New Media For Nonprofits

Incorporating Traditional and New Media Marketing Into Your Nonprofit Presented By: Carl Winans of carl_winans(digital) www.carlwinans.com

Introduction

Technology empowers organizations to improve relationships with volunteers, donors and constituents; which enhances the work nonprofits do.

“ The ease with which individuals can now be linked together through new media means that niche communities can be identified and their interests aggregated This has enabled marginalized groups to communicate, support each other and mobilize more easily and effectively than previously possible.” - Megan Griffith The Guardian

http://society.guardian.co.uk/voluntary/story/0,,2037710,00.html

What is “New Media”?

YouTube Video: The Machine is US/ing Us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

New and Traditional Media http://web2.wsj2.com

What is Web 2.0? “A way of using the Internet to instantly collaborate, share information, or have a conversation about ideas or causes we care about. It’s a world where anyone can be a publisher, a reporter, an artist, a filmmaker, a photographer or pundit …. Even an activist or citizen philanthropist!” -Katya Andresen Author of Robin Hood Marketing

http://www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com/

Is Web 2.0 For You?

You should consider it if ...

You want to express the human voice of your organization

You want to enable easy ways for people to share knowledge and information

Open source thinking - you are willing to share ideas in progress and let others join in and help it

You want to enable many voices

Can deal with the messiness

You already have the basics covered

The tools/strategies can help you realize your intended outcomes

Forget it if ...

You are obsessively controlling

If your organization is not ready for some changes in how you work

Your audience is not online

Everything must be vetted by central authority

Your copy or campaign messaging is written in stone, not electricity

You aren't prepared to assist people in learning a new skill and the time to make it an organizational habit

The Broader Conversation

“ I sat on a panel with a bunch of local newspaper editors which consisted of an hour of the editors talking about the best way to fax or e-mail them stories so they’d get their attention followed by 15 minutes of me saying that instead of all of that, their organizations could actually be their own media, that there was larger conversation going on across a much broader community which they could/should tap into, and that perhaps rather than pitching stories to newspapers they should think of the newspapers as added distribution for the stories they’ve already created.” - Seth Levine Discussing his experience presenting at the United Way’s “Getting the Word Out – a Mass Communication Seminar”

http://sethlevine.typepad.com/vc_adventure/2006/11/do_you_get_new_.html

The Broader Conversation Join our list Join our community Join our network

New Media Best Practices For Nonprofits

Internet tools are only useful if they help nonprofits do their work more efficiently and effectively.

Generally you won't say "I want to create a wiki." It's more likely that you will say "I need an easier way to collaborate with other organizations to write a grant."

Generally nonprofits need to:

Raise Funds

Market

Provide services to constituents

Engage Volunteers

Advocate

Collaborate—to leverage resources, provide a broader range of service

Educate/Train

Communicate—internal and external sharing of information and data

You can find these best practices on: http://nptechbestpractices.pbwiki.com

Raise Funds

Develop a specific donation page on your website.

Utilize a third-party hosted provider for your giving page.

http://www.cashlinq.com

http://www.donatelinq.com

Provide mechanisms for your constituency to raise money on your behalf.

http://www.chipin.com/

http://www.fastgiving.com

Provide a "Give Now" button that utilizes a vendor such as PayPal.

http://www.paypal.com

Market

Start With Your Marketing Message

Create an E-Mail Marketing Campaign

Use Your Blog to . . .

Provide Answers

Put A Human Face on Your Cause

Share Free Stuff: Photos, Video, Podcasts, etc.

Create Community By Helping Constituents Tell Their Stories

Create a Flickr Account (http://www.flickr.com) and Use Photos to . . .

Create an Annual Report in Pictures

Run an Online Contest

Free Online Ads Through Google Grants (http://www.google.com/grants)

Provide Customer Support To Constituents

Use Customer Relationship Management Software

Highrise (http://www.highrisehq.com)

Engage Volunteers

Save Ocean Beach (SOB), a very small San Francisco-based group, and the World Food Program, a very large, international UN agency, each are doing innovative work in communicating with their volunteers, allowing them to use their organization's web sites to:

Report progress

Receive training and other support

Engage in various activism activities

Numerous organizations talked about their "citizen journalists" who are providing text, audio and video from forgotten points all over the world to report on issues largely-ignored by mainstream media -- these are online volunteers, trained and organized via the Internet. Democracy Now even acknowledged its online supporters specifically as "online volunteers" (most organizations had another name for them).

Advocate

Create a Blog to Provide Regular Updates to Supporters on What They Can Do To Advocate for Your Cause

Let Users Sign-up Online to Be Part of Your Mailing List for Action Alerts

Create and Upload Videos to Advocate for Your Cause

Witness: See It. Film It. Change It. (http://www.witness.org) Witness partners with human rights defenders teaching them how to record abuses and use video to create change.

Create a "Download Center" Where Volunteers and Supporters can Obtain All the Information They Need to Run an Event

Start an Online Petition

Create an Advocacy Mashup Map.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has developed a map they call "Be the Full Stop" that shows how the actions of individual fundraisers, donors, campaigners, volunteers link up across the country “to create an unstoppable force against child cruelty.”

Use MySpace and other Social Networking Sites to Build Your Community

Collaborate

Basecamp ( http://www.basecamphq.com ) Basecamp democratizes project management, making it a team effort. This Web-based tool lets everyone -- thinkers, builders, managers, constituents -- get involved. Of course, the degree of their participation is up to you, the project owner. Anyone can create a list, category, milestone, or message; assign a task; or mark a task as completed -- turning the traditional "I tell you what to do" project-management structure on its head.

Training and Education

Understanding e-Learning

Free E-Learning Tools

Jane's Directory of Free E-Learning Tools (http://www.janeknight.com/Directory/index.html)

Use Stories to Train

Educational Wikis

Tools for Creating E-Learning Modules

Moodle (http://www.moodle.com) Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts).

Communicate (Internally and Externally)

There are many great types of new media tools available to support effective communication within and between nonprofits.

Start with this blog post by Dave Pollard of How to Save the World . It has an easy-to-follow decision-tree to help you decide which technology tool is right for different communication goals. It also offers some excellent observations on the kinds of decisions that lead nonprofits to pay too much for communication. It's a critical first step in determining how you will use technology tools to communicate.