The Pepsi Refresh Contest is the boldest experiment
so far of the number of social good contests over the past three years that
have used crowdsourcing and social media to encourage innovative social
change ideas or to raise money for nonprofits or shine attention on
their do good work. For context, please see this guest post by Bonin Bough, The Global Director of Social Media for Pepsi, published earlier this month on my blog.
The tiny charity currently atop the rankings in one category of the contest accidentally got a little help from Pepsi itself.
Materials submitted by the Joyful Heart Foundation, a charity
started by Mariska Hargitay, one of the stars of “Law & Order:
Special Victims Unit,” to help victims of sexual assault, were updated by the staff at Pepsi after the submission deadline, which is against the contest rules.
That upset some of the contestants who wondered whether Pepsi
was doing favors for a celebrity. “I can’t edit my own submission, so
how did she do it?” said one contestant, who insisted on anonymity
because he did not want to jeopardize his chances of winning.
Pepsi has embraced a learning as you go approach when it comes to social media and the art of public learning. Mistakes and stumbles happen and as Chris Brogan recommends you need to apologize and learn. And now we have a real-life example with the Pepsi Refresh Contest making a mistake by not following its own rules, but moving swiftly to acknowledge it, fix it, and move on. This is what Clay Shirky calls failing informatively.
More importantly, we're living in an age of connectedness with all eyes watching. You can't get away with hiding mistakes anymore.
Level Playing Fields?
Ironically, this story broke right before I was going to hit the publish button on a guest post by Katherine Hutt who shared the details of their strategy for a small nonprofit, Generations of Hope, also competing for the $250,000 Pepsi prize, approximately 1/3 its operating budget in 2009.
At this point, they are at number 80 on the leaderboard, not bad for an
organization that had social media on its to do list for 2010. If they
don't win a dollar, at least the contest has helped inspire them to dip
their toes in the social media waters.
One interesting point about the design is that Pepsi has
attempted to level the playing field by offering different categories for
different prize levels so that individuals, nonprofits, and companies
can compete. There isn't a distinction by budget size, although for
the top category is says "for those that invest a lot of time." Does
this make for a level playing field? How does a smaller organization
quickly scale up its social media effort?
That's a question I tossed back in forth with my colleagues at Zoetica. Kami Huyse,
Zoetica's President, suggested that I invite Katherine Hutt to share
some thoughts on these questions and others. Katherine responded with her guest post.
This is why it is so important that Pepsi (and those competing) do so in a fair and honest manner. I know it is nearly impossible to regular human behavior. That's why design is so important or else these contests became a sham.
Can Solving Complex Social Problems Be Done By Popular Vote
I'm skeptical that "Vote for Me" contests are the best strategy for selecting the best solutions or ideas. I wonder if they get in the way of innovation. In an email exchange with Bonin Bough from Pepsi about the New York Times piece, I shared my view. He responded with, "We believe that the democratic process is better than us deciding on our own but only time will tell."
I asked him to elaborate further. "I feel this approach parallels what we are trying to do elsewhere (like on our Dewmocracy program) where we want to involve consumers in our brands and co-create with them, not shout at them."
I understand his perspective. This strategy is more appropriate for selling products, not social change. Let me say this. If brands want to be authentic in their social media for social good effort, they need a fusion approach that balances marketing with social change. I think there is a hybrid option for crowd sourcing - and that there is a need for expertise.
Do you think Pepsi handled its public mistake well? Do you think a contest should be designed in a way that accommodates a level playing field? Finally do you vote for me contests are the best way to identify innovation solutions?
This tweet from Patty Campbell caught my eye. After reading a list of corporate social media strategists and community mangers compiled by Jeremiah Owyang, she wondered if there was a nonprofit list?
Yes, there is! Over at the WeAreMedia Wiki, we have a "Expertise Map" where people self-selected to add their names and in a number of cases share their expertise by contributing to the wiki. This list is evolving and has grown overtime and is not curated. It includes a lot of consultants, bloggers, and service organizations.
I'd like to see a list of people who work as social media strategists as part of their job at a nonprofit or a community manager. I'd like to see the list organized by different segments. So, I've set up a google form on the WeAreMedia Wiki where you can add your name to the list and see the whole list.
I always start with an opportunity to learn a little bit about the audience. I started with a variation of of the human spectra gram, a technique I learned from colleague Allen Gunn from Aspiration. Colleague Kaliya Hamlin has this description. I do agree/disagree to statements like "Social media is a waste of time" or I do a spectra gram based on personal comfort level and whether or not they feel social media is valuable for their agency. I select what I do based on an online pre-survey.
For this group, I felt it was important to ask about personal comfort/experience and whether or not they felt social media had any value for their agency. We had an interesting discussion between those who had comfort and those who did not. Since the morning keynote was a session on nonprofit leadership by two of the co-authors of Working Across Generations, Frances Kunreuther and Helen Kim, while they were lined up, I did a quick poll by generation.
Not surprising, generations somewhat correlated with social media experience/comfort level with one exception. A veterans in the room were in the middle because "we have grandchildren who have helped us understand Facebook." We also had a conversation about - regardless of their personal comfort level, did they think social media was important for their agency to embrace. The group, for the most part, was curious.
Next I covered some points about how social media might be valuable to an agency whose mission is referral and discussing points of pain. For example, how many get excessive emails or phone calls requesting information and how could be reduced by adding a social channel? Next I covered some strategy points related to learning, capacity, and organizational culture.
Bryce Skofield presented a case study about how their agency was using social media. He shared some points about their internal use of social media - blogs - as a strategy to get people comfortable. He then talked about how they were using the various social media channels. He shared that they have decided to move forward with social strategy even though they also need a web site makeover - and that some of the listening on social channels will guide their redesign. He shared some great nuggets about easy starter points - for example adding their social media channel addresses to every print publication, business card, and web site.
Bryce shared a great analogy about the importance of a social media policy. "If you work for a YMCA, there might be a policy about not wearing your YMCA T-Shirt to local bar on a Saturday if you're going drinking off hours. There could potentially be a bad reflection back to the institution ... "
He shared some great wisdom about the agency's YouTube Channel. They have used the Flip Camera nonprofit pricing to purchase cameras for staff members, offered a little or not training, and encouraged them to make videos about the agency. In fact, they did a competition on staff on the lead up to the annual meeting. As part of his job, he's done staff training on video editing software for those that wanted it.
I launched a Facebook Fan Page for my blog over the summer shortly after Facebook announced vanity urls. I resisted it for a year because I was concerned about having yet another social media outpost to feed and tune. I wanted to avoid automated cross-posting of social content because I think it isn't very effective.
What is the way out of this problem? Limited time and resources for maintaining and creating content on one hand, and a desire to get started. The secret sauce: Very focused objectives for your Fan Page and a selective strategy.
