Listening Dashboard

Why create a listening dashboard?

• Save time looking for news
• Monitor multiple channels at once
• Track your organization and your cause
• Create a shared tracking space for your team or whole organization

How to get started:

• I suggest using Netvibes, you can also try iGoogle or even Google Reader
• Use this step-by-step guide for adding RSS feeds
• Refer to the slides below for examples

Content Map

Why create a content map?

• It provides an easy-to-access reference for everyone in the organization showing all content and outlets
• Supports cross-team collaboration as staff understand where their content is going
• Supports tracking and analysis for message and call to action response

How to get started:

• Use this template: http://bit.ly/DIYtemplate
• Follow this step-by-step guide for using the template
• Refer to the slides below for examples

Content Calendar

Why create a content calendar?

• Easy reference
• Coordinated messages
• Supports tracking and segmenting
• Ensure people receive appropriate amount of messages
• Create multiple touch-points
• ID traffic sources

How to get started:

• I prefer Google Calendar, though you can use any shared calendar you have in place in your organization – DivvyHQ is designed specifically for this purpose
• Create a format; ie: Message (STAFF) – Segments, Details
• Use color codes as possible
• Use all-day and timed events
• all-day for emails and blog posts
• timed events for social media posts

Here’s an example:

DIY Management Tools

For looking for a list of suggested tools, here’s a place to get started!

Free tools:

• Google Apps
• Tweetdeck, Hootsuite
• Bit.ly
• Netvibes
• Google Analytics
• Storify

Tool-Specific tools:

• Twitalyzer
• 14blocks
• booshaka
• EdgeRank
• Klout

Low-Cost tools:

• Hootsuite Pro
• CoTweet
• Small Act’s Thrive
• Spredfast
• Sprout Social

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).

• Eric Lanke: Stop Calling It Strategic Planning – "So I'm working my way through Humanize, and like most everyone else, I'm really enjoying it. This will probably be the first of several posts describing the thoughts it provokes for how I am and should be running my association. But dare I start with the endlessly controversial subject of strategic planning? I've heard Jamie Notter (and others) decry this staple of association board meetings as a tool whose time has come and gone, but it wasn't until I read the treatment of it in Humanize that I really understood what he was talking about. And it's convinced me of one undisputable fact. I need to stop calling what my association does strategic planning."
• 2011 NTEN Champions Fundraising Campaign by the Numbers | NTEN – "The funny thing about being the Nonprofit Technology Network is that it can be really hard to practice what we preach. You may recall that the NTEN community recently helped us raise over $15,000 to host more local events throughout 2012. We learned so much while running that campaign, but we also made lots of mis-steps along the way. One of the things we wished for as we navigated the campaign: benchmarks. Besides average gift amount, what might we expect?"
• New Research Proves the Business Case for Product Giving : PitchEngine : Get the Word Out™ – "New research from Indiana University concludes that businesses can do well by doing good through product philanthropy.  Donating products to charities helps corporate bottom lines, reduces waste in landfills, and provides relief for people in need. With a record number of Americans living in poverty today, product donations allow people to use their limited resources to pay for food, health care, prescription drugs, utilities and other vital needs. The study, released today by Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), provides the first detailed examination of the return on investment for donating merchandise as opposed to liquidating or destroying it."
• Is email going out with 2011? | craigconnects – "I took a look at a few articles and studies, and according to ComScore's 2010 Digital Year in Review, email use dropped 59% among Internet users ages 12 to 17 in 2010. Users ages 18 to 54 have reportedly turned away from email, as well — many are instead communicating through social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. An increase in email use, however, was visible in the 55+ age group, who used web-email 15% more in 2010 than in 2009. The report also went into detail on what sites people spent their time on: it illustrated that time spent on webmail sites declined while social networking sites increased considerably." Would love to hear what your experience and perception of email use is! For me, I see the way I use email and treat email changing, but the importance and irreplaceability (is that a word?) of it staying the same. You?
• Multiple Constituent Groups, One Database: Case Studies | Idealware – A great collection of three case studies from very different organizations, including Fight Colorectal Cancer, Sarah's, and Earthjustice. How are you managing your data?

