KLes Says

Please vote for Safe Harbor by clicking here! Voting ends on Tuesday, November 30 for this month’s ideas for the Pepsi Refresh project, and Safe Harbor is ranked somewhere around 86^th for the $25k category. Remember, the top 10 ideas win the grant money!

Asking people to vote for Safe Harbor through social media this month has been a learning experience. It’s hard to describe how valuable the grant money would be to Safe Harbor in a Twitter post, Facebook status, or even a blog post. Mobilizing our social networks to vote in 140 characters or less has not been a simple task.

It’s easy to get friends and family to click on a link and then click a button on a Web site to vote for something once. Things change, however, when you need those same people to vote every day and take the time to sign into their account in order to vote. People like my mom (of course) have voted every day this month, but getting my college to friends to remember to vote every day, and care enough about the project, was next to impossible.

I learned that personally asking my friends to text Pepsi to vote or go on the Web site if they were already online was much more effective than tweeting or putting up a Facebook status. Despite all the power of social media, personal interaction still won out.

I also sent out personal emails to organizations on campus to forward to their members and to my mom to forward to all of our family and friends. These also proved more effective because people saw I took the time to write an email to them, and not just post a new Facebook status.

In addition to using social media to get votes, we sent out press releases to The Tiger newspaper (read the article here), and local news media. It would have been great to get more press coverage, like one high school in Indiana. The school is in the running for a $250,000 Pepsi grant. Students went to a mall in their community on Black Friday and asked people to vote. A local news station placed a news story and video on their Web site to cover the event. In addition, the school’s Web site has a story about the grant right at the top of their homepage. Too bad Clemson can only endorse  Coke, that kind of coverage would have been very helpful.

Even without such coverage, we did a great job getting votes. Campaigning for online votes through social media takes a lot of time, effort and persistence, especially for something like the Pepsi Refresh Project. While Safe Harbor might not win the grant money, it is nice to know that we were able to move them from number 206 to number 84, with the help of our social networks. It’s amazing how big of a difference one email or tweet can make for getting votes.

Thank you to everyone who voted. This project has been one big step forward for Safe Harbor’s social media presence. And that means a step toward a new life for victims of domestic violence.

Exciting news! My group is almost done with our project for Safe Harbor! To recap: we are designing Safe Harbor’s Christmas mailer, dinner party invitations (for donors who want to host a dinner party and ask their friends to donate or volunteer) and a pledge card. We are also writing a press release that Safe Harbor can send out to news media next year as a way to announce the dinner party program and raise awareness about the shelter.

1. The Christmas mailer was the most difficult part of the project. We sent Samantha three final copies of the mailer. One is 4-color (Christmas mailer 4-color) and the others are 2-color. Safe Harbor decided to use a 2-color mailer (to save money), but we are not sure which option they chose. The 4-color and 2-color mailers have different designs, and both options are very attractive.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  My group’s favorite 2-color mailer is in Safe Harbor purple (Christmas mailer 2-color purple), which uses black, white, and purple as an accent color. We made the gift bow on the outside purple,  incorporated the color in the text on the inside, and used it to make the butterfly in the background picture on the inside purple. The other 2-color mailer uses Safe Harbor green instead of purple (Christmas mailer 2-color green), and is essentially the same design. The color is very strong, and may not be as appealing to potential donors as the purple. The purple also gives more of a holiday and festive feeling than the green. Whichever option Safe Harbor chooses will hopefully convince people to donate this holiday season.
2. The dinner party invitation (Invitation) looks great. It is simple, elegant, and incorporates the Safe Harbor brand and purpose of the dinner party in a subtle way. We are currently working on putting the invitation in a Word document that will allow hostesses the edit the invitation information for their personal use!
3. This week we will be working on the pledge card. We plan to incorporate the Safe Harbor butterfly and logo in such a way that it can be handed out at the dinner parties and stand alone as a general pledge card for Safe Harbor.

We are so excited to see how all of the deliverables turn out and to present them in our design class and PR class during exam week!

Does your nonprofit view its social media friends as dollar signs? Think again.

While an organization’s online friends are an important fundraising resource, money is not all they have to offer. And receiving donations from them doesn’t happen overnight (Chapters 10 & 11 in the textbook).

Nonprofits must cultivate relationships with online users and social media friends to build trust and credibility.  Nonprofits must be transparent, simple and engaging online, as discussed in previous posts. Most importantly, nonprofits cannot do this just to raise money and increase the number of donors for their organization. Users will see right through that strategy. Use the relationships to increase volunteers, build your online network, gain awareness for your cause and organization and to listen to and understand what people are saying online about your organization.

Make users partners in your organization. Give them something to do and engage with that will make them feel invested in and appreciated by the organization.