My Fan Page objective is:
To create a listening post to understand the questions and concerns from nonprofits about implementing an effective Facebook presence.
To engage and discuss techniques and tips for using Facebook effectively for nonprofits.
The type of content I share that supports these objectives includes: the best links on strategy and tactics for Facebook, discussion questions, and responding to people's questions. Measuring this requires some surveys of fans as well as counting the number of insights gleaned from posts and discussions from Fans. I have not done this yet.
To refine a content strategy, I used the Fan Page insights metrics tool, particularly the stats on interactions and Fan Page growth. My experiments were quite granular: What gets more interactions - sharing video or photos or links? Does sharing link with a 2-sentence commentary work better than sharing with a question? How often do I need to post content to keep fans engaged and attract new fans?
The Facebook Insights tool lets you see trends Fan acquisition and subscription. Here are some metrics that I use to harvest insights on those questions.
Total Fans / Unsubscribers: Total number of fans over time, overlaid with the total number of fans who have chosen to hide your posts in their News Feed (unsubscribers).
New / Removed Fans: The number of people who have become a new fan of your Page or stopped being a fan of your Page.
Page Views: Total number of times a Page was viewed per day.
Media Consumption: Total photo views, audio plays, and video plays for the content you have uploaded to your Page.
Unsubscribes / Re-subscribes: The total number of times fans unsubscribed from your Page, and the total number of times fans re-subscribed to your Page.
Over the past few months, I've discovered the formula that works for my fan page. It would be interesting to compare across Fan Pages of other nonprofits - particularly the question of frequency of posting and Fan growth. The M&R social media benchmarks study is a good start, although the benchmarks are based on a small sample size.
Sysomos did a benchmarking study of all Fan Pages on Facebook that looked Fan Page "popularity" (number of fans) against content posting frequency. It found that frequency of content posting doesn't no correalate with popularity. I'd love to see a drill down of the M&R Benchmarks and Sysomos metrics for just the nonprofit Fan Pages (vetted to ensure they are nonprofits).
Right now it is limited to three different ways to analyze your Fan Page. You can what your fans are interested in based on what other Fan Pages they have joined. It also gives you a visual representation of geographic location of fans, but only US distribution.
Is this a meaningless set of data or useful? It might help you with:
Identifying cross-collaborations with other Fan Pages
Decide where to participate on other Fan Pages on Facebook to raise awareness of your Fan Page
Share links and content from these pages on your page
The service is basic and there will be more advanced features. What I'd like to see is a social network analysis of active fans and their relationships with others. This would be useful to help identify influencers.
How do you track and measure your Facebook Fan Page against your objectives?
How are you using metics and experiments to improve your Facebook Fan Page content strategy?
I've been running small experiments on the art of retweeting for a couple of weeks and it's time for a reflection.
My tweets usually fall into one of several types:
Retweets of others: Verbaitem sharing of someone's message that I feel is important for followers to know about.
Share Links w/Brief Comment: This comes from my daily scanning of resources about social media, nonprofits, and philanthropy and picking out five good links and passing them along with a 140 character annotation. These are a few gems that I've bookmarked on delicous and slightly different than those streamed on my blog. (And usually doesn't include the best Facebook links which are shared on my Facebook Fan Page)
Live Tweeting: If I am at a conference or meeting, I'm usually live blogging or tweeting. I like to live tweet because it forces a discipline of listening.
Crowdsourcing Questions: I use this when I'm developing training materials, particularly for case studies or sometimes for demos of Twitter as a crowdsourcing tools. Usually I ask a question, and try to get people to answer in another place like a google document or wiki.
Bytes of Wisdom or humor: I share some geek humor now and then. I also share some meta reflections or wisdom about what works or doesn't work in using social media for nonprofits.
I generally try to avoid public replies that don't provide context or may not be valuable for everyone. So, unless the reply can incorporate one of the above, I may do it privately if the person is following me.
Which of these do you think gets retweeted most often? After some rapid experimentation and testing different types of tweets and measuring results, for me -- wisdom/humor. It may be that those tweets are not as frequent. I think it also has to do with several factors - your content strategy - and also how you've built your network.
I was tweeting wisdom because Janet Fouts asked me to help with a project "Bite Sized Social Media for Nonprofits." (You can participate or help spread the word.) I shared the above Tweet about rapid prototyping. Why not participate and see if you get retweeted more often?
What's useful beyond the retweeting is that you tend to get back insights in the replies. For example, Katrin Verlcas replied with this insight. I asked her to elaborate and she shared this about SCRUM, a methodology for agile development in software. Ah Ha! Been looking for methodologies for agile prototyping for non-software development and this is something that can be informative for another project.
What are your different types of Tweets? What works or doesn't work in getting retweeted more often? How are you using a scrum approach to improving your social media use?
Credit: Awesome artwork by Faith Goble used from Flickr on a Creative Commons license.
When we started Zoetica, as its founders – Beth Kanter, Geoff Livingston, and Kami Huyse – we wanted it to be a different kind of company. Less of an agency and more of a change agent. As it says on our home page, we want to help mindful organizations affect social change – both charities and companies.
When considering a launch party for Zoetica at SxSW interactive, we
wanted it to be different from the party atmosphere that pervades the
culture of the conference. We also wanted to make it meaningful. How
better to do this than by highlighting a charity (501c3) that needs a
hand in launching its social media strategy, we reasoned? And what if
we brought some of the brightest minds in social media together,
including people like Robert Scoble and more, to look at the mission and goals of this charity and help us come up with some amazing ideas?
Even better…what if we all learned from the process?
So, that is what we are going to do. We are looking for a charity
that is hungry for help but short on dollars. We will provide a Gold
Pass to SxSW and you will be the guest of honor at our launch party and
will get, in essence, a free consulting session with Zoetica’s
founders. You will have to get yourself to Austin on March 13th and
find a place to stay. In return, you will walk away with a rich
education and a plan to get started.
We also realize that this is a fast turnaround, so we have made a very simple Google Form for you to fill out. The deadline is this Sunday February 28, 2010, 12 midnight PST.
We are looking for three things:
1. A description of your mission in less than 150 words
2. Your goals for social media in less than 150 words
3. Why you want to win this prize in less than 150 words
We will then ask for some contact info and for the URLs of all your
current social media properties (Twitter, Facebok, Blogs, etc.). We are
serious about keeping each section under 150 words. Forced brevity
distills thinking and allows us to see what really matters.
We will pick the winner based on who we would most like to work with
given the entries. We will make our selection no later than March 2,
midnight PST.
We wish you all good luck and hope that the process of describing your goals and mission will be useful no matter the outcome.
I've written a lot lately about contests (Chase Community Giving and Pepsi Refresh) here in the United States that are focused on "social media for social media." The core of the design is "popular vote" - the group whose idea gets the most people to vote for them wins. I've questioned whether or not this a good way to find the best solutions for complex social problems, although it can certainly add a halo effect and spread a brand's message. How can these goals be balanced?