Location: New York, NY

Topic: Nonprofits & Social Media

Description: This class is part of the Master of Science in Public Relations and Corporate Communication program at NYU. I will join Laurel Hart’s class to discuss some of the key ways social media has impacted nonprofit organizations and the opportunities for the social impact sector to leverage the social technologies available today and in the future.

Resources

• Course page
• Notes and slides

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).

• Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril, and Potential of Networks – This new report from the Knight Foundation and Monitor Institute explores engaged communities: "Ten years ago, a tiny web site asked people to volunteer to write their own encyclopedia. Today, Wikipedia is the most widely used reference work in the world. Rapid advances in digital media and technology are changing how we connect to information and each other. The way we engage in public dialogue, coordinate, solve problems—all of it is shifting. New networks are emerging everywhere. It’s exciting—and frightening. What is this new network-centric world? What does it mean for community change?"
• The US will use Twitter and Facebook to issue terror alerts – "The U.S. government is working on a new warning system to replace their oft criticized five-color coded terror index, and according to a new document obtained by The Associated Press, they're turning to Facebook and Twitter." How do your social media channels fit in your organization's emergency communications plan?
• Repair Interview: Joe Solomon of 350.org on Climate Change and Building a Movement – "Social Media Coordinator, Joe Solomon took some time to explain what 350 really means, talk about transforming community inspiration into political power, and share a story about how his work with 350.org inspired him in ways he never imagined." Check out this terrific interview with Joe – I'd love to hear your ideas, reflections and stories about how you are inspired to make change!
• Mobilizing online communities in the Face of Disaster: Tips … – "On the 12th of March, one day after the tragic earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan Ichi – Hiroyasu Ichikawa – the NetSquared Local organizer from Tokyo sent an e-mail to our NetSquared Local Organizer listserve asking for the best practices for mobilizing online communities in the time of a disaster. In the weeks that have followed, Ichi’s e-mail provoked a series of responses from all over the world. In this post, we hope to voice many of the tools, resources, and tactics that have been shared, in hopes of encouraging others around the world to get involved with the digital relief efforts."
• 6 questions to prepare you for a social media crisis – "In social media, the disasters people talk about most are fundamentally crises of public relations. These fall into two types: crises that originate in social media, and crises that originate offline. In the era of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, both types of crisis require a rapid, social media response. Looking at the most recent social media crises is one way to think about the kinds of challenges for which you need to prepare. But social media has a way of ensuring that each crisis is different from the last, so if you’re prepared to handle a YouTube meltdown, you’ll probably get served with a FourSquare nightmare. That’s why it pays to look for principles of online crisis management that will be relevant in the long run."

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).

• Building and Sustaining Strong, Engaged Programs – Part 1 – "What does it take to build real sustainability for the work being done by Community Benefit Organizations? If we were talking about building and sustaining a house instead of an organization, we would instantly know the answer. To sustain for the long term, the house would need strong infrastructure – a strong foundation, roof and bearing walls. However, no matter how strong that infrastructure might be, if the house is to remain strong over time, it will also need people to take care of it. The same holds true for building and sustaining strong, engaged programs."
• Does Nonprofit Consulting = Nonprofit Leadership? | Rosetta Thurman – "Ever since I became a full-time nonprofit consultant, I’ve had a hard time putting myself in that category. And it’s not hard to see why. The title “consultant” can definitely have its negative connotations, especially in Washington, DC where everybody and their mama is a consultant. It doesn’t mean anything without context, but even with explanation behind it, people can look at you sideways at networking events. At conferences, I even notice the body language shift that sometimes happens when an executive director encounters one of us “consultants,” as if our aim is to pick their pockets. Oh my, would you look at the time… Instead, I still think of myself as a nonprofit leader."
• Heye-Tech: Social Media Comments Gone Wild! What to do? – "So in addition to the Air Force Blog Assessment we decided to create a comment escalation flow chart. This is intended to help our social media authors decide what action to take in addition to the reply. We wanted to have a documented process for our employees to use and to find a way to keep our Communications & Risk Management departments in the loop."
• The secret steps to commenting like a rockstar | Heroic Destiny – For all those organizations looking to increase readership and visits to your blog, this is a great read! I always recommend that organizations should spend just as much effort commenting on other blogs as writing on their own. The conversations aren't ONLY on your site, and that's okay! "Read much about blog promotion and you’ll eventually encounter commenting as a strategy to increase your readership. The premise is that people will find your comment valuable and click on your link to visit your site. However, I’ve been using a modified version with great success. Today I’m going to tell you my secret strategy that has brought the majority of my readers to my site."
• 24 tools for fundraising with social media | Socialbrite – Here's a great list of 24 tools for fundraising online – any others that you use that aren't mentioned?
• PEP-NET » Blog Archive » Best methods for undemocratic participation – "We must ensure that the addition or integration of new digital channels does not make existing power structures less socially representative, and if possible, should improve democratic systems, for example by providing voices to people who previously would have struggled to be heard. Mastery of new technologies and ownership of expensive equipment must not become pre-requisites for engagement in e-participation."

