Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Chicago Symphony Social Media Strategy: What happens when people outside your organization set up a presence on Facebook?

The prelude to this interview is a tale of networking weaving.   

A few months ago, I created a workshop called "Arts 2.0" which was a strategic social media for arts organizations workshop. (I'll be leading this workshop in Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance in about two weeks) As part of my research process (using social media, of course), I looked at what arts organizations were doing on social networking sites like Facebook.  I wanted to find an example of an official social networking presence, one clearly set up by the organization and one that was set up by the users.  Bingo .. I found the Chicago Symphony's Fan Page and the Charlie Vernon Fan Club group.

I was trying to make two points during the workshop

• The first step is to listen - and by listening I mean find out who is having a conversation about your organization or issue.  If you haven't done the listening, don't bother with a social networking strategy.
• The "loosing control" aspect of social media will happen no matter and you need to have the conversation internally to figure out how you will address it.

Not too long ago, I got an email from Marc van Bree, the PR coordinator from the CSO, who telling me about his new blog.  He also mentions that he saw my powerpoint and thanked me for using the CSO screenshot.  One thing lead to another and I directed him to the WeAreMedia project because the idea is that the conversation  can become more than a brainstorming session or list of resources.  Marc contributed some knowledge to the ROI section and also contributed some reflections about why he participated. (I really value that he took the time to engage in the conversation and the learning process ...)

And, I really wanted to do an interview with him to find out more about the CSO and Facebook.  Not just because of my own curiosity, but because I knew there might others there that could benefit from Marc's knowledge. 

Does this story illustrate the art of network weaving?   

1.)  Tell me about you and your job

I started my job at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra nearly three years ago, after an internship at a non-profit and a temporary stint at a PR agency dedicated to the arts. I didn’t have an extensive classical music background, but learned quickly and learned to love it even quicker. 

A day in the PR office of an orchestra is never the same; it goes beyond cranking out press releases and pitches. That’s what makes it fun. For example, when the orchestra returned to the airwaves, it was announced that there would be a large Web component to it. I got pulled in to help create weekly Web content for the broadcast, because of my interest in and knowledge of HTML programming and the Web.

That interest of programming started at an early age. When I was very young, I started programming BAT files and then moved on to “programming for kids” by Addo Stuur and when the World Wide Web entered the household I jumped to HTML. It never became more than an interest and I went on to study communications.

Now, I’m happy to combine the two: the Web and communication. Online communication is growing at an incredible rate and organizations cannot stay behind to shape their online image and story. I’m especially intrigued by the possibilities of combining old public relations principles, such as storytelling, and new media, including social networks such as Facebook.

2.)  You have a "personal professional" blog.  Why did you start your blog? 

I find it a good way to formulate my thoughts. Even though I sometimes look back and don’t necessarily agree with what I wrote anymore. I started in 2005 with installing PHP Nuke on my Web site, which combines several elements, such as forums, photos and articles. I was looking for jobs at that time, having just graduated, and I wanted to create some kind of portfolio. But I soon realized WordPress was the better option for what I wanted to create.

George Orwell wrote a piece once called “Why I write.” He lists four reasons: 1) sheer egoism 2) aesthetic enthusiasm 3) historical impulse 4) political purpose. After I hundred posts on my blog, I took these four reasons and turned them into a “Why I blog” article.

The sheer egoism could be translated into ambition and wanting to create a portfolio; the aesthetic enthusiasm is, as Orwell writes, a “desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed”; the historical impulse a “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity;” and the political purpose a “desire to push the world in a certain direction,” a springboard to formulate my ideas.

I think the first and last reasons are key in my reasoning; I wanted to create a portfolio of my thoughts, but I also wanted it to be a training ground for putting together my thoughts.

3.)   I understand your organization has a Facebook Fan Page - can you tell me a little about the strategy, and why you set it up?  You mentioned that you've been sharing information with fans, but you hope to be a little bit more interactive.  What are you plans for doing that?

We started the CSO Facebook page a couple of months ago. We launched the page with an incentive: a chance to win a free CD of one of our recent recordings. Otherwise, there was no active campaign besides me telling my friends to join and those friends telling their friends to join and so on. Within a week, we had over 1,000 fans. After this early explosive growth by word of mouth, the increase in fans flattened and now there is an average of about 20 fans joining per day. We get nearly 100 page views a day, but this visibly spikes if we send out an update through Facebook or post videos or photos.

As of now, we’ve mainly been sharing information; pushing out information. We posted our new music director announcement with an update, links and information. In addition, we’ve tried creating an event for a radio broadcast and one for a specific concert to see if people would RSVP. One example of a little more interactivity was a ticket giveaway where fans had to answer a trivia question about a certain piece of music and the answer could be found on our Web site (in this case beyondthescore.org).

In the future, rather than simply pushing out information, we would like to see the users take more action and ownership of the page. We’re looking at ways to accomplish this and ways to make it easy for fans to participate by lowering the entry barrier. One such example is fan photos. This does, however, get a little tricky for performing arts organizations. We don’t allow photography during concerts, so it would work against our own policy to feature fan photos taken during concerts (which, as you can imagine, would be the majority of fan entries).

4.)  What has been the key value to the CSO for setting up a Facebook page?

Over half our fans on the page are younger than 24 and over 85% of the fans are younger than 34. Compare that to the average age of classical music patrons, which usually runs toward the mid-fifties or even sixties. I suspect that this means we have a whole new group to communicate with, which is enormously exciting.

As we’ve had the CSO page for a fairly short time and we are figuring out how best to communicate and reach out, I believe up to this point the key value has been simply listening and participating. This should always be the first step in any new media endeavors: survey the environment and see what you can learn.

5.)  What have been some of the results so far? What have you learned?

