Considering Social Media?

If you are a CEO or VP in your organization, you are likely becoming engaged in or contemplating engagement in social media. Younger people in your organization may be encouraging you; some may even be putting on the pressure.

Does it make sense for your non profit to embrace social media as an integral part of your communications and engagement strategy? Probably, but only if you are diligent about being strategic about it all. Without a clear strategy, social media is little more than cool stuff, and cool stuff will sidetrack us, if not confuse us, if we go forward without a vision and strategy.

Here are some suggestions as to how to give due diligence to the social media question.

Get familiar with social media. You can learn a lot in a short time through some very excellent and brief videos that explain Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Wiki sites, Ning communities, RSS, and so forth.  It helps to understand the highlights of these applications. Learning about them will whet your appetite for social media strategizing. You can access some quick learning at our sister site, www.thebigchange.ca. We have a social media resource section on that site that can help you as well.

Understand what social media can do and what it can’t. For example, while there are exceptions, social media is not known to be a significant donations generator directly (though that will change over time), but as an adjunct to a fundraising or marketing campaign it can be a great ally. Social media is also excellent in terms of connecting with others who share your interests, causes, geography, and so forth. For example, if you have the email addresses of your donors, Facebook can search for them and display which ones have a Facebook page. You can do the same on LinkedIn, MySpace, and other applications. Universities are doing this to find alumni and then communicate with them, engage them in discussions, etc. After all before you can raise money from people, you have to know where they are, get to know them, and find ways to have a relationship.

Understand what you want to achieve. Are you trying to increase brand awareness, expand your donor base beyond your local area, promote volunteerism, engage community leaders in discussions about social issues or priorities, collaborate with other service providers? All of those things and more can be supported by social media. Being crystal clear about your intentions or desired outcomes will help you figure out which tools to use and how.

Are you going to invest some resources in social media? Social media is far more economical than traditional media. In fact, many companies are using social media for more and more of their advertising. It is less expensive but also the ROI is quite good (watch this ROI video called Socialnomics). That being said, it does take resources: design, content generation, and regular updating need to occur. You have to work at growing your “friends” or members. Having a Twitter page with only six followers doesn’t look good. There is a lot of activity on social networks. You have to stand out, offer compelling or intriguing content and do it often and when you are not putting up content, you must be working to grow a following or to network with others.

If you are a control freak, forget social media. Social media is about being out there communicating with others – it is about being social! If you are in dialog with others; if you are getting a following, people will spread the word and create a buzz about your brand. You can’t control what they say though. So if you are risk averse about this, either find a way to get more comfortable with it, or just don’t go there.

Your employees are already out there in social media land. Don’t think that not being on Facebook or Twitter or elsewhere in social media land somehow mitigates risk to your brand. The Internet is the new public square and people will talk about you whether you are there or not. Many employees will list where they work on their profiles. Some will create social media sites to help support their work – yes, without even asking. Whether or not your organization is doing social media, it is a good idea to have social media policies in place that address risk. Our resource section on theBIGchange website has a link to a great piece on social media policy. Click HERE to go there.

How will you measure success?
Social media, like every other business activity, should be measured. The key is to measure the right things. To do that you have to know what is reasonable to expect from your social media activity. For example, if the purpose of your Facebook or Twitter account is to increase traffic to your website or blog, then you will want to track how many visitors come to your website from those sites. Are you looking for how many friends or followers you have? Are you looking for fundraising leads? Or is the purpose of your social media activity to enlist volunteers or collaborators? Of course, the metrics you use relate back to the purpose behind your social media presence.

Updated free report about the non profit sector

Our report issued in December called “Are there too many nonprofits duplicating services” has been updated. You can download the updated version by clicking here

Beliefs and Values – What’s the Diff?

Generally, a belief is a conviction.  It is expressed because one has confidence in the truth or existence of something (regardless of proof). Examples: Belief in God, that the soul exists, karma, when life begins, the right to bear arms, that welfare recipients are lazy, that everyone has a right to health care, women are smarter than men….You get the picture!

Values are built on beliefs. Values are action-oriented and govern the way we behave, communicate, and interact with others.  For example, we might value respect for others, accountability, transparency, and so forth. As well values are often expressed as what is important or dear to us. For example, I value my children.

Beliefs and values do not change quickly; however, beliefs are more likely to change than one’s values. Consider the following: I can value my new born baby and believe she is perfect. Most likely as the child grows our value of her will not falter, but we will eventually stop believing she is perfect as she hits the terrible two’s! – if not sooner.

We work very hard to affect, if not change, the beliefs of people. If we are conservative, we want to convince liberals to vote conservative.  If a politician believes our health care system should be more like it is in the United States, we may want to change that belief.  Believers in one religion often want to change the beliefs of those of different beliefs.

However, even as we attempt to make the changes as described above, we still value choice in our political system and share that value with people of different parties. We can believe the politician is wrong about health care and yet share values with all sides about civility, transparency, and so forth in the political process.  We can believe in different religions and yet value the right of all faiths to worship without fear of retribution.

Principles of Collaboration

We all know collaboration is at the heart of making positive change in society. We know this because the range and depth of change needed to improve conditions for people and communities will only be accomplished through working together within and beyond each of our sectors. We know that social improvements are tied to ecomomic improvements and vice versa. No one entity can go it alone. Life’s issues and challenges are too complex and vast to assume otherwise.