My Focus for 2010

Collaboration: This year will, as they always seem to do, build on some of the major developments last year.  In my view, that specifically means I’ll be focusing even more on the opportunities for, technologies that support, and issues involved in collaboration (across organizations, across sectors, across geographies).  There are some great examples out there that need to be highlighted and examined.  There are also many technologies, whether they are tools or approaches or actual platforms, that are working to enable collaboration and I’d like to do more to highlight those with interviews and reviews.  Lastly, I want to create some open spaces for people to not just cheer for collaboration but also examine and explain some of the issues and barriers that organizations, individuals, campaigners or community members face when trying to approach collaboration.

Community:  As much as I see collaboration as the key to success, I also community as the core of every sector, every campaign, and every movement.  This year will, I think, provide some great opportunities to compare, contrast, explore and analyze the differences and nuances of communities defined as:

• communities of practice
• communities of focus
• communities of cause
• communities of geography

Through continued work on Social by Social (expanding it to be even more useful as an out-of-the-box resource and toolkit), speaking and participating at conferences, and the conversations on this blog I think we will have some very interesting ideas to explore about community!

Your Focus for 2010

Now it’s your turn!  Writing a blog can be a lonely adventure but I’m so very thankful that you as the community of readers and commenters and conversationalists have kept me from ever feeling like I was alone in the conversation.  And I want to keep it that way!  So, let me know what you’re focusing on in 2010 so that I can have your ideas and highlights on my radar, too.

• What are you focusing on at work that’s new?
• What are you focusing on at work that isn’t new but you wish was?
• What are you focusing on that you wish you had more resources about?
• What tools, strategies or issues do you want to discuss?

I’m really looking forward to all that unfolds in 2010 and to all that we can explore together.  Thanks for all your contributions!

—–

Hildy Gottlieb’s new book The Pollyanna Principles is a handbook for starting a revolution in social benefit organization design and practice, but it isn’t the revolution. What’s the catch? Well, it is going to take everyone, whether you are part of an organization or receive services from one, whether you are a philanthropist or a volunteer, whether you work for a for-profit business or are a community member. For social benefit organizations to truly “work” we all need to be part of the design, the process, the success.

“When we assume we are separate, we build systems that reinforce that separateness.  When we assume we are interconnected and interdependent, we build systems that reinforce those connections.

The Six Pollyanna Principles

There are six core statements that represent The Pollyanna Principles and they include:

1. We accomplish what we hold ourselves accountable for.
2. Each and everyone of us is creating the future, every day, whether we do so consciously or not.
3. Everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent, whether we acknowledge that or not.
4. “Being the change we want to see” means walking the talk of our values.
5. Strength build upon our stengths, not our weaknesses.
6. Individuals will go where systems lead them.

The Pollyanna Principles boil down to a similar premise I have blogged about before: we are creating organizations that

1. are vested in the social issues they work towards ending in such a way that they require those issue to persist
2. are built in a bubble
3. are consistently missing opportunities to succeed by operating like a business (with competition) instead of as a living part of the community.

You can find previous blog posts (with great conversations in the comments) here, here and here.

