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It wasn’t all that long ago that I remember spending a good deal of time here at the Case Foundation working with nonprofits as they contemplated their willingness to dip their toes into unknown social media waters. The most common response went one of three ways: “I really don’t get the value,” “it’s all too overwhelming,” or “we just don’t have the money or staffing to support it.”
The times they are a changin’ as evidenced by many things -- not least of which is a new report out of Dartmouth, showing that the nation’s largest nonprofit organizations have outpaced corporations and academic institutions in their adoption of social media. Similar research has confirmed that the Fortune 500, the Inc. 500, US colleges and universities and charities have all increased their adoption of blogging between 2007 and 2008, but charities are “out-blogging” them all for the second year in a row.
In fact, the Dartmouth study shows a remarkable 89% of charitable organizations are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis.
Other key findings from the report include:
To what might we attribute this rapid change from toe-dipping toward a deep dive into social media? As an active and interested observer of these trends, my hunch is that as we have begun adopting these tools in other parts of our lives, more people are finding that the social web can allow people who work in nonprofits the ability to connect and collaborate informally and across institutional boundaries in a quick and inexpensive manner.
Suddenly nonprofits see value in social media beyond attracting new donors or engaging volunteers, but in crowdsourcing ideas, getting instant and honest feedback, or even in finding new content for programs. Even so, we must remember that social media is just a tool and it takes more than mere tools to make social change.
Has your organization taken the plunge? If so, what did it take? A fearless leader, a nudging younger staff member, a plea from your members, or something else? On the flipside, if your toes are only skimming the surface, what's holding you back?
If you're looking for examples in creating your own social media strategy, there are many out there, and suprisingly more and more people are willing to share their successes as well as their failures. I'd suggest taking a look at what Wendy Harman has done at the Red Cross. She has been working to create this draft version of the organization's Social Media Strategy Handbook. In it, she provides a lot of useful tips, and is realistic about the time commitment involved whether you decide to dip or plunge. The first step, which is a great piece of advice, is to become social media savvy yourself - if you know how the tools work, you can better understand how they may benefit your organization.
Tags: nonprofits nptech social media
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- website for non profits 22 Sep 09, 8:13Kari - sorry, it took a while until I was your response. Thanks for answering and generating some discussion! The We Are Media platform is a good start, as are some other idea sharing networks that focus on the nonprofit sector.
I also think it's important for nonprofits to network and crowdsource around their issue areas, not just np marketing, fundraising, and management information in general. For example, a nonprofit trying to implement a program in arts for inner-city youth could learn so much by looking at the knowledge that similar organizations have gathered.
- Luise Barnikel 30 Jul 09, 12:49Kari, Yes, the times are a changin'. And it's so good to hear. The collaboration and awareness efforts that a social network offers is a necessity with many of the current and future issues organizations will face.
We have just launched iGivingWorld, a network specifically for foundations and philanthropists to collaborate, share information and projects. iGivingWorld can also help an organization discover like-minded individuals to find out what others are working on in real time, stop the duplication of efforts and possibly pool resources. We do hope that any and all foundations in need of such a network will come join and become a member. Those interested can email me at greg [dot] demirjian [at] igivingworld [dot] com or go to www.igivingworld.com and apply.
- Greg Demirjian 13 Jul 09, 11:21Great post - and great news, I think, for the nonprofit sector. I'd suggest there may be a few additional reasons for this phenomenon:
Hildy Gottlieb in her "Pollyanna Principles" wrote something like "individuals follow where systems lead." Right now, the nonprofit system is dripping with social media nudges. From funders and journalists/media who value technological innovation & social media sexiness (in some cases, imho, above demonstrated programmatic effectiveness), to organizations like the Case Foundation who have been huge social media evangelists & adoption engineers for the nonprofit sector, social change organizations have had many clear, direct incentives (perhaps even survival imperatives) to get in the game.
Also, at the risk of sounding like a Beth Kanter fangirl, I think she may also be a huge part of the difference. She's a trusted change leader and evangelist whose synthesis and knowledge-sharing has transformed our sector. Her peers in the for-profit sector have the difficult challenge of earning that trust (and avoiding the snake oil salesman critique), while profiting directly from the expanded adoption for which they evangelize. Their implicit (or explicit) "sell" distracts from their ability to authentically "share".
One more note on the subject of trust: especially in the current economic downturn, I believe nonprofits enjoy more of the public trust than the Fortune 500. Since trust and reputation are the cornerstones on which social media success is built, it shouldn't be at all surprising that nonprofits are outpacing our for-profit peers in this regard.
- Stacey Monk 11 Jul 09, 14:17We are going to turn you into a social media phenom, Obama did it, so can you hot stuff.
- Kim-Marie 10 Jul 09, 19:00Kari - thanks for sharing this fascinating data with us. I don't necessarily work with a lot of nonprofits, but the edification is appreciated.
I guess I'm not surprised by the number of nonprofits leveraging social networks (though I guess almost 90% is pretty surprising). As you noted, it's a relatively inexpensive way to crowdsource, in addition to finding new donors.
The one stat I find surprising in here are the number of nonprofits who claimed that their blog was a success. At first, I'd like to know how they deemed/measured the success. Primarily though, I'd like to know how this tracks with what we know about the average success rate of blogs, which isn't very high.
Thanks
@chuckhemann
- Chuck Hemann 8 Jul 09, 14:25Very interesting. Your line “we must remember that social media is just a tool and it takes more than mere tools to make social change,” reminds me of organizer Marshall Ganz’s observation: "Tools don't build houses. Carpenters build houses,” recognizing the need to train organizers to effectively use social media for social change.
- Kim Cranston 8 Jul 09, 10:12We've had incredible success building community spirit online. Luise is right. Its is not always the numbers of ROI that matter. The community building and the quality of posts and interaction mean a lot too.
- Brooke McMillan 8 Jul 09, 10:01Luise, I appreciate your candor about knowledge sharing and agree that the focus should be broader than just #'s and $'s. As I mentioned above, I think that NP's are getting smarter about doing some of this Beth Kanter and NTEN have done an exceptional job creating the We Are Media wiki platform for knowledge sharing between nonprofits. I'd encourage you to check it out: www.wearemedia.org/
Zan, thanks for your thoughts as well - in so much of the work we've done, we place almost equal value in "friend-raising" as we do in fundraising. At the end of the day, many of these social media tools will not necessarily lead to dramatic increases in dollars, but they can lead to increased awareness of an organization and that of course can have a ripple effect.
- Kari Saratovsky 7 Jul 09, 20:43I honestly think that for many nonprofit communicators, entering into the social media realm is such a burden because it's mainly associated with these hard ROI expectations. Not only for $ raised or # of volunteers recruited, but also for site traffic, blog readers, facebook fans etc.
What about simply engaging with people to share knowledge? I'm not saying that ROI isn't important (especially when you're not sure how much time and staff power to spend on social media activity), but sometimes it's worth investing a bit of time in sharing what you know and what you've learned. It takes very little effort, and even though the return value might not be immediate - it helps when you'd like to participate in the discussion.
- Luise Barnikel 7 Jul 09, 16:15I really agree with this statement, "Suddenly nonprofits see value in social media beyond attracting new donors or engaging volunteers, but in crowdsourcing ideas, getting instant and honest feedback, or even in finding new content for programs. "
Too often the things I read on nonprofits and social marketing are just focused on revenue. I think the ability to engage and build relationships with lots of people is of higher value and I am glad more nonprofits are recognizing this.
Thanks for the article.
- Zan McColloch-Lussier 7 Jul 09, 13:01
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