As I mentioned earlier, there’s a tremendous amount of young people joining as fans, much younger than our typical audience. I’ve noticed many of these youngsters are music students and proudly so (there are many that have profile photos with their instruments). I’d like to see it as a small sign that classical music is still important in many households and a whole new generation of patrons is growing up.

The results so far have been learning what works and what doesn’t work in communicating. In the future, we need to formulate more concrete objectives. These may include raising awareness (of a season theme or a composer festival) or perhaps community activation and participation (does the community respond to a message or a call to action?)

6.)  I understand that there are several groups on Facebook that support the CSO - but are not the official site from your organization.  How do build relationships and work with these other sites?

The people who started those groups are obviously passionate about supporting the CSO. Reaching out to these people works very similar to reaching out to bloggers; know who is writing and what they are writing; participate; build relationships; and adapt materials. Right now, we’re just at the “read and participate” stage, but we’ll have to come up with ways to engage them and provide them with useful materials that could easily be integrated into their group (RSS feeds, videos etc.).

7.)  You mentioned that you've become the 'go to" person on CSO for social media/networking strategy.  Is it a formal part of your job? Have you encountered any resistance or do they feel it is important?
What convinced them?

It’s currently not explicitly a part of my job, although you could argue that it does fall under public relations. And I’m by no means an expert on the topic, but I am passionate about the possibilities. 

Fortunately, I have not encountered resistance. On the contrary, I have noticed much curiosity. But it goes hand in hand with a lack of understanding on what to do with the possibilities, because there are very little go-to resources. I’d like to think that’s where I can be helpful. I do find it difficult to explain the “whys” and “hows” because there is a lot of unqualified information out there, but blogs like yours and the We Are Media modules are extremely helpful for formulating the answers you need.

Once I delved into the ROI of new media (which doesn’t mean just ticket sales), I found it much easier to explain and justify the possible endeavors into new media. In the end, it’s all about results and return of investments. With orchestra budgets as tight as they are, you’d be foolish not to make that a priority. Keeping up with the Joneses is just not a valid justification.

8.)  Any advice you want to give other arts people wishing to explore social media? 

Just explore! Set up a Bloglines account, set up a Google Blog Alert, set up a del.icio.us account, set up a LinkedIn account, listen to Pandora and so on. It doesn’t take much to get a basic grasp of what social media entails. You don’t have to jump on every latest fad, but find out what’s useful for you and learn what works best with your needs and what fits into your lifestyle. Then, when you’re comfortable enough, try to participate and engage.

The same counts for an organization: survey the environment, determine what you are trying to accomplish and then find the right tools that work for you.

Meet Connie Bensen: Network Weaver and Online Community Strategist

Are "the best" or "most influential" lists of bloggers a good thing or a bad thing? I rather not have a list, but get to know them one-by-one - and these interviews are a way of doing that.

But in the last month, I've come across three "best of" type women blogger lists.

In a recent post on Blogher, Virginia DeBolt mentions the list titled 100 Awesome Webmaster Blogs by and for Women by Jimmy Atkinson.  She was on the list and checked it out, finding a wide range of excellent blogs written by women. (I was delighted to that Holly Ross from NTEN was included on the list)  She notes that this is the first extensive a list she has seen produced by a male writer. 

In the comments, Christine Martell (who writes an awesome blog called) mentions a list of women edtech bloggers put together by Janet Clarey.

This week NxE published its list of the Fifty Most Influential Female Bloggers.  BlogHer's leadership trio Lisa, Elisa, and Jory was in the number 1 spot.  This list has included other BlogHers such as Anne Zelenka and myself.  I was flabbergasted and happy, but as I looked over the list I noticed some of my favorites were not there.

I was tempted to put together my own list, but I've come to the conclusion that lists like this only end up being divisive and can get you into trouble.  Instead, I'm just continuing to do these one-on-one interviews with incredible women bloggers that people who work in nonprofits (and others) should definitely read.

So, let me introduce you to Connie Bensen who I first started reading when I was researching an article for TechSoup.


1.   Tell me a little bit about you.

I live in northern Minnesota with my husband. Our daughter will be a sophomore in college. I'm self-taught & love exploring new mediums. I worked in the public library system for ten years & loved that. After that the shift to building community online was a natural. I'm presently with the social media team at Network Solutions. I blog at Marketing 2.0 & am also the editor for Personal Branding Magazine.

2.   How did you get started with social media?

Through my hobby of digital scrapbooking. The community had a need & my sister & I found a product that fulfilled it. Our evangelistic efforts turned into a website. My experimentation with WOM & marketing within the Web 2.0 world was not only intriguing, but addictive! Last fall I began working online full time.


3.   What is the definition of a successful online community?  What metaphor would you use?


It's a place where like minded people gather and find value in exchanging information. It's like the general store of days gone by where the interaction is a personalized experience. Your suggestions & requests are listened to & responded to.


4.   Nonprofits are beginning to embrace social media - particularly the online community building aspect.   But, for example,  I've seen a lot of nonprofit Facebook pages that are facades without much activity.    What would be your advice to nonprofits who want to build lively online communities using social media tools?


1. Have a plan; 2. Know where your stakeholders are at & what is relevant for them; 3. Have people involved in building the community. For sustenance, what does the community provide that they need/want?


5.  What do you think the difference is between online community and network?  Is there a sweet spot in between?

Communities are centered around a common interest. A network are the people that you know & interact with. For example, my network would be all of the people that I know. That could be broken down into subsets of communities. Some people in my network would have overlap in my communities. For example, those in my network from the digiscrappers community are fairly separate (although a few read my personal blog & share my interest in social media tools - they're the early adopters). Now when my guest post ran on ProBlogger in that I've gained a new subset of readers that are interested in community building, branding & networking (but they're not digiscrappers, social media junkies or community managers).


