Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Organizations Can Use Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change

Happy Holidays!

I'd to wish everyone a happy holiday!  I'm off to explore the California Coast and stare at the ocean for a few days. Taking a break from the blog, Twitter, and Facebook!

Online Activism: The Movie - Ten Tactics for Info Activism

Activists around the world are using social media tools to make change.  A new 50- minute documentary  film called "10 Tactics for Turning Information into Action" is a guide to how best to use take advantage of the power of these tools and avoid hidden dangers.  The site and film include inspiring info-activism stories from around the world, a set of cards with tool tips and advice.  The project comes from Tactical Technology, inspired their info-activism camp in India.

The film is being shown in 35 countries, showcasing the experiences of 25 human rights advocates from around the globe who have masterfully incorporated tools like Twitter and Facebook to take on governments and corporations.   The film also covers the security and privacy issues faced by human rights activists.

The Ten Tactics

1. Mobilise People

2. Witness and Record

3. Visualise Your Message

4. Amplify Personal Stories

5. Just Add Humour

6. Investigate and Expose

7. How to Use Complex Data

8. Use Collective Intelligence
9. Let People Ask the Questions
10. Manage Your Contacts

It's great to see and hear some familiar voices, including Sam Gregory from Witness, Dina Mehta, and Marek Tuszynski.  Not to mention the excellent resource.  It's a must see, must read, must download.

Foot Traffic Philanthropy: Location Based Mobile Application - CauseWorld

Last month I made a prediction that we might see fundraisers with FourSquare or some other location-based mobile social network with gaming element.  Looks like my observation of  fundraising 2.0 trends of 2009  and  my 2010 predictions are right on.   Today, TechCrunch wrote about a new mobile application called CauseWorld

Here's how it works:

CauseWorld app users earn “karma points” when they walk into stores and check in with their cell phone. No purchase is required at any store, and karma points can be redeemed nine predefined good causes. Big brands like Kraft Foods and Citi (both are on board) then turn the karmas into real dollar donations to those causes. Food for poor families, water in Sudan, trees in the Amazon, etc. are examples of the causes.

Like foursquare and gowalla, you open the application on your phone and see local businesses (instead of showing everything around you, CauseWorld only shows businesses that you can check into for karmas). Enter the store, check in, and get the karma points offered to you. Once you’ve collected enough karmas you can donate them to a variety of causes. And, of course, you get badges for various activities.

The causes that are supported are listed here a good mix of wildlife conservation, hunger, and others.  This idea is really cool for a couple of reasons.  The user doesn't have to donate, but they're leveraging a corporate donation.   Sort of like embedded giving that Lucy Bernholz talks about, I think.    The application is well designed and is fun.  

It doesn't have a social element where you can see how many karma points your friends have within the app itself, although it uses Facebook Connect and you could opt to have your good deeds streamed on your wall. It might get more motivated if it had the leaderboard design that FourSquare has.

And it gets you way from your computer - you can get exercise!

And, of course, there is the trade-off - the fact that you're trading in your shopping habits data for corporate donors.  That doesn't bother me personally - it's for a good cause.   There is a scaling system for Karma points - for example supporting a classroom is five points while sending a book to a library in a developing country is 100.  It would be interesting to see the data on who saves up versus who gives away their Karma points and what the pay off is for the charity.  The number of karma points doesn't necessarily synch up with real world impact.

I just downloaded and got ten karma points and was able to support a classroom without doing anything - not even getting up from computer.   I'm off to do some last minute shopping and give it a test drive.

Update:  Some quick testing notes ..

• The design seems to encourage me to translate my Karma to donations every time I earn them.  This would take some real discipline to save enough Karma if I wanted to help some of the other groups.  Without a leaderboard, peer pressure, or something else in the game design - I'm tempted to donate as much as possible.

• When you donate, there are cute animations and graphics.  It reminds of a pinball machine when you score.   Anyway, it might be cool to be able to add on more information about the charity, more ways to engage and educate me.

• Once you visit a place, it gets checked out - so you're not being rewarded in Karma points for repeat visits.   Thus, I'm not building a habit of checking myself into the location.  I'm not sure why this is part of the design unless it has something to do with the design of research they're collecting about me.

