Many of you are familiar with the super star Britt Bravo, she is part of the Net Squared team, her blog is Have Fun * Do Good, and she represents Big Vision Consulting. Well, Britt is on a much-deserved vacation and asked me to fill in for her daily blogging on the Net Squared community blog.
I just posted about CARE Connections, the new, free, online network bringing together those interested in and working to end global poverty. It is an interesting network to check out, especially if you or your organization focus on women’s empowerment, anti-poverty, and/or world news.
CARE is a humanitarian organization working to fight global poverty by serving individuals and families in the poorest communities of the world. CARE recently launched CARE Connections, a free, online community to connect you with others supporting global poverty work, women’s empowerment, world news and more. You can learn more about CARE Connections, here.
With CARE Connections, you can:
- Connect with others who share your interests in global poverty and humanitarian aid news.
- Join the conversation on the blog
- Tap into the latest news from around the Web on global poverty, women’s empowerment and world events
- Create your own profile, invite others and form groups and events
Read more about CARE Connections on the Net Squared blog.
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.
As Elizabeth Dunn and others are discussing lately, the question to answer is not whether you and your organization should use new media networking tools or not, but which ones and for which purposes.
One major factor in deciding between the growing list of social networking sites, is the age group of your donors, supporters, or service members. Facebook and Myspace are the ones you probably hear the most about but many feel that these sites are only used by college-age and twenty-somethings. Actually, Facebook has seen a 98% increase in the last year of users 35 and older (click here for more metrics).
Elizabeth does an excellent job at facing this dilemma using the metaphor of learning a new language:
Of course most of your current donors aren’t on Facebook and MySpace - it’s still a pretty new thing for most of the population. However, most internet usage has historically been led by the young and the early adopters, followed - in time - by the rest of the general population.
When your constituency finally makes it to Facebook, MySpace, or whatever global site we are using in 5 to 8 years, don’t you want to be there when they go looking for you?
And don’t you want to be already quite good at it?
Of course you do! Getting started with networking and fundraising tools now will help you gain supporters, volunteers, fundraisers, and even partners both in the short term and the long term.
Has your organization made the dive into social networking yet? What was the most surprising part of the new tools?
As TechCrunch and others are reporting, Change.org launched a service for nonprofits to create their own branded social networks.
These networks are built to include many of the features nonprofits want, including: pages for fundraising, news, events and project updates, fundraising widgets, posting photos and videos, blogs, forums, and even Facebook integration (if the Facebook application of Change.org is added).
Organizations like CARE, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and Humane Society of the United States have already established their networks in Change.org. As you can see by looking at one of these organization’s profiles, supporting the group by joining, spreading the word, or donating funds is visible and easy. Nonprofits can redesign the pages to fit with their existing logo, colors, branding, and website.
I really like that Change.org is evolving from a place where individuals can connect on issues, causes, and politics into an even more engaged user base directly involved with nonprofits in a more meaningful way. What do you think?
Does your organization have a network on Change.org? You can sign up here.
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