I've just returned from a trip to India where there is a different approach to solving complex social problems using social media and the Internet. My new friend, Paritosh Sharma, pointed me to Ennovent, a for-profit company that promotes entrepreneurs who find solutions to help people at the Bottom of the Pyramid. He told me about their crowd sourcing for social good strategy to find an affordable, and clean energy solution for India's poor population.
While Ennovent, a social enterprise, is very different from a major consumer brand in the US, I think we can learn a lot about the design of the contest.
Let's unpack it:
(1) Use of Connectors: They are reaching out to "connectors," people who may know of people working on projects ("solvers") who might be eligible to submit a winning proposal. They are offering a small case incentive. This is a smart idea because it leverages a networked approach to finding potential applicants.
(2) Submission Process: They are looking for companies to submit a proposal that they could fund to scale in India up to $500,000. The submission form is simple.
(3) Vettingand Selection: Based on the submissions, Ennovent with local advisors will short-list ten projects to be presented to a panel of experts.
The decision process is a closed and judged by experts, but they are using social media and networked approach to identify solutions near and far.
What is the best way to integrate social media into challenges and contests to find solutions for social change?
To prepare for the panel, we decided to do a little crowdsourcing of our own by asking folks to submit examples of how they are using social media to deliver programs that have a real world impact. We're asking people to help us rate them so we can pick the best ones to share during our panel. The deadline is February 26th.
To review and rate the submissions or submit yours, see this post on Netsquared.
Social by Socialis a practical guide to using new technologies
to create social impact. It makes accessible the tools you need to
engage a community, offer services, scale up activities and sustain
projects. Whoever you are, it shows you how to take technology and turn
it into real world benefits. The authors include two dear friends and colleagues, David Wilcox and Amy Sample Ward.
I purchased a copy and read it when it first came out, but rather than write a review I wanted to do something special for the book. I brought to India to place it in the hands of Rufina Fernandez, CEO of Nasscom Foundation. I'm sure that after she is finished reading it, she will spread the ideas all over India. And, what's nice, is that it can be done inexpensively because the book is a free download!
I'm giving away a copy of "Inbound Marketing" by Brian Halligan (Author), Dharmesh Shah (Author), David Meerman Scott (Foreword). I discovered it because of a charity challenge they're running on Twitter to raise awareness of their book, plus raise some money to help Room To Read. I'm a fan of Room To Read, so I asked Dharmesh for a copy of the book to give away to nonprofits, and he agreed - so if you want a chance to win, leave a comment on how your nonprofit could benefit from in-bound marketing. And of course, if you want to help out Room to Read, send this tweet.
The definition of Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers. You can read a more detailed definition here. I heard about the challenge because Laura Fitton posted this tweet. I guess you could say it is an example of in-bound marketing.
Now, a few critical thoughts about their charity challenge. Here's how it is described:
The Inbound Marketing Challenge
The Challenge: Get as many people as possible to tweet a link to this article, especially the people in the list below by midnight (ET) on Sunday, February 21 2010.
The Cause: Room To Read a not-for-profit organization that transforms the lives of millions of children by focusing on literacy.
How It Works: We will donate $Z to Room To Read (up to a whopping $10,000) based on the following formula:
Z = (Number of people on list below that retweet) x $0.01 x (Total Retweets)
Example: Lets say 20 people on the list below retweet the
article (more on how to make this happen a little later). Then, each
retweet is worth $0.20 ($0.01 x 20). If the article gets 10,000
retweets, that’s $2,000. If all 50 people below retweet and we get
20,000 retweets, that’s 50 cents per tweet and 10,000 smackeroos for
Room To Read. Cool, right?
Here’s the diabolical part. My guess is many of you know a
few people on the list below. Enough to where you can tweet them, and
they’ll listen/respond. I even made it easy for you, just use the
convenient link next to each of their names. (Yes, I’m just a helpful
guy).
Do Your Part: Retweet this article and try to get as many
people on the list below to retweet it too. It takes just a minute for
you and them. The more that tweet, the more that hear about and the
donation amount goes up.
Before I launch into some of my criticism, I want to applaud Hubspot for experimenting with different ways to promote their book and help a charity. My criticism below is intended to help such efforts have more impact on the charities.
I've been reflecting on the importance of authenticity in CSR programs that my business partner at Zoetica Geoff Livingston wrote about the other day. I think cause-related marketing efforts could use a little bit more authenticity too or at least balance profit motives and altruism.
This charity challenge is more focused on getting the word out on the book than helping the charity. Why? I think they've set the bar too high for the number of re-tweets and influencer tweets and bar too low for what they'll donate to the charity. The should have donated something like $1 per retweet and put a ceiling on it.
There is also no psychological or emotional motivation to re-tweet. Plus, the influencer list is a not necessarily a list of Room To Read's influencers (and in fact, as of this writing, RoomToRead had not even tweeted about this challenge.) The influencer list is a list of influencers with reach who may be not the attention stream to look at all the replies where as RoomToRead influencers may have less reach, but more affinity with the charity.
The formula to trigger a donation is complicated. The amount donated per retweet is based on the number of influencers who retweet the message and the total amount donated is multiplied by the number of retweets. So, if 20 influencers tweet and there are 1000 re-tweets, they will donate $.20 cents per re-tweet or $200.
As of this writing they had 298 tweets and 11 people on the influencer list retweeted. (According to the TweetMeme Widget on the post - which could be underestimated) So, let's see - that's 298 x .11 cents = $32.78 donated to the charity. I guess if they sold one or two books, they're even.
What can we learn about the right formula from previous efforts?
Tweetsgiving which asked people to retweet a message of gratitude in a 48 hour period over Thanksgiving generated over 21,000 tweets. I know it is a different animal - a campaign implemented by a charity without a for-profit marketing motive lurking beneath.
The fundraising campaign added some extra buzz, a sponsor, Ice cream
maker Häagen-Dazs, willing to pay for any Twitter user who tweets out
the support for the cause. The sponsorship worked liked this:
Häagen-Dazs was offering to donate $1 per tweet for the first 500
people that tweet everyday with the hashtag #HelpHoneyBees. The money
was donated to UC Davis research project to further look into Colony
Collapse Disorder, as well as help fund the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee
Haven, which aims to teach people about how to create their own
honeybee farms.
I got some of the back story form Julio Vasconcellos, VP for Business Development, for the Experience Project which operates TwitCause. "I think the #HelpHoneyBees hashtag campaign was very effective and helped
raise $7k for the honey bee research as well as get Häagen-Dazs some
great exposure around the contributions they've been making to the
cause (and of course, to their brand)."