All in all, this a lot of fun - and takes some of the ideas of an app like FourSquare to leverage corporate donations.   I wonder though, how much this could be designed to help the organizations build their network of supporters for longer relationships.

Deconstructing An Angry Crowd: What Can We Learn?

Should online contests be redesigned or just go away?  That's the question that Kari Dunn Saratovsky asks in a post over at the Case Foundation blog, one of many blog posts and tweets about the controversy surrounding how the Chase Bank handled its  online contest to give away $5 million dollars this holiday season.  The conversation provides a lot of good lessons for companies wanting to embrace selfish giving without cause washing.

The design is very important.  I think there are some good lessons and perhaps some best practices about how to manage an angry crowd before it escalates or goes viral.

Here's a summary and chronology of blog posts and Facebook and Twitter chatter.  I'm sure I've missed something.

11/16/09: Chase launched the online competition in November.   I blogged about it on November 16 as part of a trend of focusing online competitions on regional and local givings.  Many other nonprofit and do good bloggers helped promote the contest.   The press release from Chase describes the two-step process:

• In Round One of the Chase Community Giving program, Facebook users will vote for non-profit organizations they think should receive a portion of Chase's philanthropy funds. To reinforce the local focus of this program, 501( c)(3) non profits with an operating budget of $10 million or less will be eligible. Facebook users will be able to nominate non profits that serve the general public in the following areas: education, healthcare, housing, the environment, combating hunger, arts and culture, human services and animal welfare. The Chase Community Giving Advisory Board will review the top vote-getters to help ensure compliance with the program's rules. On December 15, the top 100 qualified vote-getters will be announced to receive $25,000 each, and will move on to the next round.

• In Round Two, the top 100 organizations will have the option to submit a Million Dollar Grant proposal to Facebook users, detailing the difference they would make in their local community with the significant extra resources. Facebook users will vote starting January 15, and on February 1, the qualified organization receiving the most votes will be announced as the winner of a Million Dollar Grant from Chase. The next five organizations with the most votes will receive $100,000 each. Additionally, the Advisory Board will donate $1 million to the nominated charities of its choice.

12/16:  Chase announces the top 100 winners on its Facebook Fan Page and in this press release

12/17: The Dark Side of Online Contests.  Kjerstin Erickson over at Skoll Foundation's Social Edge wrote an insightful post about the contest design, pointing out how not having a leaderboard was problem and the need to balance social good and marketing objectives.   Her post was summarized on the Chronicle of Philanthropy blog on that same day.

12/17:  SSDP and other groups were disqualified from the contest. If you look at the posts on the SSDP Facebook Fan Page, you'll how the open organizing took place.  They asked contest sponsors for an explanation.  Without a response, they escalated their organizing efforts reaching out on Facebook, the blogosphere, and main stream media.  They start organizing boycotts and asking their fans to post on the Chase Fan Page (which at that time was opened for comments)

12/19: NY Times, Stephanie Strom writes "Charities Criticize Online Fundraising Contest by Chase".   That I afternoon after reading the article, I wrote a post summarizing Stephanie's piece and adding my own two cents about the lack of transparency and contest design.  The post got retweeted over 160 times. Later that evening, Nathanial Whittemore over at Change.Org wrote a scathing open letter to Chase.  According to the metrics on the blog, the post got almost 7500 views and 114 retweets.

12/20:  I wrote a follow up post expanding on design lessons learned in light of other, larger, crowdsource charity contests coming up which was also retweeted 140 times.

12/21:   The Chronicle of Philanthropy continues its round up coverage.  Blog posts continue to summarize and dissect the controversy focusing on transparency, design, and social good.   

2009 The Year of Perpetual Online Contests: Case Foundation Blog.  Kari Dunn Saratovsky recaps the conversation and lets us know that the Case Foundation is planning host an online forum to make room for a discussion about online contest designs.   The conversation starter, "Do you think that a redesign of online contests could help salvage this concept of online citizen participation while maintaining some level of transparency?  Would you prefer these contests simply go away in 2010 – if so, what might replace them?"

