A Compass for Social Media for Social Good

Qui Diaz, Beth Kanter and Geoff Livingston posted a summary of their findings from a recent survey of nonprofit donors and their attitudes about causes and giving online. A common complaint of online giving to date (see previous post about Blackbaud survey here) is that the dollar amounts are too low per donor and donors are tending to be one-time givers. In other words, online donors aren’t the elixir to replace the dying direct mail donors. Here are a few sub-highlights (meaning a summary of their summary) of their survey results from 426 online respondents:

• The axiom that older donors give more because they have more to give doesn’t change because of the mechanism of giving;
• 84 percent of the social media savvy aged 30-49 and 55 percent of those older than 50 used conversational media to discuss philanthropy;
• Seventy-seven percent of those 50 and older and 71 percent aged 30-49 prefer email. Additionally, 45 percent of 30-49 year olds prefer social networks and 31 percent of those over 50 also use social networks;
• Blogs represent the second most viable source of information next to social networks (among both the digital rich and the traditional brackets);
• 81% want information from a highly credible or quality source
  • 77% from a trusted organization
  • 59% would like to interact with other donors
  • 58% want to interact with philanthropic experts
• In summary, nonprofits and charities have a strong opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations (that may lead to contributions) with the social media savvy (30-49 and >50) – especially those who are uncultivated.

Add to this mix the fact that the fastest growing segment of Facebook users are women over 55 and we can see that social networking sites will be rich areas for discussion, organizing and fundraising for causes from now on.

So, the difficult question for nonprofits right now is: how do we navigate from what has been to what will be while still making payroll? To take that question a bit further, it is really about how you can create the capacity within yourself and your organization for seeing the world as it is but moving towards what it will be. And, for right now in this time of transition, we have to do both.

It is curious to me how often a discussion of social media becomes a zero sum game in people’s minds. If we’re using direct mail we’re not raising money online, or everything that was on land has to go online. The world doesn’t work in such stark black and white contrasts, it is, for better and worse, a continuum of grays.

If you’re struggling wtih how to manage the transition to the connected age of the future for fundraising, here are a few steps to help you get unstuck:

1. Keep doing what works but know and plan like it isn’t going to work forever. In fact, you should plan that this is the last year you’ll be able to do what you’ve done before successfully. You don’t want to get caught totally off guard like newspapers that thought they had much longer to transition from old to new than they really did.
2. Get your conversations going online NOW! Pick one or two places, say Twitter and Facebook, and start talking about your issues and listening to the conversations that folks are having about your cause. Don’t worry if the conversation is small, don’t worry that it isn’t leading to donations right now. You need to practice talking to people online about your cause; these aren’t skills that more traditional orgs have in their DNA.
3. Find one fundraising event or idea to take online this year. Use Facebook to ask your folks for ideas for fundraisers, should we pick a day and everyone does their own thing like Red Nose Day, or should we have one event in person, maybe a lower key breakfast this year instead of a fancy dinner, or maybe a virtual event or contest? Don’t prescribe, listen and learn.

OK, those are you marching orders – get going!

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A Reality Check

I spend some much time with guys named Boomer and Zapper who talk about “writing code that’ll make your eyeballs bleed, dude!” that I sometimes forget what a tiny slice of the world these guys represent.

I was talking to a friend, Lisa D., yesterday who told me she was struggling with her new computer. She wrote:

“My husband set it up, and then left with the instructions, “Safari is
the browser.” Safari froze, and the only other thing I know about using
the Mac is “Don’t use Control, Alt, Delete.” I know this because my
nanny saw it in an episode of “Sex and the City” and told me. So I
called the 800 number, which kindly advised me where to find the Power
button, and that Option, Command, esc is the way to do a forced
shut-down. In my defense, I had not actually LOOKED for the Power
button. “

Imagine what trouble poor Lisa would have with a PC! It was a good reminder of what how most people interact with technology.

Evaluating the Value of Social Networking Causes

As usual, Beth Kanter, is having interesting thoughts here and here on her blog about measuring the effectiveness of social media. I think for me the biggest question is how to do justice to the need for activists to learn how well they’re doing and how to improve while also acknowledging the need to think and act in an evaluative way that fits the open, networked way that connected activism works. (Please note: I am specifically thinking here about how to get our hands around the effectiveness of social networks for creating social change.)

Of course, all evaluative work begins from the same question: what do we want to learn? Beth’s thinking has been from an organizational point of view, more specifically, what return are we getting organizationally from our investment in social media? In Momentum, I urged organizations to take any opportunity to talk to and learn from their constituents, clients, communities about their services, not to wait for the perfect controlled environment to do so. Now, I’d like to start to think about evaluating value of what is developed through the network that is created by using social media for a social cause.

So, I’ll make up a simple scenario here to play with, and hope you’ll play along with me:

A group of students at Drake University creates a cause on Facebook, Project Green Ribbon. The goal of the PGR is for students to wear green ribbons on their own campuses on April 15th to protest the high interest of student loans and pressure their colleges to increase their subsidies of tuition (really, only applicable to private institutions with substantial endowments, but, nonetheless, a tangible outcome.) So, Project Green Ribbon friends start friending other friends. Eventually 3,200 students across the country post the ribbon on their facebook pages and wear a green ribbon on April 15th. A few write letters to their school newspapers about the cause and two hold rallies on their campuses. So, how would one evaluate the efficacy of this effort?

At a very basic level, something happened, several thousand students self-organized around a cause they care about and raised the visibility of that issue on their campuses by wearing the ribbon, publishing letters and standing around while people spoke. But, since no university was moved to reconsider its tuition policies, it wasn’t a total success. So, maybe, in traditional evaluation terms it would be graded as a B, a nice start that could be improved next year.

But, it’s more than that because there is value in the creation of the network itself that is overlooked in traditional measurement terms. First, social networks are powered by the nodes, the key intersection points that power a network. In this case there were about 30 students who were passionate about this cause, invited triple the number of friends on average than other participants, and made sure the letter writing and rallies happened. The nodes need to be identified, and assessed to truly understand what happened to build this network. In addition, by identifying the nodes, a cause is set to build on their prowess and success next time, and also to engage these super activists in another cause.

Second, the network isn’t owned by the cause, and it may not be very active after April 15th, but the participants were tied to one another, tightly and loosely, for a time by a common interest. Participation is an important, human experience, and a good experience leads to more participation. So, the very nature of the network and its workings is critical to understand for this and other causes.

I recognize that some success of networked activities is serendipity; the timing of a cause, the time of year, other news events that makes the cause more urgent. Nonetheless, there is a lot to be learned by the nature of the network itself, how and why it worked or didn’t, that can’t be overlooked.

These are just the beginning of some thoughts I’ve been having on this topic. I need your help to continue to work on this. Please send ideas and any links to other sources of info on network effectiveness. Thanks!