For those that want the numbers:
6,818 tweets sent out during the official week (several more before) by 3,294 unique Twitterers
Total followers reached was slightly over 5MM (these are non-unique
followers, basically a sum of all the followers of each of those
3kTwitterers)
Total Twitter impressions generated 12.4MM (here an "Twitter
impression" is anytime a follower is presented with a tweet - if I have
100 followers and tweet twice, that's 200 "Twitter impressions")
Häagen-Dazs donated $7,000 to UC Davis for research into colony collapse disorder which is afflicting honey bee populations
Here's a few tips that might be useful to companies that want to help nonprofits by small cause-marketing campaigns:
Don't set the bar too high in terms of what you'll donate per tweet. That's not being authentically generous. Rather, be generous and set a ceiling on the total amount to be donated.
Work with the charity/cause so you can leverage their most passionate supporters. It's not just people who are interested in your product, book, or service.
Incorporate some emotional or psychological message in your message spread.
Update: Wow, Dharmesh Shah knows how to listen and redesigned the challenge.
You can find my materials and slides on the workshop wiki - CSR and NGO workshops, but always like to do a reflective wrap up post. It always helps me improve practice.
Teaching in an international context
I love designing and delivering trainings on social media and the added challenge of working outside of the US. I've had the opportunity to present this workshop in Romania, UK, Cambodia, Australia, (for a mostly Eastern European audience) and all over the US for different types of nonprofits, different levels, and different perspectives (communications staff, program staff, social entrepreneurs, senior leadership,etc).
When teaching in different contexts, especially outside of the US, you need to make some adjustments to your content. I don't create from scratch, but rather re-frame it. Here are three techniques I use:
Connect with and research audience via social media
Before I get on the plane, I spend a few hours looking over my training materials with a "US Centric Lens." What does that mean? I look at my materials and ask whether or not I have used examples, data, or words/phrases/jokes/humor that are so American that they would not be understood outside of the US? For example, I include information about Forrester's Social TechnoGraphics profiles as part of the social media game which is based on US data. I was lucky enough to discover @gauravonomics work in translating these profiles to an audience in India. Using that information, I was able to customize
I try to keep my curriculum and materials a little fluid. I have a basic structure. I don't over prepare. When I get on site, I focus on listening and soaking up the culture and perspective. I try as much as possible to get into the participants' heads. I'll do the actual customizations when I arrive in country. Doesn't give me a lot free time to play tourist, but I'm there to work.
The last most important is improvisation. It requires listening, thinking on your feet, and being in the moment. I usually prepare a trainer's guide for myself and generally follow it, but also adjust on the spot. And, for discussions, if the truth be told, I jot down a outline while I'm in the room. It takes practice to do well, but I think it improves the learning experience for participants. I am also very transparent with the audience about the challenges of "lost in translation" and include discussion questions like 'How does this translate to an Indian context?"
I faced a major challenge during my time in India. The long plane ride had an effect on my hearing. My ears were clogged and as a result, I had major problems hearing anything with my right ear. Rather than hide, I just let people know. It worked.
Many of my presentations include some visual humor and funny stories. I like those the most, but often have to delete them when working outside the US. Here's where I rely on my host to tell whether or not what I think is funny is actually offensive or disrespectful. Like a stand up comedian, I left on two jokes to see how they played in India, framing it with "this concept might be too American - so if doesn't resonate - that's okay." I was surprised that a number of jokes actually did translate and I had the room laughing.
It's all about the framing ... "Gee I know this might possibly be inappropriate because I don't know your culture, but I don't mean to be disrespectful .. launch into joke."
A big question in this workshop was how can these programs incorporate social media effectively? The participants in this workshop had diverse audiences they were targeting, so it was a bit of challenge, although the social media game is flexible to accommodate these differences. I put together some American examples, including a couple that my Zoetica co-founder, Geoff Livingston, wrote about this week on Mashable. I shared them with the caveat "these examples are very "American" so let's try to translate what may work or not."
There was a very productive conversation. The big difference in India - is that CSR is not cause-marketing or geared towards sales. It is purely focused on social outcomes, although I did hear some business goals. For example, employee volunteer programs do have a business goal in that participants observed that having a robust program attracts talented employees.
Geoff Livingston wrote about authenticity in CSR programs. I really wish he had published this two weeks before my visit. He points that in America, "Ninety percent of companies cannot discern the difference between cause
marketing and corporate social responsibility. Altruism often fails or
is not thought out. In reality, most companies think, “Yeah, we’ll give
some money to charity,” and let their executives figure out which ones.
In the social media world, now they just outsource it to their
communities (in both good and bad ways)."
The Nasscom Foundation program is geared towards helping corporations understand how to invest in social outcomes and get a social return on investment. Geoff talks about three different approaches used in America (Mission, Problem, and Family). My sense is that most of the CSR practitioners in India use the problem approach.
I was very impressed with the way this group did the small group exercise in the social media game They were able to adapt it to their own programs. I was also impressed with the report out, not only were they brief and to the point, but they were able to clearly articulate social outcomes in the social media strategy.
NGOS in India
This workshop was for the NGO audience. I had the usual range of small, medium, and large organizations. Some organizations are based in India and some were part of worldwide networks. For example, Habitat for Humanity India and GuideStar India were participants. I also had a range of technology comfort and use levels both personal and organizational - this is actually a good thing because it creates an opportunity for peer learning.
Participants were hoping to use social media for a variety of objectives - including online advocacy, recruit volunteers, and fundraising. Many NGOs in India work in networks, so their social media audience was other NGOS. Other organizations, primarily those that worked in rural areas and the "Bottom of the Pyramid" talked about challenges of different local languages, access to the Internet (electricity for that matter) and technology. I encouraged this group to think about their social media use as a bridge and shared the story of Pratham Books and how Breakthrough, a human rights organization, is using the Extraordinaries application in a creative way.
For the report out, Rufina Fernandez, the CEO of Nasscom Foundation, suggested that they do their report as if they're making a pitch to CEO for funding. I played the part of the CEO and asked the hard questions. I had so much fun doing that ... All of the groups had terrific answers!
Network Weaving With Books and Twitter
I discovered a new form of network weaving: book giveaways. I'm closing the triangle between book winner and author via Twitter to facilitate learning after the workshop. As a blogger, I've been given copies of books to write reviews and have also purchased books myself. After I read the book, I like to give it away on my blog because I hate accumulating. Because I do so many face-to-face trainings, I've been incorporating a book giveaway in every workshop I do. I packed copies Chris Brogan's Trust Agents, Shel Israel's Twitterville, Janet Fouts Social Media Book, and Darren Barefoot's Friends With Benefits. I've encouraged each of the winners to Tweet to the authors.
Pallavi Koli, Catalysts for Social action, Friends with Benefits by Daren Barefoot Diana Peters, Habitat For Humanity India, Twitterville by Shel Israel
Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, Centre for Science, Development & Media Studies
Pranay Swarup, NASSCOM Foundation
Connecting With Local Trainers, Building Capacity
Whenever I teach workshops, I try to identify people in the community who have knowledge. After all, I'm a visitor and I leave. Communities need local expertise. I try to so hard to find and acknowledge those folks. They're so important.
