12 Copies of Twitterville To Giveaway To Nonprofits: Leave A Comment

Betsy Aoki

The other day, I received this Tweet from Betsy Aoki. 

Betsy has offered to cover the cost of three more books (plus postage) for me to purchase at the book launch party on August 23rd and get signed copies for the winners.   

Here's how to enter:

• Leave a comment on this post and tell me how you will use Twitter to support your organization's mission.  Or maybe you're a "free agent" - someone who isn't affiliated with an organization, but wants to use Twitter for fundraising.  

I'm also expecting that you might consider paying it forward after you've read the book.  Perhaps do a book giveaway to encourage donors to donate or give to nonprofits.

I asked Betsy, why are you doing this?  She told me that she was planning to get a copy of Shel Israel's book herself,  but had seen my Tweet leading to this post about the nonprofit book giveaway for Shel Israel's book called Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods. 

Betsy says, "One thing I have found really powerful in working with social media professionally is the power it has to mobilize people to help others.  Three copies of a book that the twitter community is likely to embrace (and maybe be motivated by, in order to help those less fortunate) seems cheap to me. I think doing this is much more fun than just buying a book I read myself."

So, leave a comment about comment about how you might use Twitter for good will fundraising for a chance to win Twitterville!

Update:  Shel Israel just added another three books so that makes six, plus the earlier three makes nine!

Update:  More book pledges

UnitedLinen (5 copies)
Walterakana (2 copes)

You have until Midnight Saturday to leave a comment

Comments

[Kristina Sepulveda]

I'm a few months out from launching my social media proposal for the youth development non-profit I currently work for. While I consider myself rather advanced in social media, I'd love to use it as additional source material.

-Kristina

[Sue Anne]

We are planning on using social media, and Twitter, to support our mission in three ways:

a) To encourage people to visit our web site and donate to help a child a crisis.
b) To spread news re: child advocacy, especially regarding mental health issues. To point them to ways that they can help influence decisions (petitions, contacting representatives, etc.)
c) To help recruit foster families for the children in California foster care.

- Sue Anne Reed
EMQ FamiliesFirst

[Lisa Colton]

We tweet to aggregate the best resources from the nonprofit technology community that applies to our constituency, and to turn people on to innovation in all its forms, technology related and otherwise. The fall is a big conference season for us, and I'll be at many national conferences. I'd love to read this book on the way, and then share it with others to help educate Jewish orgs on how to use Twitter best. Perhaps I'll ask the same question of our constituents and give it away (again) to a lucky respondent?!

[Mickey Gomez]

I run a small nonprofit volunteer center - a clearinghouse that connects community members to the needs of local nonprofit agencies. Our nonprofit is working hard to integrate Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Slide Share and other types of social media and information sharing into our organizational vision.

In using social media, I believe that we're reaching a more diverse audience, although we still have a long way to go. Twitter, in particular, has not only extended our reach into our local community but it has connected us with incredible resources across the country and around the world.

We have a small staff (2 FTE), and as the only full-time person I maintain our social media presence as much as I can. It would be wonderful to gain additional tips, insights, observations and suggestions for both enhancing our use of Twitter as well as for encouraging the other small and local nonprofits with whom we partner to "take the plunge."

Yours in service,
Mickey

[Katrina Crew]

At the British Red Cross, we've used Twitter to make our overseas work more relevant to people. Our staff work in situations where they're unlikely to have internet access, so getting information back from them in real time used to be nearly impossible. They will usually have a mobile signal, though, so they can text tweets in. For 7-10 days, we let one person take over the Twitter stream and tell the story about the work they do and the people they meet. I call these Twitter features, or 'tweatures', but my manager hates that word.

[Lindsay Reene]

At Alzheimer's Association - GA chapter, we use Twitter and Facebook to engage those interested in our cause by finding online ways they can help. For example, we are competing in the "Vote for your Favorite Charity" promotion here (http://www.fmbanknow.com/charity/), which allows them to use one click towards raising $5,000! We have also built a rivalry by posting our current standings on our Facebook page. A little healthy competition allowed us to get 700+ votes in 12 hours! We are now vying for first place!

We'd also be thrilled to feature it as an auction item in our
online auction coming up for the 10th Annual James A. Kaufmann Memorial. I am hoping to collaborate not only with donors but ALSO other nonprofits within our elderly healthcare sector, and this would be a great draw!

We love your blog here and circulate often. Thank you for teaching and mentoring via the web!