Wildlife Direct, a nonprofit dedicated to wildlife and environmental conservation, has mastered the art of fundraising online. Users feel like they are important to the organization and have a say in what happens in the organization (according to the textbook). Through online blogs, users can express their opinions, learn about conservation emergencies that need funding and speak openly with people who are benefitting from their donations.

Social media friends are partners, not dollar signs.

Allowing these same social media and online friends access to govern your nonprofit online can be a difficult task. Moving away from traditional mundane board room meetings is a process. A recent news article describes reasons why nonprofits should be willing to engage online and make mistakes. Yes, it may be awkward the first time your nonprofit holds a board meeting as a live webcast where online users can comment and join the meeting. The benefits of entering the online world, however, far outweigh the risk of making a mistake.

New ideas, creative projects, more volunteers and increased funding can all result from allowing others to join board meetings. This makes nonprofits accountable and networked.

Successfully organizing and engaging crowds online will help ensure a nonprofit accomplishes its social media goals. Crowdsourcing manages online users by asking them to participate in projects in small ways. This includes collective intelligence, crowd creation, crowd voting and crowd funding.

The Brooklyn Museum’s “Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition,” is an example of crowdsourcing discussed in the book. The museum asked participants to upload photographs to the museum’s Website (crowd creation) and then review the images and rank them to determine their inclusion in the exhibition (crowd voting).

This project broke up the online work into small, manageable pieces. Participants could easily rank photographs on the Web site, and still feel like they had made a meaningful contribution online.

Another way to utilize crowdsourcing is by tapping into collective intelligence or crowd wisdom. IdeaScale is an inexpensive tool that allows users to submit their ideas for an organization or company, vote on other ideas and view ideas that are ranked highest.

According to an article on CNN.com, crowdsourcing may not benefit everyone. “Such crowdsourcing models are ‘great for the person who wins it, but not for the 999 other people who submitted their ideas,’ said online marketing expert DJ Francis.”

Despite this, if organizations thank users for their submissions, and treat them as though they are clients, participants may feel more appreciated even if they do not win a crowdsourcing contest. By thanking participants, instead of only using them for the free content they provide, nonprofits can move past the negative stigma associated with crowdsourcing.

Learning loops further engage crowds and users through social media. The learning loop process includes planning, real-time monitoring and measuring engagement (chapter 9).

One of the most interesting ways to measure engagement is through free online engagement metrics. The number of comments, unique commentators, time spent with content, clicks and other measures are all combined to determine which posts score highest on engagement. Omniture , Google Analytics and PostRank provide free engagement metrics that measure and monitor many of these aspects.

Most importantly, engagement metrics allow nonprofits to measure ROI. This is especially important for skeptical leadership and those who do not understand the significance of social media use.

By engaging crowds online, and understanding how they use an organization’s Website, blog and other social media, nonprofits can effectively launch and expand online projects and campaigns.

1.) Engagement online is more than listening and creating relationships. It allows people to get involved beyond a conversation.

Engaged users respond to comments, view shared information, respond to donation requests, ask their friends and social networks to become part of the cause or donate, and attend events.

An important part of engagement and building relationships online is a concept called karma banking. According to the text, karma banking is doing good things online for other causes, people and organizations. The key is expecting nothing in return. The benefit is immense. Once an organization needs a favor in the future, it has a vast store of trust built up, in addition to people and organizations willing to reciprocate past good deeds.

Karma banking is easy to practice. All it takes is sharing others’ information with the organization’s network, celebrating other organizations’ achievements, and most importantly, thanking people often for their efforts.

The Surfrider Foundation (a nonprofit discussed in an earlier post) engages users online and practices karma banking on its Facebook page.

Here’s a sample post:

Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter:We had a great weekend with our friends from the Texas Upper Coast, Central Texas and Texas Coastal Bend Chapters this weekend at the
Surfrider Foundation Texas Conference! Thanks Ed Mazzarella, Steve Blank and Angela Howe for coming down and helping us out!

By thanking its volunteers publicly and loudly on its Facebook page (Surfrider has over 100,000 followers), the organization ensures its volunteers feel appreciated and will reciprocate when the organization needs assistance in the future.

2.) Transparency: Revealing financial information and measures monitoring an organization’s progress online allow an organization to be transparent. The text uses the Indianapolis Museum of Art as an example of organizational transparency.

The museum uses a dashboard on its Web site to reveal the museum’s progress including number of visitors to the museum, energy usage and donations to its endowment fund per month. Users can click on any of the data and read detailed information about the strategy behind the statistics and other information.

Safe Harbor could benefit from increased transparency. The organization does not offer financial statements or a dashboard to users on its Web site. By revealing statistics such as the number of shelter visitors per month, the number of beds occupied per month and the number of people who have used shelter services such as counseling, Safe Harbor will be able to show its supporters and potential donors its greatest needs. It will also invite users to brainstorm new and interesting ways to improve areas that are struggling and boast about the organization’s improvements.