In the picture above, you will see Pratap Ashutosh who is a talented techie and trainer and has been running hands-on social media clinics for Nasscom Foundation. I left behind my printed cards for the Social Media game. And, of course, created a wiki as a resource. There were several very knowledgeable people in each workshop, like @sbharatam and I acknowledged their expertise to the group. There is no such thing as one expert. You need a community.
I agree with David Wilcox, who introduced me to the social media game - I hope we see some Indian versions of the game.
Next Tiny Steps
The big challenge with training is putting what you learn into practice. That can be difficult with a one-day workshop. One of the technique I use is to ask people to write down on an index card one small step they will take following the workshop. I organize the list in clusters by similar action steps and include a link to a how-to resource. This creates learning clusters.
Evaluation
While I got great verbal feedback from participants, I always do a follow up survey to ask for constructive feedback. This is where the bulk of my learning takes place.
As I was getting ready to go back to the United States, Vicky Davis or CoolCatTeacher on Twitter let me know that she was headed for Mumbai to teach some workshops. I connected her to my friends at Nasscom Foundation. I can't wait to read about her experience and her suggestions for teaching in an international context.
On Thursday, I was honored to be part of a panel at NASSCOM CSR Track called "Reaching out to the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) Through Technology Services and Media." The moderator was the Seemantinee Khot, CEO, Suzlon Foundation. The other speakers Gaurav Mishra, CEO, 20:20 Social, Vijay Talwar, CEO, William J Clinton Organization.
The phrase "Bottom of the Pyramid" refers to the largest, but poorest segment of the population or the billions people living on less than $2 per day, as first defined in 1998 by Professors C.K. Prahalad and Stuart L. Hart and expanded on their books: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid and Capitalism at the Crossroads. The phrase “bottom of the pyramid” is used in particular by people developing new models of doing business that deliberately target that demographic, often using new technology.
Khot started the panel asking the audience to reflect on why companies were talking about the bottom of the pyramid and questioned whether technology services should come before basic needs and services. She questioned the
motive for targeting this 'bottom of the pyramid', asking whether this was just marketing. She emphasized that technology services for the bottom of the pyramid need to be designed with their needs in mind, and not to make presumptions.
Vijay Talwar defined the differences between and fine lines between cause marketing and corporate social responsibility programs based on his experience working at Nike. Guarav Mishra showed some examples of how mobile technologies were helping to deliver services to the bottom of the pyramid.
My main point about social media was that it can be used as a bridge between the top and the bottom of the pyramid. I suggested that social media tools can be valuable in connecting professionals working in a particular field or cluster of NGOS with one another. I shared the story of how Pratham Books used Twitter to help get children's books to children in rural India. I also shared a brief case study of Red Cross over the past five years of integrating social media.
A detailed description of the panel and discussion points can be found here by Ashutosh Desai
I've been a proud member of the Nonprofit Technology community since, yikes, 1993 and a part of NTEN/NTC community since the early days. This year's Nonprofit Technology Conference will be my 11th one.
If you are involved with the nonprofit technology field, then you probably already know about the NTC the most attend event for nonprofit techies. We get to see each other, present, go to parties, and even have pillow fights.
The NTC also provides scholarship assistance to those nonprofit techies whose organizations are facing budget hardships. What's amazing about it is that the scholarship fund is something that the community supports. The goal is to raise $10,000 to send 57 people to the conference. And, thanks to Convio, NTEN can more waive registration fees because Convio will match all gifts dollar for dollar up to
$10,000.
Every year, Holly Ross, the Executive Director, comes up with a creative idea to rally the community. So, in addition to Convio matching dollars, if you donate you get to nominate someone from the community to participate in a video version of the Muppets Movie they will create and share at the opening plenary.
Well, that alone was enough for me. Hmm... who would make a good Kermit?
Tonight I attended a tweet up at the NASSCOM India Leadership Conference with about 30-40 folks from business, social sector, and ngos. David Meerman Scott was the guest of honor. We had experienced Twitter users, including @netra who famously tweeted for 60 hours straight during the 26/11 Mumbai Terrorist attacks. And we also had participants who were brand new to Twitter. One person who said that he was so new to Twitter that he wasn't a baby, but an embryo.
This was an hour of high energy unstructured sharing and community building at its best. The stream is here and was delighted to see some friends from the US follow along.
The NASSCOM India Leadership Forum has multiple tracks based on theme. It also has a track that takes place in a large room with roundtables and a designated discussion topic and facilitator. These sessions are not for presentations, but for disscussion and sharing of ideas. I was asked to facilitate a session on the question, "Should CEOs and Executive Directors Use Social Media?"
In preparation for this session, I asked colleagues here in the US to share their collective wisdom so we could see the US perspective. In addition, during a roundtable on social media at the conference, I was fortunate to meet social media experts in India (@nirav@amnigos@pranavbhasin @paritoshsharmaand @avinashraghava ) who shared some examples.
In order for social media to have full impact, it needs to scale within an organization. Your organization's social media strategy should be not implemented by one lonely intern sitting in the corner of your communications and marketing department.
You may be wondering if that means that your executive director and CEO needs to write a blog or have their own Twitter account to share their wisdom. I think it depends.
There are definitely some benefits to having your executive director or CEO being present on social media channels. They can provide a human face to your organization's work, a unique viewpoint, and serve as a thought leader in your field. And if your organization finds itself in the middle of groundswell or if there is a major news event or a public relations crisis happens and it is being discussed on Twitter or other social media spaces, your CEO can join it without having to get up to speed.
But it is also important to understand that there are definitely challenges to be overcome as well. These includes investing the time to make it successful because a CEO presence on social media is nothing that should be "ghost" written. It has to be authentic, reflect the CEO's personality. There is also the issue of comfort - both with the technology and being transparent.
Here are some good examples of CEO and Executive Director use of social media in the US social sector:
Holly Ross is the executive director of NTEN, the nonprofit technology network in the US. She uses Twitter to share what's going on at NTEN, announce new initiatives, and have conversations with NTEN members. She often uses Twitter to get ideas and feedback on NTEN's various programs. Checking her Twitter stream and sharing some tweets probably takes her 15 to 20 minutes a day and is part of daily routine.
Holly also shares more of her in-depth thinking about the nonprofit technology field on NTEN's blog. It is not a "CEO" blog where she writes daily, but a blog that includes the voices of NTEN staff and members. This is a good option for CEO's who don't have the time or bandwidth to write a whole blog along, but still want to be present in the blogosphere.
Holly's Twitter account is her personal but it is clearly branded as NTEN. Even the user name, "ntenhross" incorporates her organization's brand. This is a good example of a "Blended profile."
