Location: Chicago, IL

Topic: Social Media for Social Good Pre-Conference

Description: This half-day workshop will cover basic and intermediate levels of social media topics including an introduction to core tools, evaluation, implementation and strategic application. With a mix of presentations, panels and small group workshops, participants will benefit from learning best practices, hearing from other organizations using these tools effectively, and have a chance to start building some plans of their own. The event is designed to compliment other social media sessions and topics being presented during the main Conference schedule, and provide an intensive learning opportunity.

Related Links:

• NCVS
• Slides
• Co-Presenters: Bob Filbin, Noland Hoshino, and Robert Rosenthal 

Principles of Community Organizing

There are many proven practices and strategies for engaging with communities and building up participation, whether around an event, a campaign, or a cause. Here are the five core principles as we see them from our work:

1. Focus on Shared Goals and Shared Ownership

First, identify what your community wants to do – what it is coming together around, whether it’s an event, an action, or a movement.  Next, identify what you want to do, what your organizational goals are.  Those two “wants to do” will overlap and that gray area is the sweet spot. It’s important to remember that not everything your organization wants to do or achieve, matches up with with your community wants to do, and vice versa. The key is that that’s okay!  Maybe you provide services, and your community doesn’t want to be providing those services, but they are happy you are doing so. And maybe the community wants to endorse a specific candidate, and your organization doesn’t. But both the community and your organization want to see certain laws passed, things improved, programs created or groups supported.  That’s the sweet spot where you can focusing your calls to action and community engagement.

2. Transparency

Be transparent with everything: in goals, activities, membership, successes, challenges, issues within the community, and so on.

This also means don’t build it in secret and then “launch” it  – regardless of whether it’s an online space, a program or a campaign. If it is really something that is coming from the community, you can’t just take the idea and run; you’ll want to co-create it from idea to implementation.

Be sure you lead by example:  interact with the community the way you want other organizations and the community members to do.  It’s like the golden rule for community engagement.  I like this picture for this point because often mother ducks will bring up the rear, supporting the ducklings and swimming along side them, instead of shooting ahead and expecting them to keep up.

3. Go Where the People Are

Different platforms have different users – be sure to do your homework by reviewing statistics and reports from various social media tools to know who’s really using them, and ask your community where they want to engage with you.

Being active in the community leads to organizational engagement, creates community, builds followers. If you know your followers are into LBS, then be in that community and reward their activity in unique ways, such as check in 3 times and get an unique BK Art Star Badge.

Leverage the power of the online communities and networks, such as with Tweetsgiving. Highlight the work of the community on the home page of the campaign or website.

4. Cultivate Leaders

Leadership development is incredibly important. You don’t actually want to be the one maintaining the engagement forever – if the community can take over your role, it’s a sign it’s not just sustainable but thriving!

Striving to be replaced can be a tough one for most everyone. It isn’t exactly in our nature but it is key to the ethos of a community builder. One way to work on supporting your community to not need you managing the program, platform, or whatever else is to encourage interaction without you. This touches back on letting the community know itself. If you’re making connections and supporting conversations across the network, you’re helping the community create strong ties that will not require your time and energy to maintain.

Striving to be replaced also means rewarding and spotlighting leaders. Positive reinforcement is one of the best leadership development practices you can build into your work across the board, whether it’s online or offline, on your facebook page, newsletter, annual fundraiser or neighborhood events.

Lastly, be active in sharing your toolbox. You can model behavior all you want but if no one can tell what tools you are using to be so successful, there’s no way they can jump in and help man the ship.

5. Know Your Community

Part of doing this well is letting your community know itself. That means don’t take credit where it isn’t yours, highlight the leaders and contributors in the community, and making connections across the network. It also means letting community members connect directly with one another, without going through you.

Knowing your community also means knowing your role in the ecosystem. It’s important, as I mentioned earlier in the strategy steps, to identify what your role or roles are as the organization and stick to them. Once you start spreading out, you squeeze out room for others to grow and develop or even to explore what’s possible. Not to mention create far more for yourself!

Knowing your community also means you help it grow. Sometimes that means making mistakes. Hopefully they are tiny and harmless, and that you’re there to learn alongside the community.  But, it’s just to say that you are in it just like the community is, and not everything we try in life works smoothly. Instead, design for growth and sustainability from the start with lots of room for feedback, evaluation and iterations to continue developing and redeveloping. The best time to fail is early and openly – that way you can learn and build to move forward.