Marsha Stepanek discusses the transparency (or lack of) and damage to the brand.   Scott Henderson points out the issue of control and crowds and John Haydon raises concerns about the Fan Page lock down.  Marc Pitman wonders what can be learned? Stephanie writes about the importance of contests for small nonprofits.  Some hashtags start appearing, including #chasefail and other hashtags.

Chase Facebook Fan Page removes fans comments on the wall and fan commenting ability.

12/22:  Disqualified groups continue to share their frustration about a lack of response on their blogs as well as Facebook Fan Pages.  SSDP sets up a protest site called "Chase Boycott"

We don't know where this will go next.   Maybe this will all fade away with the holiday upon us and all will be forgotten by the opening round for the top 100 organizations to compete for the six and seven figure grants in January.  Or maybe it will fester.  

Source: Slideshare Deck - The Bottom Line on Facebook and Twitter

It's unclear how much damage this has done to their brand, if at all - and if damage could have been reduced if they were more responsive earlier on.

If anything, it provides lots of learning which is the heart of success of social media and potential for constructive discussion and debate about social media, online giving, transparency, and more.  Should the folks at Chase wish to respond, they are more than welcomed to write a guest post on this blog.

Update:  Ami Dar makes a great point that we should acknowledge Chase for trying something new.  I agree, but I think they're missing a fantastic teachable moment about learning, experimentation, and a conversation about online contests, transparency, and reshaping philanthropy.

Happy 5th Birthday Global Voices!

Global Voices is a community of more than 200 bloggers around the world who work together to bring reports from blogs and citizen media around the world, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media. The founders are Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman.

It is five years old today!

I was not involved in the legendary gathering back in 2004 that lead to the creation of Global Voices Manifesto.   Rising Voices Director David Sasaki has written aretrospective to honor Global Voices' fifth birthday.  I joined the community several months after Global Voices got started after meeting Rebecca because of a strong interest in connecting with Cambodian bloggers.  And while I haven't been as active in recent years, the friendships and connections have endured.  

Rebecca MacKinnon has written a terrific reflection on the early years and what Global Voices has developed into five years later.  This piece is part of a series to support Global Voices Online Fundraising campaign - just sent a happy birthday gift.

Facebook and Google Donate To Charities In Lieu of Parties and Gifts

My twitter friend, Joey Leslie, and I traded some back and forth tweets about Chase Bank and Pepsi's Crowdsourcing for Social Good efforts.  Joey (I think) coined a new term, "cause washing."  His definition:

"Hiding a brand behind a cause for corporate benefit."

Joey pointed out that Facebook's donation to Donors Choose in lieu of holiday party and Google's $20 million donation to selected charities in lieu of holiday gifts to Adsense and Adwords products is not cause washing.

As a board member of Ushahidi and an advisor to Global Voices - very pleased to see them on the list of recipients which also included those listed below. (Since Google didn't include a link on the page, I've included a list with links below) I'm curious how they came up with the list - a small committee within Google or did they crowdsource names internally?

Feeding America
Boys and Girls Clubs
Smile Train
CARE, Mothers Matter
World Wildlife Fund, Natural Capital Project
Mobile Creches
Prajwala
HEAL Africa
African Institute for Mathematical Sciences
The Mango Tree
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Harlem Children's Zone
Save the Children, Latin America focus
Reporters Without Borders
Witness
Loud Against Nazis
Global Voices
Ushahidi
Save the Children, Middle East and Eurasia focus
Grupo Cultural Afro Reaggae
Ashesi University College, Ghana
Pratham
Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience
Shin Shin Educational Foundation
Tzu Chi Foundation

Reflections on Scholar 2.0

It seems like just yesterday when I started my nine-month journey as Visiting Scholar for Nonprofits and Social Media at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. And it's good to have a journal recording what I've learned. But it's even better for learning to have someone asked you some questions. Emily Culbertson from the Communications Network interviewed Stephanie McAuliffe and I for a blog post about my time at Packard Foundation titled "Learning the Ropes of Social Media"

What Lessons Will Pepsi Learn About Crowdsourcing for Social Good from Chase Bank Contest Fail?