Why I’m excited about The Pollyanna Principles

We have a huge opportunity before us to remodel our social benefit organization structure. There is so much talk both online and offline, from inside organizations and from outside, that “nonprofits are broken.” We’ve done step 1: admitted that we have a problem. Now, what?  Well, as Hildy explains, we need to start driving our work with our vision of how we want the world to be, instead of what the problems are before us. What does that mean? Well, imagine that your organization said you wanted to have a public education system in your state that provided opportunities for all students to learn, fair pay for both teachers and staff, opportunities for growth for students, teachers and staff, and an entry point for all students to enter the “real world” prepared. You can imagine that by operating under that vision (instead of focusing on drop-out rates, teacher pay scales, or job skill training) that partnerships with the community, new opportunities for learning exchanges and career paths, and much more start to take shape organically, naturally.

Collaboration is a huge focus of mine: Finding ways for organizations working in the same sector to share calls to action to amplify the impact, helping organizaitons understand where their work aligns to cross pollinate across their networks, and so forth. Reading the Pollyanna Principles was like finding a twin I had been separated from at birth!  But, that isn’t to say it’s the complete conversation. This is truly a great starting place from which we can all move the conversation forward.

There are still many questions I have and that I imagine all organizations, boards, volunteers, community members will have when they read the book. But I want to, am ready to, ask those questions and answer them as a community. Questions like:

• How do we truly create community planning opportunities as funders that include all members of the community when the “community” of interested people is often limited to the grantee pool?
• How do we begin to change the cultural view of nonprofits in society/by the community so that the public, those who use the services or are otherwise affected by nonprofits’ work can have a stake in the responsibility to create organizations making real change and all of the community is shaping its future?
• How do we help organizations redefine their “community” to understand the entire ecosystem in which they operate?
• And many more…

What’s Next
The Pollyanna Principles is about social benefit organizations, but it’s really about community. Community is the most important thing to me, and I truly believe that we can’t create any amount of change, any amount of real world impact, or any lasting effects without participation, ownership, and shared responsibility by community members in the work these organizations do. This means we have to have community members represented in building and implementing an organization’s work, as well as building grant programs from funders. We need to have those receiving the services and those delivering them in constant collaboration.  We need people in the community to expect organizations to succeed and take a stake in making sure they do.

So, what’s stopping us from doing this? Hildy says it’s the Culture of Can’t that we are all accustomed to operating within that holds us back.  Can we move to the Culture of Can? Are we ready? What are the Can’ts holding you or your organization back?

I’m ready to start: to start asking questions and coming up with answer, to think and share collaboratively, and to really focus on the vision we share for a better world and work towards that goal instead of focusing only on the problems – are you?  I’d love to hear your ideas!

You can learn more about The Pollyanna Principles at: http://pollyannaprinciples.org

Visit the Stanford Social Innovation Review opinion blog to join the conversation there, too!

Peter Campbell’s How to Decide session:

Nonprofits have limited resources, which usually means that we have to make tough choices about where to spend our time and money. Here. we cover best practices in planning for technology projects, providing tools to help you make smart decisions about where to invest those resources. From the forthcoming NTEN book: Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission. Takeaways: 1. Top to bottom outline of the nonprofit strategic planning process, incorporating balanced scorecards, multiple bottom lines and focusing on technology planning. 2. Sound advice on how to evaluate which tech projects need to be done the exact same way that a for-profit would and which ones can be done creatively, with a deep dive into what “creatively” means. 3. Direction as to how to develop of Technology Plan – what goes in it, how do you get it in there, how do you make it a document that others can understand and engage with.

Organizational Planning:

A unified strategic plan ties together the: strategic place, business plans, and budget by using balanced scorecards and business process maps to strictly tie actions and expenses to mission-servicing strategies.

Balanced scorecards: a balanced scorecard identifies four areas that your strategic plan should address: financial, consitutent, internal business processes, and employee learning and growth.

• Financial, revenue focus
• Constituent, starting a newsletter or services
• Internal processes, putting in new phone system
• Employee training and growth, bonuses, education, etc.