To go off topic for a moment, the call of collaborative  and action raises questions about how we view outcomes and their measurement. The placement of responsibility and accountability outcomes is often, if not nearly always, misplaced  when for example a funder holds an organization accountable for a result or set of outcomes that no one can effect alone. I would suggest that our thirst for outcomes and outcome measurement is itself a rally cry for the mutual accountability that sits at the heart of collaboration.

The following Principles of Collaboration are borrowed from the Michigan State University Museum who developed the first 12 principles below for its Carriers of Culture project.

1) Reciprocity: At the heart of successful collaborations there needs to be direct benefit to participating stakeholders. Ideally, these reciprocal rewards, while not often the same, will enrich each partner in expected or unexpected ways.

2) Representation: The most successful collaborations bring all relevant stakeholders to the table to launch and implement the collaboration. This requires thinking broadly to identify potential participants….This includes consideration of … gender, age, geographic distribution…traditions… and I would add culture, knowledge, experience, and connectivity to other networks and resources.

3) Reach: The best collaborations usually have an impact beyond the individual project–they build new collaborative opportunities.

4) Skill and Human Development: Whatever the product of the collaborative project, it should result in the empowerment of those involved, the transformation of their organizations, and building new individual and organizational capacity.

5) Establishing the Framework: There should be a clearly defined leadership structure, a shared understanding of the leadership structure, and a mechanism to regularly communicate.

6) Belief in Collaboration: Those involved must believe that more can be achieved by working together than working alone, and bring this perspective to the dialogue.

7) Institutional Relationships Rather Than Individual Relationships: Individual participants are often also institutional representatives; when this occurs there is a commitment to build institutional capacity by enriching the knowledge and skills of individuals within the organization.

8)Transparency: There is a real need for open and honest expression of aspirations, expectations, and a process to ensure ongoing review and evaluation. Real transparency takes time, energy and a desire to build a sense of trust and respect.

9) Continuity and Regularity: Regular communication is critical as is the establishment of and adherence to timelines.

10) Acknowledgement of Contributions: A willingness to acknowledge contributions and share credit is a goal.

11) Continual Consultation: New relationships demand investments of time, energy and good will.

          — Marsha MacDowell and C. Kurt Dewhurst, Michigan State University Museum, August 2004

There are other principles that have a fit in this list. They are:

13) Equitable Participation: Those at the collaborative table not only have an obligation to participate fully, they have a responsibility to ensure that opportunities for participation are extended to one another.

14) Trust: The foundation of collaboration must include trust in one another and a commitment to behaviours that deepen and widen the trust – behaviours like transparency, follow through, honesty, and proven ability to not only influence others but be influenced by our partners as well.

15) Dialog: Dialog is more than communication. It includes helping others get their ideas out before judging them in order to ensure the full expression of ideas. It calls for individuals to be facilitative of mutual exchange much more so than using communication as tool of persuasion.

-Mark Holmgren

Collaboration: convergence to create new value

Do a Google search on “collaboration” and the majority of hits you generate will actually be about collaboration tools or software, not the activity of collaboration. This is similar to the concept of customer relationship management. Search for that phrase and you end up with a litany of CRM software tools.  I would not suggest collaboration or CRM technologies are not good tools to have, but they are just that: tools.

Collaboration is about people. These people may represent organizations and do so well, but ultimately organizational action is all about people acting – acting individually, acting in cooperation with others, and collaborating, the latter being the highest expression of organzational and thus indivual action.

Ironically, a definition of collaboration I favor is offered up in a survey report by Cisco Systems (source link). The authors suggest that collaboration is an “open-ended series of interactions intended to go beyond individual strengths to create a new source of value.” 

The “open-ended series of interactions” component of the definition speaks to the fact that people who come together to leverage their talents, experience, and resources not only are unable to predict the outcome(s) of their interactions but know (or should know) such a convergence can create, new knowledge, new thinking, and new behaviors that cannot be restrained by policy, bureacracy, or other authoritarian filters and constraints.

This is why people want to collaborate and why people are afraid to collaborate. True collaboration cannot be controlled. It can be denied or blocked, but once  alive it is its own creature.

Announcing our Social Media Site

We have launched a site devoted to social media at http://www.thebigchange.ca

The site’s purpose is to help introduce non-profit organizations unfamiliar with social media an opportunity to learn about the range  of benefits and opportunities offered by a wide array of free and low-cost web-based applications. The Big Change offers links to social media resources as well as pages that introduce you to Facebook, Ning, Twitter, free Google applications and more.

The site was built on Google Sites free platform as a way of demonstrating what can be done without involving graphic designers, html experts, or hosting companies.

Please take a look: http://www.thebigchange.ca

Current Issue of The Philanthropist

Here are the current offerings from this important journal, featuring articles by Edmontonians Martin Garber-Conrad (Edmonton Community Foundation) and Bob Wyatt (Muttart Foundation) as well other excellent food for thought pieces.  Visit and bookmark www.thephilanthropist.ca and check out their past issues.

Articles

Overview from Canada: Modernising Charity Law Abstract PDF
Bob Wyatt

“Oil and Water or the Perfect Margarita?” Where is the “Social” in the “Social Economy?” Abstract PDF
Michael Edwards

Learning, Development, and Money: Lessons from Bangladesh Abstract PDF
Ian Smillie

“A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste” Abstract PDF
Martin Garber-Conrad

The Invisible Public Benefit Economy – Implications for the Nonprofit Sector Abstract PDF
Lynn Eakin