Pepsi is taking a bold move.  It's not spending money on Super Bowl ads for Pepsi beverages. Instead, Pepsi is using the money for lethal generosity through its Pepsi Refresh Project, a crowdsourced cause marketing effort to give away $20 million in grants to help revamp communities.  

Rather than donating the money to nonprofits through a traditional corporate responsibility grant program, Pepsi will jump on the online contest bandwagon.  Pepsi will invite "applicants" to submit big ideas to change the world and then ask a crowd of Pepsi Fans to vote on them. Pepsi will have contests every month for 10 months beginning Jan. 13.   

According to a post in GigaOm, The Pepsi Refresh Project will award $5,000, $25,000, $50,000 and $250,000 to individuals and organizations that turn good ideas into projects that make a difference.  The grant categories will be:

• Health
• Arts & Culture
• Food & Shelter
• The Planet
• Neighborhoods
• Education

Right now you can give your email to Pepsi to be alerted about details.   I was relieved to see that they at least, presumably, respect our privacy and had this disclaimer:

Notice: Pepsi will send a one-time reminder about the Pepsi "Refresh Project" to the email address you provide. It will not be collected or used by Pepsi-Cola Company for any marketing purposes.

Let's hope they learn from the recent Chase Bank's Online Contest Fail, other studies on these crowdsourcing contests, and countless examples of crowding sourcing for social change.  I hope they avoid going to the dark side and waste money on projects and processes that don't have impact as well as many nonprofits' most valuable resource: their time.

The Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook is one of the biggest online contests before Pepsi announced their contest, open to more than  500,000 charities.  As of this writing, 1,027,398 people joined Chase’s fan page to cast votes for their favorite charities.   The top 100 "eligible" vote getters, announced a few days ago, received $25,000. They are going to participate in the next round, "The Big Idea" where the 100 charities share their big idea for changing the world and get votes.    The winner gets $1 million and five finalists will receive $100,000.

The top 100 included a mix of nonprofits with an operating budget of under $10 million with programs in designated Chase corporate responsibility areas: education, healthcare, housing, the environment, combating hunger, arts and culture, human services and animal welfare.  (Very interesting to see the American Cancer Society was on the list as its budget - according to a 2005 annual report linked on their Guidestar Profile is well over $10 million)

Several groups who were in the top 100 (before Chase removed the vote tallies on individual profiles), were not on the final list, apparently disqualified.  Here's what Stephanie Strom, New York Times reported:

JPMorgan Chase & Company is coming under fire for the way it conducted an online contest to award millions of dollars to 100 charities.

At least three nonprofit groups — Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the Marijuana Policy Project and an anti-abortion group, Justice for All— say they believe that Chase disqualified them over concerns about associating its name with their missions.

The groups say that until Chase made changes to the contest, they appeared to be among the top 100 vote-getters.

What can Pepsi learn so its contest can truly make a difference in local communities, help them sell more soda, and avoid having its brand get tarnished? 

1.  Open or Closed Set of Participants:  Contest sponsors need to decide ahead of time how open to be in terms of who can participate.  It's more than the basic eligibility requirements -- nonprofit versus individual or for-profit or particular interest areas or even the legal language.

With some contests, the contest sponsor vets a list of participants before letting the crowd vote.  This is how Target ran its contest and more recently PayPal's FruitCake Challenge.  This way, the contest sponsor's dollars are donated to a known set of organizations that have been selected based on corporate values, goals, or philanthropic strategy.  There's a cost here - the cost of not getting the absolute best idea because the person who thought it up wasn't eligible to participate.

But there are some things to think about with a completely open contest, one where anyone one submit an idea and the crowd votes on the best idea and the one with the most votes wins.  The sponsor needs to ask if they are truly committed to the idea that gets the most votes, no matter who suggests it?  

With the recent Chase Online Giving Contest, there were last stage disqualifications.  And although they had a disclaimer in the contest official rules "... or organizations otherwise not in alignment with Sponsor's corporate social responsibility guidelines.  Any organization determined to be ineligible at any time will be disqualified. Sponsor retains the right at its sole discretion to determine eligibility and reserves the right to disqualify any Charity for any reason whatsoever"   this disqualification made them, as Nathaniel Whittemore said, look like jerks - not to mention inspiring a chasesucks hashtag and causing some negative reactions.