Example:  Supporting Criteria

• Strategy: increase consitutuent awareness of our accompliments by distributing a monthly email newsletter
• Area: constituents
• Objectives: increase mission awareness, increase donations, increase communication
• Measures: eCRM analytics, donations
• Targets: 5% increase in new prospects, 7% increase in donations
• Initiatives: start montly newsletter

Technology planning: you can’t budget effectively on a year to year basis; long term planning allows you to spread out recurring costs and space out larget projects in ways that even out the expense.

Elements of the plan: technology plans should have at least three components: strategy, support, actions.

A plan answers these questions: how will the actions laid out in the plan support the mission and organizational strategic plan? how will staff be resourced to use the technology? Does the organization have a coherent strategy for application support and training?

Comprehensive evaluation: SWOT analyses, technical and end-user assessments of options, clear understanding of business needs versus software assumptions, creativity.

Peter’s philosophy: we do not have money or staff the way most for profits do, so we need to understand where we need to act exactly like a forprofit and where we can do otherwise.

SWOT = Strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats

Conclusion: good planning requires that you understand who you are, what technology must do well for you, and where you can get away with it by doing things more creatively, etc.

Resources:

Further information and relevant links are at the Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission wiki:  http://www.meetyourmission.org

Contact me: Peter Campbell psc @ techcafeteria.com

Buy Peter’s book!  He’s got a whole chapter dedicated to this subject in NTEN’s new book: Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission!

This month’s Net2ThinkTank Question was: What are the key questions nonprofit organizations should ask to help them determine how to prioritize social media training and experimentation as they do their technology and organization-strengthening planning?

Below is a roundup of your answers!

Beth Kanter reminds us to choose a social media strategy before selecting or committing to specific training. She also explains

If your technology plan will have long-term sustainability, you must include many strategies for technology professional development.

• What is the best way to deliver this social media training so that we build our organizational capacity?
• Does the delivery match our organization’s culture for learning?
• Who will be hands-on?  Who needs the overview?
• How will you take into account different learning styles for individuals and generational differences?
• How will staff make the time to put what they’ve learned into practice?  Time to experiment?

Beth also includes some tips for social media training.  Read more…

Britt Bravo provides 9 great questions nonprofits can ask to help identify organizational goals, internal resources, level of interest, and measurement mechanisms.  Read more…

d1st4nc3 posted four key questions for nonprofits, including “What are the key factors that determine whether someone will become involved in our cause?  Do they vary according to the social networking site/group page/amount of advertising and promotion/etc.”  Read more…

Emily’s World provide three areas of questions: those nonprofits should ask before adopting social media tools, when putting social media into action, and when evaluating social media usage.  Read more…

Gregory Heller of the CivicActions blog focuses on the main questions nonprofits can ask to identify if social media tools are a good fit.  He reminds us: “It is important to remember that the social media landscape is continually evolving. When developing a social media strategy or deciding whether to train staff on the use of social media remember that the tools are different than the techniques.  Training should focus far more on the techniques of using social media, not the specific tools (websites and services) because they will always be changing.”  Read more…

lnorvig lays out a couple questions for nonprofits, the first of which asks to identify staff already using social media tools.  “Getting involved in social media as an organization should not feel like a chore. Let staff who already have a passion for this take the leadership in ways that work for them.”  Read more…

JYStewart emphasizes the importance of identifying staff members already using social media tools, as well as the inherent opportunity with social media to let your staff ‘play’ and engage in the game of it all.  Read more…

Nancy White brings up a great point to consider:

Why are you doing social media training? I rarely recommend that organizations do pure social media training, but instead weave it into preparation and execution of real work. If you are planning a social action, ask how social media can contribute and build the training into the campaign training. In isolation, this stuff takes up time and attention without the crucial element of context and purpose.

As to experimentation, this is a very different and important activity. Again, it can be woven into existing activities (15 minutes play with Twitter at a staff meeting) and/or it can be something a smaller group takes on. This “scanning the social media” landscape can be informal — the key is the communication of what is learned back to the other members of the team and the organization.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Net2ThinkTank! If you want to participate in the next round, stayed tuned to the Net2 blog for the next Net2ThinkTank question, or join the Facebook group.

What do you think?  Has your organization included social media in technology training?  What worked best?

Flickr photo: Siebuhr