[Bobbie Lewis]

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to use Twitter. Most of our donors are older and not savvy about social media, but we need to reach out and cultivate younger people. Maybe this book will help!

[Robin Pratt]

We are a sate nonprofit association and are finding ways to encourage our members to jump into social media with both feet - exploring and sharing how we can all benefit from being more connected!

[John Haydon]

I'll be using Twitter to rally evangelists in support of a "top secret" http://12for12k.org November campaign. ;-)

[Susan]

I volunteer my services to a coalition of 11 non-profit Animal Shelters & Rescue Groups in our county; we're just getting each of them started on Twitter. I think (hope!) that Twitter will be wonderful way to communicate upcoming events, showcase adoptable animals, and raise awareness of each organization to the people and businesses in their communities.

[Bobbie Lewis]

We provide a wide variety of human services for children, families, seniors, refugees, people with disabilities, across a wide geographic area (Lower Michigan). Our communications staff is very small so it's a challenge to use all the communications tools available.

[Cathy Kujala]

At AIDS Walk Boston, we'll be encouraging participants to use their Twitter accounts as online fundraising tools by tweeting their personal fundraising page URL to their followers. We'll also be using it as a sounding board for questions, a place for conversations, and an easy way to keep updated on new blog posts.

[Stephanie Derrick]

I'm pioneering social media for my nonprofit employer Aiken Help Line 2-1-1. Guidance on getting the most out of what we put in would be great. Thanks for the giveaway!

[Jason Inman]

Hello,

I've helped to create, initiate, and mangage the current Social Media plan at Convoy of Hope a $35+ million organization that has helped more than 28,000,000 through clean water, agriculture, community outreach, disaster relief and development.

We started facebook and twitter on July 8, 2009 and you can check them out here: www.facebook.com/convoyofhope, www.twitter.com/convoyofhope.

We plan to use twitter to experiment, ask, listen, learn, tell, grow, friendraise, awarenessraise, and who knows maybe one day fundraise.

We need your book...immediately :)

Jason
@jasoninman

[Alex]

Hi,

I work with Katrina (above) for the British Red Cross. We also love to use Twitter as a listening tool. If someone is complaining about a fund raiser or saying how much fun a first aid course was, that information can be quickly and easily responded to.

We send out emails 3 times a week to staff giving them a summary of what people are saying about our work, we also tag everything in Delicious so we can monitor over time what people are talking about.

It's a new and exciting way for us to engage with the public!

[kellie]

I work for a healthcare non profit that raises money for children with speical needs and the underserved. Social Media and Twitter is new to our Foundation world. We have in a short time been able to connect with our donors in a way that has not been possable before. Many of our donors use mobile phones and blackberrys for isnsant information. I can reach them better this way than through mail or phone calls to the office. I am very excited about learning more effective ways to use this great tool.

[Jeff Stern]

Hi Beth,

This is great - I'm generally wary of the value of social media books, but Shel Israel is a great storyteller and trusted source of info. I was just talking yesterday with @10ch about how we could use twitter to give more value to members and enable them to form connections with each other as communities of interest. Our social media efforts are tracked at useum.tumblr.com

Jeff @jeffreymstern

[Marc Sirkin]

Hey Beth! During my short time at MSFT I got to know Betsy and spent sometime with her - she's terrific and I consider myself extremely lucky to know her.

Now that I'm "back" in non-profit land with Autism Speaks, I am ratcheting up how we'll use all things social media, Twitter included while it's in the limelight and growing.

That said, I tend to resist naming specific technologies as strategies, because they're not, they are tactics that need to be attached to a larger strategic imperative. That said, Twitter in particular, along with FB status updates and Fan pages represent solid relationship platforms and tactics in my the all consuming quest to build relationships and participate in a larger conversation.

Our currenbt use of Twitter (and Facebook status updates) is at best a "town crier" model right now - a rough way today to disseminate information quickly. But we're too reliant right now on that simple publishing model. What's next is a big step towards open dialogue that aims to get us the trust and cred we need to continue the organizations incredible growth.

As it specifically relates to good will fundraising, we're on the train to find new ways to build a movement and unleashing a wide variety of new media/social media fundraising tactics is sure to part of the plan! At best, we'll invent something new, but most likely, we'll rip, mix and mashup everyone else's experiments and see what works for us...

Marc

[Amy Yu and Christine Lin]

Hi Beth!

Thanks for posting this and for hosting the contest - the book is definitely a valuable asset for non-profits, and we really appreciate all your help.