Engagement and transparency are important tools that nonprofits must use to ensure their success online.

It’s a new month, and that means it’s time to vote for new Pepsi Refresh Grant recipients!

Safe Harbor made it into the running for the month of November, so please go vote!

Our class has been working hard to make this possible. The past few weeks we have written sample tweets, Facebook statuses, blog posts, emails and press releases. We have been working to create media contact lists at Clemson and in the surrounding community to get our press releases published. For the rest of the month we will be working to secure votes and ensure Safe Harbor is in the top 10 for $25K grants.

Here’s how to vote:

• Go to RefreshEverything.com/StudentsForSafeHarbor to vote now!
• Click the “Vote for this idea” gray button at the top of the page and follow the directions to create an account with your email
• You will not receive any spam
• Vote EVERY DAY
• Tell everyone you know to vote through Twitter, Facebook, blogs and email

On behalf of our Communication 456 class and Safe Harbor, thank you for your support.

Our group has decided to take a different direction with our project for Safe Harbor. Instead of branding the fashion show, we will be creating a Christmas mailer, dinner party invitations and pledge card.

Each deliverable will incorporate aspects of the Safe Harbor logo and brand. Our contact at Safe Harbor sent us their brand specifications, colors, and logo in order for us to get started on the projects.

1.  Safe Harbor sends out a Christmas mailer each year during the holidays to persuade people to donate. The mailer includes a story about someone who was able to start a new life and overcome domestic violence because of Safe Harbor. It also includes a letter from the shelter director explaining why people should donate to Safe Harbor.

We have decided to make the mailer look a Christmas present. We are limited to two colors for the mailer and have decided to use 8.5×11 size paper to keep within Safe Harbor’s budget. If possible, we would like to use brown recycled paper to go with the gift theme. If not, we will just use plain white paper for the mailer. We plan to fold the paper in half horizontally and have a seal so that it opens up like a present. The inside will include the story, photos and letter. The front of the mailer will look like a present with a bow and gift tag. We plan to use the Safe Harbor green color from the logo, along with one of their secondary colors, a deep purple. This way the mailer will look holiday themed, without offending those who do not celebrate Christmas. The front will also include the Safe Harbor logo. The back will include a gift tag with the recipient’s address, and look like the back of a present with ribbon from the other side of the bow.

2.   The dinner party invitations will be used for a new program Safe Harbor is starting. The program will have Safe Harbor supporters host dinner parties for their friends and explain to their friends why they should donate. We have decided to use the green Safe Harbor butterfly on the invitations in order to keep them simple and make sure the Safe Harbor brand does not dominate the invitations. For one of the invitations will use one butterfly graphic at the top of the invitation and have the rest of the text flow down from the graphic. On the other invitation we will have a cluster of butterflies in the lower left corner, and the text in the upper right corner to achieve balance.

We found some examples on paperlesspost.com that we have decided to use as our inspiration. Instead of the graphics on the invitations, we will use the butterfly. We are creating an online invitation and a paper invitation to be mailed.

Here are the examples from PaperlessPost:

3.  The pledge card will be used for people to fill out for donation payment. We also plan to slip the pledge card in the Christmas mailer. We will incorporate the Safe Harbor brand and logo into the pledge card in some way.

At this point we have started working on the Christmas mailer and the invitations.  I will continue to update the blog with our progress on this exciting project!

Nonprofits that are open, candid and listening are described as having social cultures. Many nonprofits, however, are afraid to shift from their traditional structure to a social culture structure (Chapter 4, TNN).

One nonprofit communications blog identifies some of the fears nonprofits have, or social media culture shock. These include:

1.     Fear of criticism and negative comments

2.     Loss of control over organization messages

3.     Everyone in organization is a spokesperson/may sound unprofessional

4.     Failure

5.     Social media is a waste of time

First, instead of pretending negative criticism doesn’t exist, nonprofits need to be open to receiving negative comments and responding to them. Next, by not having a social culture and social media presence, nonprofits have less control over their messages online. They have no way to set the record straight when someone speaks falsely about their organization online. Some blog posts may sound unprofessional, but people prefer a more casual tone online. It’s more important to communicate than to worry about who in the organization is communicating online. Social media is a process of trial and error, and it’s acceptable to not get it right the first time. Most people are very forgiving regarding social media. Finally, social media is not a waste of time. It’s vital to nonprofits’ survival.

While organization leaders may not agree that engagement with the outside world and having a social culture are important, staff can work to convince leadership of the benefits of social media use.

Without this, the nonprofit is missing out on forming relationships and gaining donors, funds and volunteers.