6.   You are the queen of networking - I've learned so much from reading your blog.  What advice or tips would you offer to nonprofits so they could be efficient?

Networking takes time & a concerted effort. I agree that it's easy to get lost in it. Do your best to be helpful & it will fall into place. My best suggestion is to have a focus, start small (don't get overwhelmed) & build on it. After awhile there is a tipping point where it comes naturally then it's much more fun to enjoy the interactions & keep building on them.

7.   I understand you're offering a course.  Can you tell me a little about it?

I'm really excited about my course for community managers! There are so many people looking for information & it's all fragmented around the web. My background is in education & I love sharing my skills. The course will be personalized for each attendee in the first session. Then the remaining five sessions will be small group conference calls. And I've set up a discussions forums at communitystrategist.net to share ideas, suggestions, resources, etc.

Check out Laura's Notebook: Laura Whitehead's Blog

As part of some research for a screencast on Google Analytics for NTEN, I gave a shout out to folks asking for examples.  Laura Whitehead shared a fantastic case study!  So, I was even more delighted to discover her blog and I suspect she will continue to share her learnings about using Google Analytics and other nonprofit technology topics! 

Interview: Zen and the art of Nonprofit Technology

Michelle Murrain, Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Blog

Michelle and I are  graduates of Bennington College (so is Deborah Finn).  It is a very small liberal arts college in Vermont, where everyone knows everyone's name.  What's very funny is that we were in school during the same two-year period, but we never met!   That's because Michelle was in the Science Building on one end of campus, while I in the Music Building way on the other side.

Although Michelle has some deeply geeky skills, she writes from the perspective of a neo-luddite.   Her blog is filled with insightful pieces that cut through the hype of new technologies and often ask the hard probing questions that haven't been asked. 

Michelle most recently published a white paper in collaboration with NTEN called "Let's Talk: How Open APIs Can Change How Nonprofits Manage Data"  It is a topic of critical importance in the nonprofit tech space.  The paper is a must read.  She is also the coordinator for NOSI - Nonprofit Open Source Initiative.  You can learn more about her impressive accomplishments by reading the official CV/Bio at her web site.

I had a chance to reconnect again with Michelle when she signed up to volunteer for the NTC Day of Service.  Here's my interview:


1.  Like many of us out there, you work as an independent consultant - so you are paid for your expertise and knowledge.  Why the heck would you ever want to give it a way for free by volunteering?

I've been an educator for pretty much all of my adult life (even at Bennington, I was a tutor, and taught some classes in technology.) And so education comes naturally for me, so translating what I know in ways that other people can understand has always been important to me, and I've done it whether I've been paid to do it or not. I want people to understand things better, I want people to be able to approach technology with less fear and trepidation, with less intimidation.

When I first started out consulting, one of the first pieces of advice I got was that giving things away free is an avenue to getting business. I can't really quantify whether this has been the case for me - but between my natural inclinations, and that advice, I certainly got into the habit of doing it. At this point in my life, I'm not worrying about getting business so much - I'm thinking a lot more about a bigger picture of things, and assuming that it will all work out in the end.

That's the more spiritual approach to things - the calling is in relating to people, and in providing information to organizations that helps them accomplish their mission better.

2.  How do you see gift economies operating in the nonprofit open source community, the nonprofit blogosphere, and nonprofit tech community in general?  Is there a downside to gift economies?

I am a big believer in gift economies. I think that the nonprofit tech community in general operates a lot out of a gift economy model. Of course, open source is one big gift economy, although it certainly intersects with the "real" economy, and there are some interesting things that happen in those moments. I see a general desire to provide information and support for free - it's amazing how many responses people get on email lists to a specific problem that they are trying to solve.  People seem to be in this field because it matters in some way to them - to the world.

I don't see any downsides to gift economies, honestly. I wish the whole world worked that way. :-)

3.  Let's talk about your blog(s) - specifically Zen and Nptech which you launched a few months ago.  What value do you get from it?  What is most exciting to you personally and professionally as it relates to blogging?

What I get from it primarily is a venue to air my ideas about technology and human beings, as they form more and more in my mind. I guess I also get out of it feedback and push back on my ideas - which I'm always looking for. It's a good excuse to read lots of other people's blogs, and feed into the general nptech blogosphere, which is fun. It's really a soapbox, honestly. I don't expect to get any tangible benefit from it.  I just hope it's interesting and useful to people.

It's worth mentioning my main blog - which is called "Metacentricities."  Often, that blog is about personal issues (it was quite taken up with my moving experiences lately,) but I also use it to talk about more specifically spiritual issues. I spent half of 2005 and all of 2006 in seminary, in Berkeley, CA, and a lot of the issues that I was exploring during that time I have talked about on that blog.

4.  What is the gender balance/politics/issues/trends (if any) in the OS nptech community?

Aye, what a question. I don't know that the gender balance/politics/issues/trends of the nptech OS community is so different than the general OS community. There is a woeful dearth of women in both. It's funny, there is this very, very active conversation going on one of the mailling lists of the Linuxchix community about gender and open source communities. It's been an issue for years and years, and is why Linuxchix (a community dedicated to women in open source) exists.

I wrote a post about this on my blog once - it was asking the question of why, when you look at the nptech field, that as you get more and more geeky, there are fewer and fewer women. And still, OS is considered pretty geeky, and there are only a handful of women in OS nptech community. It's great that there is leadership in the nptech OS community that understands these issues - but it's going to take some active effort to address them.

5.  Do you think Open Source is like fair trade coffee?


I've been trying to make that argument for years - I wish I had thought of that idea of relating it to fair trade! It's a tough sell, though, this idea that how nonprofits solve technology issues is as important as solving the issues. I think it's like trying to sell the US government on the idea that war is not the way to peace. From my perspective - the means *are* the ends - and the ways we go about trying to work on changing the world is as important as the goal of changing the world - in fact, those ways end up directing the goals in more ways that we understand.

It's one of the reasons that I started my blog - I want people to think about technology in new ways, and think about the ways in which everything is connected. Does it make good sense, for instance, for unions to buy lots of new computers that were manufactured in non-union shops, even if it makes organizing easier? Does it make sense for environmental groups to upgrade their computers every 3 years and put the old ones in a landfill? Does it make sense for an organization dedicated to education to spend money buying software from a company that is dedicating itself to making it easier for all content to be controlled in a  way that makes it harder and more expensive to access?
These are the kinds of questions I want people to think about.

6.  Tell me about your work with NOSI?  What are some of your hopes/dreams/visions?

I'm the Coordinator of NOSI - the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative. NOSI is working to provide concrete resources for nonprofits to help them use open source software. We are also working to build partnerships and relationships between the nonprofit technology field and open source projects.

My hope is that NOSI will become an organization that can provide thought leadership for the nonprofit sector around open source software, provide training and resources to help nonprofits, and convene events and forge partnerships that help to increase and sustain the use of open source software in the nonprofit sector.

Ultimately, it would be my hope that open source software would become very mainstream in the sector- which it already is becoming for some kinds of situations (like content management, for example.)

7.  What else you doing you'd like to mention?

Well, I'm becoming more and more of a writer. On the technology side, I just finished, with NTEN, a paper on open APIs. I'd like to do a lot more like that  - it was a fun project, one that I hope will be helpful for people. But I do a lot of other writing. Some of it can be found on my main website and in my main blog

I also finished a science fiction novel last year that I hope to publish in one way or another this year.

8.   What are the 3-5 best blogs by women writing about nps, social change,
or nptech that you read regularly?

The Bamboo project blog
Jen Mei Wu's Dangerous Ideas
Marnie Webb's Ext.337

There are a bunch of women linux geek blogs I read, and a bunch of women religious blogs I read too.

Cross posted at Blogher

Meet Miles Maier: London Region ICT Champion

Flickr Photo courtesy of Miles Maier, London ICT Champion

I've had the pleasure of talking with Miles Maier face-to-face last month in Birmingham at the UK Circuit Riders conference hosted by LASA.  Currently, he's blogging about his Web Office experiment which is well worth following.  I'll get a chance to see Miles again at this year's NTC Conference and some lucky local nonprofit in DC will have Miles as a volunteer for the NTC Day of Service!

1.  Tell me a little about your background - I know you work for Lasa - can you tell how long, what you do on a daily basis.

I've been working in the non-profit sector for 5 years now and joined Lasa in June 2006, first on the consultancy side of the business by helping non-profits with their IT projects, and later as the wonderfully entitled London Regional ICT Champion.  This role is more about providing London's non-profit sector with a for ICT issues and getting policy-makers and funders to recognise that investing in the ICT of non-profit organisations can actually achieve lots of positives - transforming organisations to work smarter and better, better collaboration and information sharing, and so on.

Before making the jump to working for non-profit, I was on the other side of the fence, working for London's largest charitable funder, which had an annual budget of some $31m.  Being able to hand out grants and see how the money made a difference was satisfying but not always challenging, and on the whole I prefer life on the cutting edge of the non-profit sector, that's where the drive for social change is coming from.

2.  Let's talk about your blog - What value do you get from it? 

The blog is a pretty new thing to me and I get a tremendous amount of value out of the blog through connections I've made with other bloggers talking about the same things that interest me.  Probably the most satisfying thing has been to meet the authors behind the blogs - David Wilcox and Steve Bridger - and make a more personal connection there.  I'd like to blog a lot more, particularly about the potential of social media. 

3.  So, tell me about your Office 2.0 experiment? 

The two week long 'Great Web Office' experiment was inspired by IT Redux's Office 2.0 and the Dot Organize 'Organizer's Toolcrib', the idea being to find out just how easy or hard it would be to apply online tools to my everyday tasks - email, calendar, contacts, word processing, spreadsheets - that many other people in the non-profit sector also use to carry out everyday business tasks.

My own perception is that online tools have the potential to allow non-profit organisations to more easily exploit ICT (which many aren't doing) and better achieve their organisational goals. However, most of the UK voluntary sector (apart from larger organizations) are not grasping the opportunities of online tools to connect with their stakeholders.

For me, the key is going to be showing how online tools can be applied to everyday tasks, like the social media game developed by David Wilcox, which aims to show organisations how they might apply online tools or new media to their business. The question are web 2.0 tools suitable for business tasks like email, calendar, documents and spreadsheets?

Yes, I realise that many non-profit organisations face basic ICT barriers before they even get to thinking about applying online tools to their business, but it's in the nature of experimentation to show what can be done!  You can read about the 'web office 2.0' tools I used here


4.  Do you think Open Source is like fair trade coffee?

No.  You could argue there might be some overlapping values that FOSS and Fair Trade share, but otherwise they're not at all the same thing and the comparison doesn't work for me.


5.  As part of your work, you are assisting nonprofits with the use of technology on a daily basis.  I saw that you just signed up for the NTC Day of Service (bless you).  Why would you ever want to do this work as a volunteer?  Why do you think giving back or volunteering is important?

I'm now a trustee for a volunteer centre in East London and I think the short answer to this question is in Kevin Spacey's 'Pay it Forward' movie from 2000:

#1. It has to be something that really helps people.
#2. Something they can't do by themselves.
#3. I do it for them, they do it for three other people.

These are the rules when you pay it forward

6.  How do you see gift economies operating in the nonprofit open source community, the nonprofit blogosphere, and nonprofit tech community in general?  Is there a downside to gift economies?

Yes, I'm a big believer in the idea of being able to give and receive without necessarily monetizing it. It seems to work pretty well in the non-profit and open source context where the starting point is an expectation of sharing, collaboration and attribution. 

Personally, I expect to see gift economies really take off on the web, in non-profits and open source with the ability to remix knowledge, skills and experience into something different. It's already happening in the non-profit, blogging and open source communities, with Creative Commons and GPL open source software licences being examples of how the process can be operated fairly.

Gift economies can also help those without material wealth to trade for goods and services. By coincidence I've been reading Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes, which talks about the cultural clash encountered between Polynesian gift economies and western ideas of property and ownership as presented by the 'explorer' Captain Cook. Go read it!

My wife, Deepa, really got me started on the notion of gift economies within her online artistic community.  Here, collaboration, sharing, remixing, pass-it-forwards and random-acts-of kindness with others in the community are all very common as folks have no interest in buying or selling from each other.  Much more important is the spirit behind the gesture, that not everything given has to be for something in return.

7.  What are the 3-5 best blogs by UK folks writing about nps, social change, or nptech that you read regularly?

That would be: David Wilcox, Steve Bridger, Podnosh and Youthnet.

* Disclosure:  One of my contracts is with NTEN is to coordinate the Day of Service.  My contract does not include writing about the event or conducting interviews on my blog with event particpants.  I did this interview with Miles because he has some great insights to share!   Also,  we still have volunteer slots available for the NTC Day of Service and if you are attending the NTC and want to participate, please do sign up!

Angela Devlen: Emergency Management Professional and Blogger

Angela Devlen has worked as an emergency medical technician (EMT) along with years in the private sector doing business continuity (BCP/DRP).  She brings these two passions together in her current roles at Caritas Christi Health Care in Boston and the Business Continuity Planning Workgroup for Healthcare Organizations (BCPWHO).   She writes also for the Big Medicine web site.

1.  Tell me about you

I’m reminded of my first column for Big Medicine where I shared my response to the editor Hal Newman when he invited me to be a Big Med columnist. 

"...as a single mom of a five-year-old girl, working in emergency management in healthcare, with a background in private sector BCP/DRP...but started out as an EMT...not to mention my little side projects such as BCPWHO and gender issues in disasters [there is a feminist hiding not so deep inside me] and my passions for mountains, wine, cooking, gardening...well, one could argue I'm a little scatterbrained. I like to call it passion for life."

I am very fortunate.  I make my living by bringing my past experience and my life’s passions together.  My latest passion is a venture in which I am joined by a small group of fascinating women that I am very excited to work with.  We are working with international partners to address the consequences of disasters and violence on women and their families at the grassroots level-an issue that is near and dear to my heart.  Our website launch will be announced soon.  Until then, I can be contacted directly by anyone who is interested in learning more. 


2.    You've been in the emergency management field for 15 plus years.  How and why did you get started?

My dad is a firefighter.  It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I fully realized and appreciated what an impact he has had on not only who I am but also what I do for a living.  I was still in high school when I would borrow my dad’s first aid and emergency response manuals so I could read them.  By the time I was 16 I was certified as what was then called an Ambulance Attendant (later known as an Emergency Medical Technician) and worked for two ambulance services.   I was also involved with the Search and Rescue Team and was a Red Cross Disaster Action Team member. 

3.    So, tell me about your job, exactly?  What do you do?

I currently have the privilege of leading the emergency management program for Caritas Christi Health Care.  We have 6 hospitals in eastern Massachusetts.  I work with staff across all the hospital departments to improve our level of preparedness in the case of any type of event that results in an emergency affecting the hospital or the communities we serve.  This is done through lectures, disaster drills, collaborating with public health and public safety agencies, and documenting emergency management plans.  Some examples of the current projects we are working on include pandemic planning, weather related emergencies and hazardous materials events, including terrorist related events.


4.    How does being in emergency management as a profession influence your home/personal life?  Do you have cases of water in your basement?  What advice would you give to us to be prepared?

Being in this profession definitely influences my personal life.  I have also benefited from it although it is a combination of my profession and my personal interests.  For example, I have a backcountry stove, freeze dried food and a bunch of gear to keep us fed and warm if we lost power for an extended period of time.  Having enough water is essential.  The Red Cross and FEMA have a document that provides great information on what families need to be prepared.    If you want some creative ideas such as using your hot water tank in the event you don’t have cases of commercially bought water, this is the document for you. 

I would add that I recognize not everyone has the means to stockpile to prepare for a disaster, I recommend you establish a plan with your family and leverage what resources you do have.  I can’t stress enough how important being self-sufficient is to your safety.

5.    Should there ever be a disaster (god forbid), how could a blogging network like BlogHer be of assistance?

In 2005 I lost my home to a fire.  Since then I’ve viewed the aftermath of disasters differently.  While I appreciate and recognize the important work that is done in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, I have found most people don’t realize that the recovery period is the longest and most difficult.  It is then, when the media coverage has passed and interest has waned that the assistance is needed most.  I certainly would not discourage blogging network from assisting in some way in the immediate aftermath—that is when you’ll get people’s attention.  I would however, encourage any blogging networks to assist in such a way that it is sustainable and will extend into the recovery period. 

6.    I know you're a working parent, how do you balance demanding work like this with child rearing?

The best and worst thing about my work is it is a 24/7/365 type of job.  As a single mom I need to be creative.  First, my employer is amazing.  I have the support I need to juggle my role as a mom with a demanding meeting schedule, whether it is occasionally working from home, doing conference calls rather than face-to-face meetings or bringing my daughter to the office.  However, I recognize that privileges are granted based on performance.  If I need to be working at 11pm to meet deadlines because I went to work late so I could do something important with my daughter, I am happy to do so.  I have been given the tools I need to have that flexibility, so I don’t mind the odd hours.  I encourage all working parents to ask for the flexibility they need.  You won’t know until you ask.  However, the caveat is you need to earn that flexibility and honor whatever agreement you make with your employer.   

Jayne Cravens to Serve as Advisor to UN program in Afghanistan

A photo of meeting Jayne Cravens face-to-face after following her work for ten plus years online.

I've been a big fan of Jayne Craven's work at Coyote Communications since the mid-1990s.   That's when I was working with the New York Foundation for the Arts on its technology capacity building programs, including offline/online workshops for online skill building called SpiderSchool.  I finally got to meet Jayne about a year at the netsquared conference.

Just received word that Jayne is off to Afghanistan at the end of February 2007, to serve as Communication and Reporting Advisor for the United Nation's National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDP), part of UNDP.  (She worked in with UNDP's Volunteer Programme from 2001-2004 and is a subject matter in virtual volunteering, among other topics).   She notes in an email, "I'm very happy to return to my former employer, UNDP, but I'm ecstatic to have the opportunity to work in a country in which I have been interested since the 1990s. I'll be in Afghanistan through part of August."

She is hoping to make connections with organizations and individuals who are running programs based in Afghanistan.  You can follow her adventures in Afghanistan on her blog.

I'm really glad that she sent me this email because I had bookmarked one of her recent commentaries on nonprofits and online social networking.  I like Jayne's perspective because she has been on the web since 1993 (although I got started online in 1985 with BBS, followed by WELL, Echo, and MetaNet)

Her piece begins with a simple definition of online social networking tools and asks:  What's the appeal?

The appeal is mostly for young people -- these communities are easy ways for offline friends to "gather" online, and to meet new people, either for entirely online encounters or to meet eventually face-to-face. These communities also feel exclusive and special, something young people find particularly appealing.

She goes to ask whether or not online social networking should be of interest to nonprofits?   She suggests that if organizations are targeting young people, particularly teens and 20 somethings that platforms like Myspace can be a good tool.  She offers some strategies ideas, including asking current volunteers to put information about volunteer service into their profiles on OSN platforms in the employment sections.

If enough people start noting volunteer service in their profiles, these OSN platforms may start creating fields specifically for such. Having volunteers highlight their service in these profiles benefits your organization by giving your work exposure to potential new volunteers and donors, who will see the listing as they use the platforms to network with others.

She also observes that organizations cannot necessarily control how their organization is being portrayed or assocated in an individuals SNA profile.   She adds, "But the reality is that your volunteers may be engaging in offline activities your nonprofit wouldn't necessarily want to be associated with either (think about the t-shirts organizations hand out to volunteers -- such doesn't come with a list of where you should and shouldn't wear such)."

What Jayne is describing is an example of the change of thinking that is required in using Web2.0, social media, or social networking tools.  The idea that stakeholders can create their own experience with your organization.   She also recommends:

Nonprofits should also consider asking current volunteers what OSN platforms they use, and if these volunteers would be willing to:

• occasionally post new information about their service or new activities by the organization on their OSN profile or blog

   

• to post public events hosted by your organization under "Events I'm Attending" on MySpace and similar areas on other platforms

   

• be on the lookout in any OSN platform they use for someone commenting about your organization, positive or negative, and to let you know what's being said

   

• to have onsite trainings for staff on how OSN platforms work, and how they are using one or more to track and promote information about the organization

She also recommends that nonprofits should make it clear to volunteers, "that while it's fine for them to highlight their role as volunteers for your organization in their online conversations, that does not necessarily make them official representatives of such, and any comments or questions about your organization they see online, including on OSN platforms, should be brought to the attention of the organization's staff."

She isn't an advocate of online social networking for all nonprofits all the time.  She gives us a reality check:

Most nonprofits are struggling to keep just their simple web sites up-to-date and answering the many, many inquiries they already receive. These organizations don't have the time nor the staff to figure out how to use OSN platforms, nor which ones to use, and also don't have the staff or resources to keep their information up-to-date on these various locations as well their web sites. In addition, "traditional" online communities, whether on YahooGroups or via email, as well as the "old" WWW, are already connecting nonprofit professionals with many more people and organizations than they can keep up with. If a nonprofit has a web site, has an email newsletter, staff members who occasionally use online discussion groups, and volunteer recruitment posts to something like VolunteerMatch, I consider that nonprofit very techsavvy -- to be using podcasting and OSN as well takes an enormous amount of time and resources that the vast majority of nonprofits just don't have.

I agree with Jayne's points above, but I see it a little less black and white.  I think there are ways to design and deploy limited experiments or action learning around these tools - and take incremental steps towards adoption.   This can only happen, of course, with making available a small amount of time to experiment, figuring out how the experiment will help the organization reach particular outcomes, and keeping it very simple.   I also think this is where the role of technology stewarding comes in.

Jayne also shares some reflections about her use of online social networking tools:

As regular readers of my web site an the various online forums of which I am already a member, I am a huge fan of, and advocate for, networking with others online. So, do I use any OSN platform? I've joined an alumni association that has its home on Linked In, and have joined and posted a few things to Omidyar, but so far, rather than reaching potential clients and new resources, I'm reaching lots of people looking for employment. For me, simple theme-based online communities via YahooGroups or an email platform remain the easiest to use, the easiest to integrate already-published information on the web, and the best way to reach both colleagues, new resources and potential clients. I'm already on overload when it comes to email and online profiles -- unless more hours get added to the day and I also become agoraphobic, I'm at my online membership limit.

I can relate to some of the feelings of overload and I've noticed that I'm constantly challenged to change some of my workflow/system habits more frequently than in the past. 