Case Studies

Check out the slides below to examine four case studies of these principles in action:

Resources & Links

• http://socialbysocial.com
• http://wearemedia.org
• http://www.communityorganizer20.com/2011/05/03/how-to-create-love-online-case-study/
• http://www.communityorganizer20.com/2011/02/24/follow-the-leader-innovative-social-media-activism/
• https://amysampleward.org/2010/05/07/guest-post-on-online-community-report-sustainable-community-building/
• https://amysampleward.org/2009/08/06/online-community-building-gardening-vs-landscaping/
• https://amysampleward.org/2011/01/20/diy-community-engagement-metrics/
• https://amysampleward.org/2011/05/18/crowdsourcing-vs-community-sourcing-whats-the-difference-and-the-opportunity/

Location: New Orleans, LA

Topic: Maximizing Impact with Online Communities

Description: Are you collaborating, innovating, and sharing best practices with others in your organization? In your area of service? In your profession? Don’t reinvent the wheel! Learn to leverage online social and collaborative tools to maximize impact. We will explore the how and why of online communities of practice using hands on exercises, and key examples from the national service and nonprofit sectors. Whether you want to start a community, revitalize an existing one, or find places where your peers already share, this session will help you clarify your strategy and choose the human resources and tools to support your community.

Related Links:

• NCVS
• Points of Light
• Slides

Location: New Orleans, LA

Topic: Bringing Community Organizing Into Online Campaigns

Description: Integrating volunteers into online campaigns for requires a great community organizer. Traditional community organizing lays the groundwork for online campaigns and effective movements. In this session, participants will get their hands dirty planning a social media campaign that integrates traditional organizing theory and practice. During the workshop, we will present traditional community organizing principles, campaign mapping methods and case studies. Attendees will divide into breakout sessions to design an online campaign. Each group will present its campaign strategy and tactics. Workshop leaders will offer feedback, and the nonprofit will select a winning strategy.

Related Links:

• NCVS
• Points of Light
• Slides and notes

What should we stop doing?

Register: If you will be at NCVS or are near New Orleans on Monday, June 6th, be sure to register to join the conversation! (Limited seats are left.)

Share: Whether you will be there in person or not, we need you to be part of this important conversation! All of us are impacted by our own service and the participation of communities around us. Many of us work in nonprofits and civic service organizations or groups already.

Scott and Brian created a Google form that challenges you to offer as many ideas as you care – as long as they are less than 100 words. You can submit as many ideas as you like – there isn’t one answer, or even one right answer, to this challenge. But we won’t find the right steps to take without the input and insight from the community. Share your ideas in the Idea Throwdown!

Feel free to share your ideas and suggestions here, too, to get the conversation started early!

Presentation:

Resource links:

• https://amysampleward.org/2010/05/07/guest-post-on-online-community-report-sustainable-community-building/
• https://amysampleward.org/2009/08/06/online-community-building-gardening-vs-landscaping/
• http://netsquared.org/camps
• http://350.org
• http://connectipedia.org
• http://socialbysocial.com

Game:

To play the game with your organization, team or community group, use the documents below to share the grid and other pages to print and cut out the playing cards. The Grid is used as follows:

1. Who is your community? Share everything you can think of!
2. What’s the sweet spot? This is the intersection or overlap of the community’s goals and your organization’s goals. What are you going to work on together?
3. What tools could help? This is where you’ll use the tool cards. Use 10 as the limit when you add up the numbers on the cards – those correspond to the equivalent capacity needed to support the use of the tool.
4. What roles are needed? This is where you’ll use the role cards. Remember that these are only some of the roles that may be appropriate for your project.

Location: New York, NY, USA

Topic: Community-Driven Social Impact (Session 1471)

Description:  This session focuses on strategies and case studies for creating successful community-driven media, events and campaigns. Participants will learn about best practices and work in small groups to put learning into practice.

Related Links:

• NCVS
• Notes, slides and game materials

Find us!

Here’s a listing of sessions and spaces hosted by NetSquared and TechSoup:

Community-Driven Social Impact Session

Amy Sample Ward from NetSquared
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010; 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Room: 1471
This session focuses on strategies and case studies for creating successful community-driven media, events and campaigns. Participants will learn about best practices and work in small groups to put learning into practice.

Technology Planning for Nonprofits Session

Catherine Hurd and Elliot Harmon
 from TechSoup Global
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM
Room: 1374
This session will help participants to assess their organization’s technology needs and capacity; work with technical volunteers; and understand the role of technology planning as the foundation for an effective operating environment.

Mixed Reality Learning Lab

Susan Tenby from TechSoup Global along with Interactive Producers Evonne Heyning from and Josephine Dorado
Dates: All conference long!
Location: In the lounge near the ballroom entrance corridor between the conference host exhibit spaces
The team at TechSoup has brewed up a select menu of tools and strategies to provide a social media curriculum to conference attendees on how to explore Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and applications for engaging volunteers and supporters around the world.  Attendees can join a tour of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life or learn how to use digital storytelling and Facebook for quick and easy updates to keep connected to supporters. Quick tips and tools will be provided on how to get started as well as support for more advanced users.  Also, engage in a mixed reality event as avatars and representatives from nonprofits around the world discuss their work both virtually and in their communities.

Get in Touch Via Twitter

Will you be at the NCVS? We’d love to hear from you: @NetSquared or @TechSoup.  Or connect with us directly:

• Amy Sample Ward: @AmyRSWard
• Elliot Harmon: @ElliotHarmon
• Susan Tenby: @Suzboop