2.  Leader board or Open Voting Records:   The big mistake that the Chase Online Giving Contest made was not providing a leader board, that tracked participants progress.  Leader boards and dynamic vote counts help make a contestant's job of getting out the vote easier.  With the Chase Bank Online Contest, the lack of a leader board created a lot of extra work for the nonprofits.  They had to spend time combing through pages of other organization's voting records.  Also, it doesn't make for a clear call to action message.

A leader board can also keeps the sponsor honest.

3.  The Role of Experts:   Pepsi has a list of some difficult social change problems to solve!  And it's great that they're going to use social media to crowdsource ideas and redirect their Super Bowl advertising budget to provide money for implementation.  Nonetheless, there is a role for subject matter experts and maybe even the people in the local communities who know the most about the problem and may be affected by the problem (and solution.) 

Some contests, for example the Knight News Challenge and Case Foundation Make It Your Own, have handled this need for expertise by having a two-tiered process.  The crowd identifies the top contenders, not the winners and a panel of experts selects the winners.    The Brooklyn Museum of Art's Click Exhibition used two crowds - a general crowd and a crowd of curators (Allison Fine and I profiled this project in the chapter on crowdsourcing in our forthcoming book, The Networked Nonprofit)

It appears that Pepsi is partnering with some folks who have some experience so this may not be a popularity contest.

4.  A Balance of Social Good and Marketing:   Is Pepsi really committed to solving social problems in its communities or does it think that redirecting its SuperBowl advertising budget and using social media to promote its generosity can sell more soda?   We know that corporate greed is being replaced by generosity and we know there is potential synergy between financial performance and attention to community and social needs.

I'd love to see a theory of change for this contest.  Perhaps it exists.   The above diagram describes the theory of change for Prizes from a recent report by McKinsey   I hope that Pepsi will be transparent in sharing that if it has one.

Do these contests really have impact?  Do they really help nonprofits or distract from their work?  Or is this just marketing?

Some responses: 

Charitable Contests Remash

Charities Cry Foul on Chase Facebook Charitable Giving Contest

The Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook is one of the biggest online contests thus far, open to more than  500,000 charities.  As of this writing, 1,027,398 people joined Chase’s fan page to cast votes for their favorite charities.   The top 100 "eligible" vote getters, announced a few days ago, received $25,000. They are going to participate in the next round, "The Big Idea" where the 100 charities share their big idea for changing the world and get votes.    The winner gets $1 million and five finalists will receive $100,000.

The top 100 included a mix of nonprofits with an operating budget of under $10 million with programs in designated Chase corporate responsibility areas: education, healthcare, housing, the environment, combating hunger, arts and culture, human services and animal welfare.  (Very interesting to see the American Cancer Society on the list as its budget - according to a 2005 annual report linked on their Guidestar Profile is well over $10 million)

Several groups who were in the top 100 (before Chase removed the vote tallies), were not on the final list, apparently disqualified.  Here's what Stephanie Strom, New York Times reported:

JPMorgan Chase & Company is coming under fire for the way it conducted an online contest to award millions of dollars to 100 charities.

At least three nonprofit groups — Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the Marijuana Policy Project and an anti-abortion group, Justice for All— say they believe that Chase disqualified them over concerns about associating its name with their missions.

The groups say that until Chase made changes to the contest, they appeared to be among the top 100 vote-getters.

There was not a public leader board that lists the progress of contest participants and is considered a best practice.  It's unclear why Chase did not use a leaderboard, a contest best practice and way to make it transparent.  Instead, contest participants had to log in and look at other organization's vote tallies.  These were removed in the final days of the contest.

If you look at the contest official rules, in addition to the eligibility criteria, they've added these additional points to control who gets the winning money:

... or organizations otherwise not in alignment with Sponsor's corporate social responsibility guidelines. Additional reasons a Charity may be deemed ineligible include, but are not limited to, the Charity and/or its management being subject to any investigation for fraud, financial misconduct or other criminal activity. Any organization determined to be ineligible at any time will be disqualified. Sponsor retains the right at its sole discretion to determine eligibility and reserves the right to disqualify any Charity for any reason whatsoever.