Scott Harrison is the CEO of charity:water. charity:water has a huge Twitter following of over 1 million fans and supporters and has a great deal of expertise using social media to leverage fundraising and raise awareness of their work. The Twestival and Charity Water's house social network are stellar examples. As CEO of charity:water, Scott is often visiting charity:water projects all over the work. Through his twitter account, he is able to easily first-hand reports and photos of the organization's work. He is using Twitter for donor accountability. Scott uses his personal account to Tweet which is separate from the charity:water organizational account.
There are a couple of corporate Foundations where we have good examples of CEO's using social media effectively - in this case Twitter.
Steve Case is the co-founder of AOL and now Chairman of The Case Foundation and of Revolution (investor in Revolution Money, Exclusive Resorts, Miraval, Zipcar, Waterfront, etc). His Twitter stream is where he shares what he reading about philanthropy and technology but also his travels to different social sector and technology conferences. You can regularly see him discussing issues on Twitter with other thought leaders and journalists. His Twitter account is his personal account, but he identifies himself with his foundation and businesses.
Reeta Roy, president and CEO of the MasterCard Foundation, is sending tweets from her site visit to Uganda and Kenya. As background, the mandate of the $2 billion Foundation is to enable people living in poverty to improve their lives by expanding their access to microfinance and education. Reeta is currently in Uganda, where she’s learning first-hand about the Foundation’s partnerships and programs. While the account is the Foundation's branded Twitter account, she is using it for a project to report on their work in the field.
This is an example of a good idea of how to get your CEO started tweeting. Have them Tweet from the organizational branded account for a specific project. This will help learn the work flow, have more comfort, and see first hand if the social media presence provides a benefit for the organization's work.
At a roundtable, I had to chance to discuss this question with social media experts from India. They pointed out a couple of examples and I hope to learn more later today.
Anand Mahindra s the vice chairman and managing director, Mahindra Group, a large corporation in India. He tweets about many different things, from his company to his family and travels. He interacts with customers addressing their questions and complaints. Take a look at his Twitter stream and you will see personal insights, news about his companies, and insights about social media.
Mahesh Murthy is founder and CEO of Pinstorm, a digital marketing firm. He also writes a column for the Wall Street Journal. He uses Twitter to share information about company, connect with people, and to research for writing his blog posts or encourage conversations in the comments of his blog.
When Should Your CEO or Executive Director Just Say No To Social Media
Of course, using social media may not be for every CEO or Executive Director. If they can't sustain their presence on Twitter or blogging, they should stay away. This isn't to say that they can't have an assistant who might do some of the scanning and flag items to respond to, but if a CEO starts engaging with people on social media channels and then there is silence - that is not a good thing.
It is also important that CEOs and Executive don't just tweet or blog for the sake of doing it. They should must have someting to day that is of value or use it for relationship building. Finally, if the CEO cannot take public criticism or wants to have control over what followers or commenters say, then they shouldn't use it and delegate the role someone else in the company or organization.
Tips
1. Listen First: Before jumping in, it is useful to do some listening first. Are there other organizations or businesses in your sector where CEOs or Executive Directors are using social media. Find those and review how they are using it.
2. Safe Place to Practice: It is a good idea to do a little bit of coaching with your CEO or Executive Director to show them how Twitter works and to avoid too much "public learning." Some organizations use software like Yammer which is an internal Twitter to practice before setting up on Twitter.
3. Get Past Information Overload: It is important to let busy CEOs know that they don't have to be on Twitter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is also a good idea because the thought of opening up another communications channel might be overwhelming for a CEO is already concerned about email and information overload. Help them learn a quick and efficient way to use Twitter.
4. Pick a Small Project First: Before launching a CEO blog or CEO Twitter account, it might make sense for the CEO to start off using the organization's branded account or blog, particularly if they are not very comfortable with the tools or plan to devote a small amount of time.
5. Share Unique CEO/Executive Director Insights: CEOs have perspectives that others in the organization may not. Whether using Twitter or writing blog posts, they should share their thought leadership, know how, and vision with their fans and followers. A good way to do this is share what they are reading and learning.
6. Let Them Be Who They Are: CEOs and executive directors who are using social media, above, just need to be themselves and let their personality shine through.
Lighting of the lamp is a traditional way to begin a conference here in India.
I'm still very jet-lagged and adjusting to both the time zone and culture in Mumbai. I was lucky enough to have a front row seat in the reserved section with laptop and digital camera in hand to cover the opening ceremonies on Twitter.
Following the #nilf was an excellent way to gain a better of understanding of what was happening on the stage.
The opening session started with the lighting of a lamp and welcome from NASSCOM officials to the crowded ballroom fill with 1600 conference attendees from 27 countries, including a delegation from Pakistan. You could feel the energy in the room - a convergence of IT leadership from business, government, social innovation, and nonprofit sectors. In the US, many of IT conferences are often silos of these different audiences. Nasscom celebrates a wide open conversation and spreading thought leadership between the various sectors represented.
Chairman @nasscom Mr Bhasin welcomed and expanded on the theme of the conference. He sees many opportunities on the horizon. He asks questions about how IT can accomplish the following social impacts:
Can we deliver health care $10 per person?
Can we deliver job skills for $10 per skill?
Can we take our collective knowledge and use it to drive public services in many states to a new level of transparency?
Can we come up with creative models to build new industries to serve the world in a way that hasn't be done before?
The NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours recognizes excellence and encourages innovation in social development initiatives. It showcases projects that demonstrate best practices in technology in the area of social change. It not a PR gimmick, the idea is to inspire the use of ICT across sectors for authentic social change.
The judging criteria looks at both processes as well as results. On the process side, they look for projects that incorporate a systems based transfer of knowledge across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. They define social innovation as a product, process, or a technology - as well as a principle. The latter can be an idea, piece of legislation, a social movement, an intervention, or some combination. There are six different categories covering nonprofits, business, corporate social responsibility, e-governance, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and environmental project.
There was a large volume of applications. A short list of 18 nominees selected by a panel of highly respected
IT experts and leaders in the field who met via video conference. The awards has six categories:
1: Non-Profits 2: Business Innovation for Development 3: Corporate Social Responsibility 4: e-Governance 5: Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships 6: Environmental Project
The overall goal of the award is to inspire creativity and imagination to bring about social change for ICT in development.
I arrived in Mumbai on Monday morning in the very early morning hours (3:00 am) after a trip that lasted nearly 24 hours and hopped across 12 time zones.
I greeted at the airport with a sign that read "Nasscom Leadership India Forum - Miss Kanter." The driven took me to the Grand Hyatt Hotel saying that during the day the traffic is much different. The conference hotel one of the largest hotels in Mumbai with
many rooms and a large convention area.
After going through security to enter the hotel and registering, I got into my room and then I crashed.
