NPTech Summary: Happy Holidays!

Ed Schipul, who grew a mustache for children with cancer last week, created a peavator

 

Things are slowing down during the holidays, so here's a short version of the NpTech Tag Summary.  We'll be back before 2008 with a roundup of 2007.

The PeaFund Friday Campaign

PeaFund Friday is an amazing example of the power of social media for social change.  It is authentic, it is caring, and it is beautiful. It all started when Susan Reynolds, a social media maven and artist, was diagnosed with breast cancer and started a blog to write about her experience and used twitter to fight her cancer.   Her friends through out the social web responded and put together the campaign: 

• Watch and listen to Connie Reece explain what this campaign is all about and why it is important to her.
• View the list of people who contributed their smarts, hearts, and souls to this campaign.
• See the flickr pool of pea avatar photos

What lessons can nonprofits take from this in using social media campaigns for social good?

YouTube Nonprofit Channels

Now, even the Queen of England of has her own The Royal Channel on YouTube.  (Commentary here)  Maybe that's why we've heard rumblings in the blogosphere and on listservs that the YouTube Nonprofit Channel was backlogged on accepting applications. 

But looks that they are catching up, check out Burleigh Mountain's Channel, for example. 

What are the benefits of a YouTube Nonprofit Channel?  What are the 5 things should get into place while you are waiting for your YouTube Nonprofit Channel to be approved? What are the best practices for using a YouTube Nonprofit Channel to promote your cause?   Leave a comment and I'll summarize in the next NpTech Summary.

In the meantime,  this post from Marc Sirkin sharing his YouTube Nonprofit Channel experience is worth reading as people contemplate a YouTube strategy.  Marc's findings: Traffic increase, little donation follow through.  You can find a collection how-to YouTube and Viral Video strategy resources here.

Twitter and Nonprofits

On January 8th, the next NetTuesday meetup will focus on Twitter and campaign organizing.  Details here.  Here's a few useful resources on Twitter and Nonprofits.   Here some thoughts from the NTEN blog about ways to use twitter for your organization, although some nonprofit technology experts do not find twitter useful professionally.   What's your take on Twitter for Nonprofits?  Useful for you personally or organizationally?  Not at all? 

Micro-Competitions for Nonprofits

I just noticed yet another competition from TechCrunch.  The 2007 Crunchies is its first annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.  There is a category for Changing the World.   The five top nominees are Causes, DonorsChoose, ZeroFootprint, Kiva, and OneLaptop Per Child.  Go vote here.

Do contests and competitions help build social capital and nonprofit fund raising or inspire burnout?   Do you think these are worthwhile pursuits for nonprofits?  That was a question posed on a listserv with little response except for this observation:

Micro-campaign 'competitions' are not going to last as an effective means of NPO fundraising. Here are at least five reasons why:

- They tend to be donor-driven; no one likes to be told to shuck and jive in public

- Their novelty quickly wears off; results are often invisible

- They tire networks; call it competition fatigue

- Their use as a recruitment tool will table; they'll reach a network threshold fairly quickly

- They favor established networks; the small efforts they actually target will wise up

Over at the NTEN blog, you can read reflections from nonprofits that are participating in America's Giving Challenge. 

The NpTech Tag started as an experimental community tagging project in 2005. A loosely coupled group of nonprofit techies and social change activists decided to use the tag "NpTech" to identify web resources that would create an ongoing stream of information to promote and educate those working in nonprofit technology. Many individuals tag hundreds of resources each week. Through TechSoup's Netsquared project, blogger Beth Kanter, was commissioned to write a weekly summary.

Comments

[Hans]

Thanks for the link - I've been off duty (is there such a thing :) over the holidays but will let you know how our youtubing works!

[David]

Hello,
This is David Neff over at the American Cancer Society. Thanks for helping us the spread the word about something that effects thousands of women every year. Breast Cancer is treatable when caught early.

Thanks,
David

P.S. If your coming to SXSW hear us talk Frozen Peas at our Interactive Panel.