An Interview with Lorene Straka, Joanna Eng, and Mari Velasco from the Idealist

An interview Mari Velasco, Lorene Staka, and Joanna Eng of the Idealist
Photos in flickr


The Idealist, a project of Action Without Borders,connects people, organizations, and resources to help build a better world.  If you want to get involved in social change issues or work with nonprofits anyplace on the globe, the Idealist is one of the first desinations on the web you should visit.   

The Idealist recently launched a new initiative, Can You Imagine a Better World? Next week, participants from all over the world are holding start-up meetings to imagine, connect, and act!

Action Without Borders is an 11 year-old nonprofit organization with an amazing history of accomplishment and growth.  I recently tracked down several women who work for the organization in their New York and Buenos Aires offices, including Lorene Straka, Joanna Eng, and Mari Velasco for an interview.

1. Lorena,  you've worked for the organization for almost 8 years, starting as an intern and moving to Chief of Staff position, what was your background prior to your internship?  Why did you decide to intern for the idealist?

8 years! Wow.  It all started with a subway ride...I met the founder, Ami Dar, on a subway two weeks after moving to New York in 1999.  During our commute uptown he very, very briefly told me about the Imagine project and I was intrigued.  As part of this bigger project, he was looking for an intern to research countries that didn't allow their citizens to create nonprofit organizations. 

When I joined, we were a staff of three, and we're now at 55 in two countries: the US and Argentina. It was, and continues to be, a great crew of people. 

2.  The Idealist.org has a long history of using the web for delivering it services/programs,  what do you think the opportunities are for the idealist to extend its impact embracing new web tools (e..g web2.0 Social media, etc.)

Lorene Straka:

We're about harnessing every resource and tool available to promote connections between people, ideas and resources and the more ways to do that, the better!  We're a small organization with limited resources, but we're creative, ambitious and are doing our best to keep up and capture the best of what's out there. 

Mari Velasco:

We have made some recent changes to expand our use of new web tools, but there's always more we could do!  We have started to make our presence known on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and we're encouraging people to use sites like Flickr and YouTube to share their photos and videos with the Idealist network. We'd still like to do more, though, to integrate these tools into the flow of our website.

We've also started using a wiki for a volunteer research project, and we'll probably expand our use of wikis in the future. The wiki model has great potential for us: since we are always looking to share resources through our website, why not make it easier for the public to contribute great ideas and resources they know about? The key with all of these new web tools is that they help us make our work more collaborative, help our network come alive!

3. Can you tell me some stories about how your organization has connected people, organizations, and resources to realize change? 

Mari Velasco:

I am originally from Ecuador and have two stories about connection.  I lived at the Galapagos islands for 2 years and last year a friend who runs an important NGO in the islands wrote me thanking me because through Idealist he managed to find 2 volunteers from Spain to work on a project about organic agriculture.  He said he felt it was going to be impossible trying to find people from a little island in the middle of the Pacific ocean and that he was thankful that there's a site like Idealist to connect people all over the world, and that it works!

The other story is from another friend who is the executive director of a great NGO (Fundacion Futuro del Ecuador) that works with indigenous communities living on the highlands, helping them have access to decent health care system.  They empower the communities so they can run the program themselves through "cooperativas" and she needed desperately the help of volunteers for a nutritional project to complement the health care program, and two argentinians from Patagonia traveled to Ecuador to give her a hand with the project and they have done amazing things and had a great life experience.  This happened from the connections they made on idealist.

4.   I understand that there will be over 200 start-up meetings in 53 countries  scheduled for the week of February 5-11.  What are are some of the common themes?

Most are about improving their communities and networking.  There are also meetings focused on youth, sexuality, volunteerism, and persons with disabilities.

5.  What else would you like to tell us about your organization or programs?

Come take advantage of this amazing oportunity to connect with people in their communities (and all over the world) to work together and improve the place where they live.  This is the best way to empower ourselves and to pass our enthusiasm to others.  The world can really be changed by the power of positive and active people working side by side with the same objective.

Confessions of a Non-Profit IT Director

That's Allan Benamer who writes the Non-Profit Tech Blog

My mental image of him for a very long time was the painting of St. Augustine on his blog that goes along with his tagline, "Confessions of a Non-Profit IT Director."  (Allan's blog isn't the only nonprofit technology blog to mix the themes of nonprofit technology and spirituality - take for example here and here.)

I especially get a kick out of his meebo (IM widget) "Confession Box."  Sometimes I pop out of my RSS reader to leave a drive-by IM message on his meebo client just to be annoying.   He's also on my "buddy list" for one of my too many IM clients (yet opportunity for distraction).  He uses a red haired avatar, so that has been my mental image of him.  That is, until he emailed the above photo to accompany this interview with him (see below).

While I don't always agree with Allan's opinions on everything he writes, I love his insightful analysis, sense of humor, and well researched articles.  His blog is a valuable source in the nonprofit technology blogosphere! 

1. Tell me a little about you:

I'm a Filipino American guy hailing out of New York, but originally from California. I've always wanted a nonprofit tech job and one of the first I had was as webmaster of the California Courts back in the mid 90s. I am currently the IT director for a medium-size non-profit with a budget hovering at $10 million dollars revenue a year.

2. Why do you blog?

The value of blogging for me was originally just to put my thoughts down somewhere and to not forget things. However, the value of networking and understanding what other people think about our sector and how tech works with it has become a much more valuable benefit.

3. Do you see blogging as a professional development opportunity?

Yes, but I hate to think of my blog as a professional development tool although I understand it can be one. It's not like I'm out there to make any money off this or to get job offers although that it happens. However, it is a little like a LinkedIn network but it works in a lot more subtle way. It's more personal than e-mail in many ways when someone takes the time to leave a comment for instance.

4. Do your work colleagues follow your blog?

My work colleagues don't really read blogs but they do get alerted if I write about something near and dear to their associates. I've gotten in "trouble" but all in all, we're fairly lenient in my org.