Although my body still thinks it is the middle of the night, I got this morning to register before the opening session.
If there is one thing that is unverisal around the world - it's that Technology Conferences have schwag.
And the Nasscom India Leadership Forum is not different. Here's a quick look at the schwag I found inside my conference bag:
The conference bag is a beige canvas messenger bag with leather accents. The flap is imprinted with the conference name.
The bag was filled with brochures and other goodies from conference sponsors, including branded items like a pen, pad, T-shirt, and more.
It also included the NASSCOM official conference book that was a convenient weight and size to carry around for reference (6 x 9).
A really useful item I found tucked in my conference bag was the conference "Facebook," a booklet about the size of a business card that had photos, titles, and sessions for the speakers.
And of course my conference badge. The title I entered in the registration form was something like, "Blogger, Trainer, Consultant, CEO Zoetica, and Scholar" got translated into "Social Media Expert."
Well off to the opening session followed by the Social Innovation Honors which recognizes innovation in the use of information technology that brings about positive and sustainable social change.
HP is giving away laptop and printer bundles as part of its HP’s Create Change program which is an example of "embedded giving." That's a buzz word coined by Lucy Bernholz to describe the common practice of building a philanthropic gift into another, unrelated, financial transaction. Embedded giving is easy for individuals to do, and probably gives them an added psychological boost to know that spending money on purchasing something is not just an act of commerce, it's an act of generosity. There are also is also a downside.
The idea here is that if you purchase an HP product, they'll donate 4% to one of seven charities, including the Red Cross. The social strategy includes the widget above that can be customized to show the charity and be shared on different social networking sites or blogs. They have created many social sharing opportunities, for example:
Visit Create Change select a charity and share the widget with your network
Visit the You Tube channel and share a video on How you will Create Change in FY10
Here's my contest. Leave a comment sharing your "Theory of Change". The phrase "theory of change" is something that readers from the philanthropic and non-profit world know well. It refers to a fairly new way of evaluating the effectiveness of
projects by drawing out the underlying assumptions about how they lead
to social change.
The way you do it is to start with the intervention - in this case - social media - and trace it backwards to your proposed social outcome, behavior change, or action as a result of communication. Here's a terrific example from Wildlife Direct.
So, you want to win a HP Computer and printer bundle? Write a theory of change for your project or organization's theory of change. You don't have to be a nonprofit, you can be an individual trying to do go in the world. Be sure that you fill in your email address in the comments. State your organization. The winner will be selected by an esteemed panel of social media and social change experts.
I've been following the PepsiFresh contest since the launch in December, the largest social media for social good cause marketing effort put forth to date. I recently posted a guest post by Bonin Bough from Pepsi that gives the insider view. This is a big bold effort. I'm most curious to see how Pepsi will demonstrate leadership in social marketing and of course the longer term result - social impact.
Jeremiah Owyang has shared his initial analysis of Pepsi's Contest, summarizing the opportunity, risks, strengths, weaknesses, metrics, and impact.
Strengths:
Pepsi's campaign has a few advantages:
First Mover Advantage: Typically,
companies that try an innovative approach in marketing will benefit as
they garner automatic buzz from press, media, and analysts as they are
doing something new.
Deep pockets: Pepsi can reach elbow deep into pockets for a large marketing budget --and plenty of funding for agency partners to initiate.
Extended event lifespan: This
isn't just a superbowl event, those who win the funding through crowd
votes won't be announced till March 1st, nearly a month after the
superbowl, giving this campaign extended life.
Not just about Pepsi: Playing
to cause marketing, this engages passion from communities to improve
other people's lives, rather than shoving a pop singer's associative
branding in a broadcast 30 second spot.
Celebrity Interaction and Endorsements:
Pepsi has gleaned the support from NFL players, and made it a competition to see which cause will get the most votes, see NFL.com
Additioanily, they've gotten celebrities like Twitter-god Aplusk.
Weaknesses:
Yet Pepsi may have a few areas of opportunity that may hinder success.
Pepsi has yet to show the world they get social marketing. Their
recent entry into the space with the edgy --but sexist "Amp" iPhone
applications resulted in severe backlash, and is now a case study on
the infamous punk'd list.
Cultural mismatch. Secondly,
Pepsi's culture of mass marketing of a brand heavy CPG product will
need severe changes of internal culture to embrace social marketing
--where success lies in letting go of control.
Measuring Success
Measuring of this investment should be dependent on a few KPIs.
The
the overall brand mentions (weighted for positive sentiment over
negative) exceed that of total potential reach of an opportunity cost
of $20mm in superbowl TV ads? Opportunity should factor in mainstream
coverage as well as social into the formula.
Overall sentiment
in change towards Pepsi as a brand. A primary research study should be
fielded to ask something along the lines with "Did The Refresh
Everything effort increase your desire to buy Pepsi?" This should be
measured immediatly after superbowl, then after March 1st contest
announcements, then 1 year after the programs went into funding.
Overall
sentiment in social channels: Using brand monitoring software, a study
should be fielded to gauge the overall change in perception within the
social sphere, whee this effort was focused.
Advocacy Reach:
Overall spread of campaign through social channels beyond the branded
channels to gauge how far this campaign spread.
Intensity: During superbowl, how many people engage with refresh campaign, it's websites, online?
Overall
impact towards helping communities. What % of the projects that were
funded were successful, what impact did it have on the community? Did
it impact the brand of Pepsi?
The last point is critical, in my mind, for Pepsi to demonstrate that the projects did have a social change impact. Of course, we know in the social change sector that measuring impact and seeing tangible change takes time, a long time. While the SuperBowl Game will be over in a matter of hours and the contest will last all year, implementing the winner's project that are focused on social change will take time. It will be even longer before you see and measure social impact.
I was so happy that Jeremiah Owyang shared his research note taking technique. It is a good example of tracking in real-time - and something I've been doing for all my projects over the last five years. So, if you want to follow along on Jeremiah Owyang's scorecard - here it is.
Unfortunately, my plane ride to Mumbai is not equipped with wifi or live US sports - so will be missing it and check in on Twitter when I land.
Here's how they describe their mission and impact.
NASSCOM Foundation was set up to support the Indian IT industry’s role
in nation building and to promote the underprivileged to help them
become self-reliant and productive participants in the country’s
progress. NF's focus is on scaling up its NASSCOM Knowledge Network and
forging key partnerships. NF has launched BiG Tech a technology
philanthropy program with the objective to provide technology support
to non-profit and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
The conference, Indian Leadership Forum, is a three-day for the Indian IT industry, with a third day devoted to CSR and NGOS. This year they have a record registration of 1650 delegates from India and other countries from around the world.