One of our objectives at the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University is to increase awareness and provide culturally appropriate health information on chronic hepatitis B to the broader population. We’d like to integrate the creative social media ideas from the high school students of our last Youth Leadership Conference into our current traditional means of community outreach, as well as address some of the popular misconceptions about hepatitis B.

We've done some listening via Twitter to see what people are saying about hep B, and have found that what people talk about are their vaccinations and a lot of wrong information about hep B. Using platforms such as Twitter allows us to disseminate accurate health information on the virus that could potentially save lives, and lets us start dialogue so if people do have questions, we can help answer them.

Innovative Twitter interfaces such as Twitpic and the upcoming geo-location application could be revolutionary in the way we collect valuable data, such as who is getting vaccinated, where people are getting screened, what they are recommending friends to do, and how they are rallying around the virus. We were thinking of using Twitter to form a community / contest surrounding when people got vaccinated or screened.

At this juncture, we are very interested in moving forward with a social media strategy that can create more visibility to the prevention of hepatitis B, and are interested in any help we can get.

All the best,

Amy Yu and Christine Lin

[Gordon Steen]

When one of the causes that I follow on Facebook posts a fundraising event or volunteer activity, I post it on my twitter account. To really have an impact you have to re-tweet it often.

I invite my Facebook friends to join in as well. It is pretty time consuming considering the outcome may not count for much.

But I believe that Twitter and Facebook take some time to catch on as community building tools. I would guess that it will take at least another 5 years for nonprofits to recognize that direct mail is a waste of resources.

[Kelcy]

The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) provides local, regional and national nonprofits an opportunity to tap into the generosity of US government employees. I noticed that CFC has a Facebook page with just a few members along with some regional chapters with limited members. The main CFC campaign occurs in the fall each year. This year would be a perfect opportunity for CFC to set up a Twitter account and work with non-profits on their lists (must have a CFC number) to connect together to get the word out. While many government employees can't access Twitter or Facebook at work, they can access it in the evening. I have one friend who is an ALS advocate because of personal connections with the disease who is going to look at CFC donors and start encouraging government friends to sign up for specific donors. This could provide a rich way to link together the CFC organization, the non-profits on the CFC list, the advocates and stories of those who have been helped. This would help get the information and may ultimately form a new way of raising money (right now it works through a number of means but mostly payroll deduction). Worth thinking about adding this.

[Ivan Boothe]

Casino-Free Philadelphia's mission is to prevent casinos from being built in Philadelphia, which would come the largest city in the country to have casinos and would represent a predatory industry in the heart of two residential neighborhoods.

In Pennsylvania, the law authorizing slot-parlor casinos comes out of an unfortunate history of corruption and machine politics. The law was passed at 2AM on the Fourth of July, with no public scrutiny. Casinos and their politicians in Pennsylvania have relied on a lack of transparency to move forward. Casino-Free Philadelphia has been fighting this through a variety of means in the past few years. Twitter is one of the newest strategies, which we've been using to live-tweet from often inaccessible regulatory meetings.

Our larger strategy is building a sustainable, community-based effort at addressing economic concerns (a primary argument of casino backers is that it will earn the cash-strapped city money). Using Twitter, we've been building support through Philly Twitterers for community-based decision-making. We're part of a coalition of groups trying to prevent the closure of essential services (libraries, hospitals, fire houses, recreation centers, homeless services and more are all on the chopping block). Twitter has been one way to spread that message -- and solicit ideas -- from the active Philly Twitter community.

One of the biggest challenges in any social change movement is counteracting the idea that things won't ever change, and that poor outcomes are inevitable. Casino backers have regularly touted construction in Philly as a "done deal," yet we've managed to keep them out for more than three years now. Using Twitter, we're working to spread that message -- that people can win, and have been winning, and that we shouldn't accept exploitation of our communities as inevitable.

We operate on a shoestring budget and we're excited about the potential for community fundraising on Twitter. The largest amount of our funding by far comes from individual donations, and we're sure that within the vibrant Twitter community in Philly, we can start to build on the support we've been getting with donations.

[SerahRose Roth]

We've just launched GAN-e-meed Theatre Project which advances the role of women in theatre. We've been using twitter to get the inside scoop on other Boston area arts organizations and create pre-launch buzz about this very exciting project. It's working.

[Tonda Ames]

At the Oklahoma and Arkansas Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association we use Twitter to drive traffic back to our website about specific information. Then we view our web trends and we can determine what message was delivered tweeting on what day and how that relates to our website.