Networked nonprofits know how to build relationships with influencers within their social networks. This allows nonprofits to expand without a big price tag (Chapter 3 of TNN).

There are four important parts of social networks that nonprofits must understand:

1.     Nodes- people or organizations

2.     Ties-connections between the nodes

3.     Hubs-larger nodes within networks (nodes with lots of ties)

4.     Periphery- the network’s edge that does not seem to have as much influence, but is vital for expansion

Social network mapping tools can be used to analyze and identify these four components of a nonprofit’s social network. GUESS and Pajek are examples of free social network mapping tools. These programs look a little confusing, but anyone with at least some experience with technology should be able to figure them out through trial and error.

Network maps visually illustrate how nodes are tied to other nodes, hubs, and periphery nodes within the nonprofit’s social network. Here are some examples:

Social capital is what allows nonprofits to mobilize their social networks. Social capital has two components: trust and reciprocity.

An article from The Washington Post describes a problem with social capital regarding the Facebook Causes application. Many Facebook users sign on as supporters of at least one cause, but very few actually donate. While the application demonstrates a social media presence for the nonprofit, allows the nonprofit to communicate with its social network, and shows that the nonprofit has considerable influence online, users are still not giving. The reason for this is a lack of social capital.

Two of the questions at the end of the chapter ask:

1.     What have you given to people in your network before they have asked?

2.     How are you appreciating, thanking, and celebrating important people in your online network?

If more nonprofits took a few minutes to thank people for their support online instead of asking for support and giving nothing in return, users may be more willing to donate online. In order to have a more successful online presence, nonprofits must start to appreciate the members of their social networks online.

Networked nonprofits are not your typical nonprofit. These nonprofits use social media tools to communicate with people outside of their organization. Networked nonprofits spark two-way conversations between people and the nonprofit, and between people and others unaffiliated with the nonprofit. Networked nonprofits engage in their own PR, all the time.

One example, as described in the book, is the Surfrider Foundation. Surfrider is committed to environmental protection for the world’s oceans, waves and beaches. The organization has over 50,000 members worldwide who are allowed to do anything they want within their chapters, as long as it aligns with the organization’s purpose. Surfrider members connect with the organization through social media tools and in turn, tell their social networks about Surfrider. The organization is the perfect example of a networked nonprofit.

Most importantly, networked nonprofits are willing to let others take control of their branding, logos, messages, etc. in order to increase awareness of their organization and gain donors and supporters who will work on their behalf.

Networked nonprofits end up with advocates and supporters for their cause who are willing to work for free to help a cause they are passionate about. These supporters may be free agents who will come and go, or people who consistently support the organization. Possessing such a network makes social media use easier and allows the nonprofit to distribute social media work to others who will spread the word to their social networks.

There are many challenges facing nonprofits today. Safe Harbor is experiencing some of these challenges as they do not have enough staff or funds to accomplish everything they hope to, including having a successful online and social media presence. While Safe Harbor has a Web site, blog, Twitter account and Facebook page, staff often struggle with how to effectively use these tools. If Safe Harbor were to take some of the steps to becoming a networked nonprofit, it would greatly lessen the workload for staff and give them time to accomplish other tasks.

Unfortunately, Safe Harbor may not be able to take every step associated with becoming a networked nonprofit given the nature of the domestic violence cause. Since domestic violence is a silent cause and the organization respects the privacy of victims, allowing free agents to take control of Safe Harbor’s messages and branding is a scary idea. Domestic violence is so easily misconstrued and misunderstood that allowing free agents to support the cause who randomly come and go may not always be practical.

Many free agents of course, would honor Safe Harbor’s mission and values. They would be able to portray the organization and its cause accurately and gain support. Safe Harbor would have to take the risk of having their messages misconstrued and changed. Maybe this isn’t a risk the organization is quite ready to take. Once Safe Harbor has established a stronger social media presence with more online followers and supporters, it might be possible for them to allow free agents to take some control.

The benefits of doing this are immense and free agents are a great resource, but Safe Harbor must be able to effectively engage supporters and address the issue of domestic violence through social media. Free agents would increase awareness, support, donations, and volunteers for Safe Harbor by utilizing their own social networks.

Safe Harbor was not afraid to follow a few free agents last year, just not online. The fashion show was created by free agents who came up with the idea of a charity fashion show in Greenville, SC to benefit Safe Harbor. The free agents took control of planning the event and organizing logistics. Safe Harbor benefitted from the money and support raised. The organization was not concerned with who came up with the idea or who should receive credit for it. They were simply excited about how beneficial the event was to their organization. By applying this attitude to Safe Harbor’s social media presence, the organization can move toward becoming a networked nonprofit.

For nonprofits, the time has come to embrace social media, or miss an opportunity for greater support for their organization and its cause.

(The information behind this post comes from Chapters 1 & 2 of The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine)