundations, organizations, VCs, companies, etc.) identify tools to fund
4. allows developers to find work they know will be adopted and start working on tools with an active base of users
5. maintains an expectation that these tools will continue to be available for the people, by the people.

It is the last point that I think is the most important. It isn’t about having a crazy-liberal or Utopian version of the web.  It IS about adopting tools that we feel comfortable deploying to our communities and building on, knowing they won’t close or leave without notice.

I am going to continue having this conversation, examining how a marketplace could work, and what these events mean for our sector. Please join me. Share your ideas and your experiences. Let me know how you wish we built things.  Let’s start at the vision of how we want it to work, and then build towards it.

My main conclusion is that we need to double down on our premium services business.  Our Premium Ning Networks like Friends or Enemies, Linkin Park, Shred or Die, Pickens Plan, and tens of thousands of others both drive 75% of our monthly US traffic, and those Network Creators need and will pay for many more services and features from us.

So, we are going to change our strategy to devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity.  We will phase out our free service.  [Read the full letter here.]

Join the conversation taking place on Manny Hernandez’s blog about keeping the network free for nonprofit and educational use. You can also read the news post on TechCrunch and the comments there.

Please join me in signing this Change.org petition to keep Ning free for nonprofit and education use.

Why this matters to me:

What worries me most about the pay-only option, even if it isn’t a huge $ amount is that ANY $ amount can be enough to mean no access for many. Here are a few examples:

1. Grassroots groups:  For many of the smaller, grassroots campaigns and groups that use Ning, there isn’t a one-and-only-one leader dynamic where there could be one person that would be paying. We are in the midst of change for community dynamics where people no longer need a director, a secretary and then a bunch of members. We can all be leaders and contributors to a network, a community, a movement. So the administrator on a group, at least groups I’m a part of, is not one person, but a long list of people. Responsibilities are shared and actually change fairly frequently depending on capacity and availability.
2. Community groups: Very much like the dynamics at play in grassroots cause groups, community groups struggle with the same issues around administration and ownership.  I’ve helped local community groups set up Ning communities online as a way to start building resources, connections, and storytelling in a local geographic community.  And I see it working.  But I also don’t see many of them with the capacity to pay (who pays, how do we decicde, etc.)
3. Educators: This is not a new issue for this group.  We all know that teachers and other educators use tools and supplies out of their pocket because they are determined to provide the best experience for their students and peers.  That’s why we see things like DonorsChoose emerge.  Making Ning a paid-for service could mean we see thousands of new donor requests asking for a year of service or something – totally not sustainable.

I really, really believe that Ning can deliver on their bottom line and focus on making money, as it sounds like they want to do, and still provide the service to educators and nonprofit groups for free.

I know there are lots of great examples out there like Basecamp and Huddle and many others that balance free and paid successfully.  Please share your ideas, your stories and your examples.  We really want to ensure this tool continues enabling communities, regardless of their budget.

If you haven’t already, please also sign the Change.org pledge here.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Web Thinking Manifesto | EchoDitto – "Our field is maturing rapidly. The next generation of movement leaders is overcoming its fetish with technology and expertise as secrets to online success. Indeed, now faced with existential challenges from a fast shifting landscape, the time has come for us all to rethink our most deeply held tenets in this struggle to remain relevant. Thankfully, a brave few are trying – and they're finding answers. Looking beyond traditional online strategy, they're fundamentally transforming how they and their organizations work – shifting their entire perspective towards what we call "Web Thinking" – to better reflect the reality of our time. And they're winning. They're charting a path forward for us all."
• film music | mobygratis.com – Are you looking for music to use for free in your nonprofit's video? Well, here's your source! If you want to use it for a commercial production, that's okay: they have an easy license for that as well ("with any money that's generated being given to the humane society.").
• 3 principles for reporters and bloggers in a networked era | Online Journalism Blog – I totally agree that context is just as important as content. "Dina Rickman posed a question to me this week about the role of a reporter in our current networked age. I thought I’d expand on my response, shown above. Depending on your point of view, this is either a draft manifesto for networked journalists and bloggers – or a set of gaps in the market; new scarcities in an age of abundance."
• Zero Strategist – Holistic Social Media, Web Strategy & Innovative Design – Todd has an excellent post about Blog Strategy with insights, examples, and best of all: strategy recommendations! "This is the first in a series of Social Media/Web Strategy Articles that I am going to be writing over the next few months. The first topic is blog strategy. You might be thinking that the blog and blog strategy topic is quite dead and that it is old news. We figured that out years ago right? I would say that it is not dead at all. Rather, it is evolving past a critical turning point right now and is relevant in the evolution of technology for quite a few reasons."
• FourSquare: Novelty or Buzz Worthy? – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – Have you heard about FourSquare – maybe you are already the Mayor of some of your local businesses. Allyson Kapin explores whether: "is FourSquare valuable enough to become the next Facebook or Twitter? Should nonprofits take a more serious look at FourSquare and explore ways to leverage it?"

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• TakingITGlobal and Nabuur Launch New Action Guide on Online Volunteering | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – "TakingITGlobal (TIG), an organization that operates the world’s most popular online community for young leaders, and Nabuur, an online volunteering platform that links Neighbours (online volunteers) with Villages (local communities) in Africa, Asia and Latin America, announced today the release of a new Action Guide on Online Volunteering available for download on the TIG website." Check it out!
• Chase Community Giving Contest Ends With Yet More Controversy – Beth's Blog: How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change – Beth Kanter has an excellent post chronicling and compiling many posts and resources, as well as commentary and criticism surrounding the Chase Community Giving contest that just finished. "This contest was the culmination of a two-part "vote for me" cause marketing strategy that started in November and has been rife with controversy. In some ways, it comes as no surprise that the race to the finish line ended with more allegations of dubious behavior by contest participants and those watching them compete. It's left some nonprofit professionals wondering whether these types of contests are a good idea." I strongly agree with Hildy Gottleib's comment at the end of the post and urge you to read both the post and the discussion in the comments.
• Online Fundraiser's Checklist – "FREE DOWNLOAD: The Online Fundraiser's Checklist. How Do You Ensure Fundraising Success This Year? Take advantage of Network for Good's handy new eGuide, The Online Fundraiser's Checklist, to ensure you don't miss a thing."
• 3 Powerful Social Good Trends in 2010 – Ben Rattray, the founder and CEO of Change.org, has a great piece on Mashable showcasing the three trends he sees coming in 2010 for the social change sector. "2009 saw a proliferation of online charity events, competitions, and “friendraisers” that spilled across Twitter (Twitter) and Facebook (Facebook) and filled email inboxes everywhere with more requests for money than any Nigerian prince could ever hope to make. And while it’s hard to argue that this is a bad thing — anytime someone gives money to feed the hungry instead of buying another digital potato seed in Farmville, global karma rises, if even just by a little — this focus on using the web as an ever-more elaborate means of getting people to fork over cash misses the much bigger opportunities just over the horizon."
• Try These Dynamic Digital Storytelling Platforms | Community Organizer 2.0 – "Nonprofit organizations can tell the best stories. Stories about the impact that a nonprofit has on people’s lives can engage, recruit and solidify donors and members. As ImpactMax writes so beautifully, tying individual stories to overall contextual problems and societal issues can really change policies. Anecdotely, I see a lot of blogs and Flickr photo streams, some YouTube and Vimeo use. Why limit yourself? There are so many other tools and platforms that are exciting, innovative, incredibly engaging, and beautiful. Here are my top digital storytelling platforms and tools for your nonprofit to try out in 2010."

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• More Startups. More Jobs. – Here's a great conversation starting piece by Eric Ries: "Advanced countries are competing to attract the world’s best entrepreneurs — the US should too. Entrepreneurship is one of the most significant contributors to a nation’s prosperity. In an increasingly globalized economy, many of the advanced nations in the world are racing to attract the brightest entrepreneurial minds, regardless of their country of origin. The startups created by these highly skilled immigrants will generate most of the jobs and wealth in these countries in the future. This is a race we cannot afford to ignore."
• 2009 In Social Media: A Cartoon Review – Rob Cottingham, from Social Signal, created a very fun video that recaps all the major contributions of social media to the world in 2009 – think you were on top of it all? Well, check out Rob's video and see what you missed!
• Highlights from My Conversation with Tori Tuncan, Founder of Lend4Health – Zane Safrit – "Tori Tuncan, founder of Lend4Health, joined the show recently. Lend4Health is a non-profit organization that facilitates community-funded, interest-free micro-loans as a creative funding option for individuals and groups seeking optimal health. Currently, Lend4Health is facilitating loans for the "biomedical" treatment of children and adults with autism spectrum and related disorders. Tori shared the story of her journey to date with Lend4Health, helping children and their families who experience autism spectrum and related disorders." You can listen to the audio recording of the interview or read the transcript.
• How Digitized Content Democratizes Knowledge – PC World – "If you follow the trend lines for book and magazine availability, pricing and the costs of distribution and digital storage, we'll soon find ourselves living in a world where literally millions of titles are available to just about everyone, just about all the time. How will that change human culture?" This very interesting post from PC World explores implications of the changing digital landscape – it's a great read!
• Chief Reputation Officer: Whose Job Is It, Anyway? – Forbes.com – "n the 20th century, PR and marketing were separate but unequal career paths, and CMO was the highest-ranking and most-respected title to which one in those jobs could aspire. The standard career paths in these areas were relatively linear: As a lead communicator, you went to j-school, did a turn in journalism or an agency and then apprenticed under a "gray hair" boss until he retired. This is compared with the typical path of a chief marketing officer, who got his or her M.B.A. in marketing, hired agencies that made him or her look good, learned how to manage big budgets and award-winning creative and then got in the running for the corner office. Today that is changing because of the increasing importance of reputation management."