If they wanted to have some control over who received the money, why not just award the money through tradition methods?  Or only allow a pre-selected group of organizations to participate?

Since 2007, when the Case Foundation launched its first America's Giving Challenge, social media-infused online contests to raise money for charities have gained popularity.  There have been many remixes of online charity contests since the Giving Challenge, so many that I can't quite remember all of them.  These contests are based on:

• Voting:  Organizations need to rally their supporters and stakeholders to vote them online and spread the word
• Donors or Dollars:  Organizations need to raise money and the organization with the most donors or dollars win.

The pool of applicants is either open to everyone, tiered, or starts with a group of charities hand-selected by the contest sponsor.

• Closed Pool of Contestants:  The contest sponsor hand picks the charities.  This is how Target ran its contest and more recently PayPal's FruitCake Challenge.  This way, the contest sponsor's dollars are donated to a known set of organizations that have been vetted based on corporate values, goals, or philanthropic strategy.
  

• Open Pool of Contestants:   Some contests have the crowd vote or donate - and the ones with the most votes or donors win.

One thing is for sure, if you're designing a contest, you need to think about how transparent and open you want it to be.  Or else you, the sponsor, might as Nathaniel Whittemore says, look like a jerk.

Congrats to Book Winners - Twitter for Dummies, Web Analytics 2.0 and The New Community Rules

I'm pleased to announce the winners of the last couple of book giveaways.  In return for receiving the book, the winners have been offered an opportunity to write a guest post about what they learn so the wisdom can be shared.

If you were not one of the lucky winners, don't give up.  I have a stack of books that I'm hoping to give away in the coming weeks - all social media related.

I offered a copy of Twitter for Dummies in this post asking for examples of small nonprofit using social media.  It was one of my commented posts.   The lucky winner is Bridget Steele who works for the Learning Centers.

Earlier this year, our nonprofit ventured into the social media waters by starting a blog.  Outside of time, our small department launched the blog at virtually no cost. We checked out library books on building and maintaining a blog, taught ourselves some basic web design techniques – again from library books and online articles – and chose a free blog hosting service.

Our cause, providing free after-school training for children with dyslexia, encompasses centers spread across several states. The blog launch came in the midst of the economic crisis when these centers were facing unprecedented fundraising challenges. Our goal was to provide center staff and their volunteer boards with fundraising tips, inspiration and the opportunity to feel connected to headquarters and other volunteers. We got into a rhythm of doing three posts a week and have been posting faithfully since May.

We saw the real value of the blog when we began using it to provide information on a proposed name change for our charity. Through a rebranding study we had all but settled on a new name, but the negative feedback we received through the blog alerted us to regional problems with our choice that we never would have thought of ourselves. The issue sparked good dialogue among our volunteers, brought our highest readership numbers yet, and showed supporters that we were listening when we chose to rule out the name choice completely.

With our 100th post coming at the close of this year, our staff would agree that the blog has been a great success. We haven’t attempted Twitter yet, but if we win the book we might just give it a try!

The New Community Rules was reviewed in a guest post by Angus Parker of Wiser Earth. The lucky winner is Dawn Crawford.

My secret for rocking the social webs for the nonprofit I work for - Colorado Children's Immunization Coalition @ImmunizeCOKids - is real relationships. I cultivate real relationships with the people that follow/fan/subscribe us by interacting with them, asking them to post on behalf of our cause and keeping them informed on the latest news. It can seem overwhelming but it's critical for NGOs to build real connections. Our only commodity is people so we have to foster those people on the other end of the social media ID. 

I did a review and interview with Avinash Kaushik on his new book, Web Analytics 2.0.   The lucky winner is Ira Wise who is the Director of Education from Congregation B'nai Israel.

This book sounds fantastic. Our congregation is just beginning to dig in with analytics after seven years of flying by the seat of our pants. And now that we have two blogs (and hope to begin a "Social Sermon" in the spring, we are beginning to formulate a general strategy and policy for engaging our members, potential members and fellow travelers through social media. Hope to learn more from Avinash