 

5. Does your organization have a blog?

Of course it would be. And we're going to implement something like that. I can already think of circumstances where it would have been tremendously useful if we had one.

 

6. How much time do you spend blogging?

I spend approximately 10 hours a week writing and researching for posts. I started to spend too much time browsing around for ideas and I found out that that was just a timewaster. I then encountered Marshall Kilpatrick's article about how he blogged and I went into that mode myself. I'm not in as much turbo mode as he was (after all I'm a part-time blogger). There are days when all I want to do is blog though and other days when I can't stand the sight of Wordpress' admin mode. So the work flow goes -- check for new comments, respond, check RSS feeds, decide whether to write about it, rinse cycle and repeat. I also like to play with stupid statistics crap. It's for stroking my ego and keeping me blogging. Quantcast, Google Analytics, HitTail are what I use but eventually I end up relying on server log stat software like AWStats.

 

7. What advice would you offer other folks who are staff at nonprofits and want to blog?

Don't ask for permission first, just do it. Then ask for permission once they find out. I know it sounds nuts but most people don't have blog policies and once you've demonstrated you're blogging a lot of people at your org will probably say, well, so and so wasn't totally irresponsible with his or her blog, maybe we should have one. And if you talk about things you know about because of the necessary work of entering the stream of conversation in your local blogosphere and things you write about on your blog all the better.

Beth's Note: I'm not sure, but I wonder if this is the blog post from Marshall Kirkpatrick that Allan refers to in the interview?

And, sometime I will even get the spelling of his name correct!!! :-)

Judi Sohn of the Colorectal Cancer Coalition: Blogging for Cancer Advocacy

Judi Sohn, Director of Operations and Communications, for the Colorectal Cancer Coalition.   

I had the pleasure of interviewing Judi Sohn for Blogher and have finally published it.   I really enjoy reading her personal blog, A View from Home and if you work with nonprofits and technology - you'll find it very valuable.

She made some really important observations about using a blog for professional development that resonated with me.

Like me she is a self-taught techie, "Everything I know now I taught myself by experimenting and learning from others online."

She uses her personal blog, A View From Home, to help her keep informed of technology.  "I’m a geek wannabe. I understand this stuff enough to be dangerously chatty at cocktail parties but I’m no programmer. I use my blog to help work things out for myself. If I have a “eureka” moment about something, I’ll blog it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to remember when something happened or what the circumstances were that led me to a given point, and I’ll search my own blog to get that reference. It’s always fun when I’m Googling for something and my own site pops up in the results."

Her advice for those that work for nonprofits and do not blog anonymously.

"Before I hit the “publish” button on any post, I always ask myself, 'if the New York Times linked to this would I be okay? Is this something I would be comfortable posting on a bulletin board?' Since I’m the type of person who likes expressing her opinion, the answer is usually “yes.”

Her personal blog drives traffic to her organization's web site.

"I will sometimes use my blog to help drive visitors to C3 in the first place since my site is more established and gets better search engine traffic. C3’s referrer logs show that this tactic is often successful."

Judi recommends the following nonprofit technology blogs:

Emily's World

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

Studio 501c


Here are a few nonprofit technology posts from Judi's blog

Nonprofit blogging: keep your eyes on the road

9Charities 

Nonprofit technology: The next frontier

Logic Puzzles and Democracy

Photo Credit Used with Permission from Flickr User c3colorectal

The second thing she did after hiring an attorney to get the organization's tax-exempt status was to hire a well-known cancer blogger for her organization.   "My only requirement to her was not to let more than 3 days go by without an entry. Some folks in the organization looked at me like I was nuts, but they trusted me and it was the best thing we could have done. Our website is a top search result for many keywords, all originating from Kate’s blog entries. Kate is also now our Director of Research Communication. She has an incredible ability to take the most complex science and turn it around into language anyone can understand. It’s a lot harder than it looks."

The organization also has an Advocacy blog. "We need to draw attention to colon cancer.  This only happens through patients and their famliies. So we are working hard to connect with as many people who are affected by colorectal cancer as we can.  A blog can do this."

Alison Lowndes: Helping to care for children in Kenya

I "met" Ali while lurking on the UK Riders list, a peer group of ICT circuit riders.  She caught my attention because she founded an organization that works with orphaned and disabled children in Kenya.  She also asked some really good questions about blogging for ngos on the listserv.      

Ali is the Founder of AVIF (ABLe Volunteers International Fund). In  2002, she established a 65-teacher international summer school in NE Asia.  She lived in China for 8 months with her 2 young children.  On returning to the UK in 2003 she spent some time working in internet security before deciding to go back to school.  She was studying Astrophysics but unfortunately, as a single parent, she found it difficult to continue with the financial burden.  Having friends in Kenya, she came up with the idea to provide summer schools in Kenya.  In March 2006 AVIF was born, the first volunteer placement ran over a 5 week period this summer.  (She chronicles the program's start up on her personal blog)

She shares why she started her NGO, "The economic situation is far worse in Kenya than China so volunteer teachers were the only option.   I decided to make AVIF a charity rather than a company as people are always more willing to offer time to a non-profit organisation. That said we are hoping to launch a trading company allowing all the orphanages and communities we reach in Kenya to sell their hand-made local crafts; bags, sandals, pumice, soapstone, plates, jewellery etc, to further their own futures. Trade not Aid !"

AVIF is a virtual organization that uses free and low-cost Internet technologies like VOIP to manage its programs and development work from the UK.  Notes Ali, "It is me in my living room and a friend named Sharn Argwings-Kodhek networking in Nairobi.  We access all orphanages via the internet. We have a substantial network of people we speak to by SKPE or SMS.  Kenya has