I arrive in Mumbai very early in the morning on Monday before the conference gets underway on Tuesday. I hope to bring you live blog and tweet reports as I can - depending wifi and jet lag - during the conference's first day. You can follow along on the official conference blog or twitter account. The official conference tag is #NLIF and the conference will be covered by a cadre of influential technology bloggers:
On Wednesday, February 10, I will leading a discussion on "Should CEOs or Executive Director's Use Social Media?" In preparation for this talk, I asked my readers and twitter followers to answer that question and provide resources here. (Not too late to add some thoughts!). It will be interesting to compare the perspective from India.
Then onto teaching two workshops. I'll be adapting my Social Media Strategy workshop which has traveled to Romania, Australia, and Cambodia. Been researching and asking for referrals for NGO examples in India. The second workshop is for CSR practitioners -- and I will adapting the workshop I did for PopTech and for OSI. One lesson I've learned is prepare while on site -- this will be last stage of customization - because it is really hard to understand the culture and audience from this far away.
The last part of the trip will allow me to visit the Taj Mahal and hope to see the bears at WildlifeSOS before heading back.
I've using the social media game as a teaching method for nonprofits experience a strategy brainstorm that links to a communications objective or theory of change. It starts with audience identification, followed by selecting tools. My version of the game includes "life happens" cards where groups gain points if they solve certain problems like staff resistance or define metrics. I've played the game outside of the US - bringing it to Cambodia, UK, Australia, and Romania.
Maybe I'm jaded. But having been in the nonprofit technology since 1993, I've seen a predictable pattern of cycles with new tools and technology. It closely follows Gartner's Technology Hype Cycle
Technology Trigger
Inflated Expectations
Trough of Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Plateau of Productivity
With nonprofits, the Trough of Disillusionment comes when we start to understand the real challenges in implementing a new technology and stop looking at as a panacea that will solve all our problems. Or be bailout for our nonprofit.
The Haiti crisis demonstrated that text to give fundraising can be a powerful tool, particularly as an "early responder" fundraising technique in disaster. But will the dramatic text fundraising that we saw the Red Cross experience translate to every non-profit that wants to add it to their tool bag?
I like the way that Allison Fine reflected on this question last week. How does she feel about text to give? Trepidatious.
Geoff Livingston has written a good piece on Mashable that throws a little cold water SMS/Text To Give Campaigns by pointing out the challenges and limitations. The reality is that there are challenges - cost, vendors, and other limitations.
The technology isn't cheap to set up. In fact, according to the post it can be expensive, anywhere from $3,000-10,000. And, just like other technology tools, like online credit card transactions, nonprofits end up paying a transaction fee of 5-10% back to the vendor. So, deciding to incorporate a SMS campaign should include a traditional nonprofit technology ROI analysis that analyzes the benefits, value, and financial analysis. It may not make sense for your nonprofit to get mobile
The set up cost is out of reach for many
smaller/mid-sized nonprofits, and especially since the vendors require a minimum budget of $500,000 to have the right to purchase service. Geoff also points out that text donations are limited to small donations and organizations don't get the donor contact information, thus closing the door to ongoing engagement and relationship building not to mention potentially missing out on an important ROI - the lifetime value of a donor.
Geoff goes onto make a point that I find myself making over and over about the need to link the use of the tools to an overall communications and engagement strategy. He also encourages nonprofits to look at other ways to incorporate the use of mobile technology as part of a communications strategy or program delivery. (The place to look for lots of ideas and advice is MobileActive.
Allison Fine makes another good point: "It seems to me that relationship building
with a first engagement being a cell phone number is going to be
inherently difficult."
Geoff ends his piece with a point about looking at other options which may be the only choice for the smaller nonprofits. Recently, AppMakr rolled out its service that lets anyone create a iPhone app for less than $200. In fact, I created one for Beth's Blog! But be careful, I was asked a lot of questions about my blog's audience size and reach and only after looking over my stats (subscribers, page views, Twitter followers) was my app accepted.
For me, the most interesting piece is looking to the future. When will we see a Network for Good for text fundraising campaigns? What are some of the best practices for incorporating mobile into your communications and engagement tool box?
Last November, I had the pleasure of leading a workshop for a 100 Silicon Valley nonprofit organizations in hosted by Compasspoint and generously supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The workshop was filled within 24 hours and there was a waiting list. So, we scheduled an encore today for 65 people on the waiting list.
This workshop is mostly small group work and this time I experimented with smaller sized groups - 6 participants versus 8-10. It worked much better.
I tend to do a lot of "share pairs" where people get a chance to do a debrief with someone else in the room. It helps people process what they are learning. My biggest problem as a facilitator was transitioning from the share pair back to full group. I had been using chimes. But even with the loud noise they made, it did not get everyone's attention.
Nelson Layag, who designs and delivers a lot of nonprofit trainings as part of his job at Compasspoint, shared a secret killer tip with me. He suggested that you tell people at the beginning that if the group sees you raise your hand, to raise your hand. This sweeps through the room - and gets people attention. And it worked!
Another process piece that I experimented with to ask the group to do active listenings to the report outs from the game and identify good ideas they might adapt. This idea came from Shiree Teng who I will have the honor of working with on an extended group training.
The major content theme was not "How do we find the time?," but a more subtle variation. How do integrate social media into someone's job? How do we manage it?
Here are some ideas:
Interns: There are definitely pros and cons to using interns. The danger of course is to recruit an intern who is facile with the technology and simply dump the social media stuff on them. This is a bad idea. Jeremiah Owyang has some good suggestions on how to integrate the intern into the team so they understand the strategic big picture. Also the intern can help the strategy people understand the team. If you go the intern route, Kivi Leroux Miller has some tips for giving social media projects to interns . And, if you want steal a great job description for an intern and recruitment method, check this post out from the ACLU of Northern California.
Free Work: Seth Godin wrote a post a while back about the difference between using interns and "free workers" people who are unemployed or underemployed who want to build their resumes.
Empower Your Fans: You can grow your social media team without making a new hires. Andy Sernovitz tells you how.
Paid Staff: Not many nonprofits have a full-time staff person doing their social media. While I haven't seen any industry wide nonprofit studies, there is some data on social media staffing for Theatres and orchestras. For those organizations in a position to talent scout for social media expertise, here's some good advice from David Armano and what should go in a job description. What I see mostly is nonprofits looking at a particular job description and figuring out how to incorporate social media responsibilities into a job that includes other responsibilities.
What resources or tips do you have to getting the social media job in your nonprofit organization?
It's at times like these -- in the midst of an extended recession and the wake of the tragedy in Haiti -- that the role of funding arts in society may be called into question.
After all, funding for the arts (theater, dance, music, museums etc.) had already been in a long-term decline, as documented recently by the National Arts Index from Americans for the Arts. Many may be asking, therefore, “Why fund the arts?”
In order to answer to this critical question, nonprofit arts organizations have a special opportunity during the month of February to use social media as a way bring new visibility to their organizations' work by participating in the GreatNonprofits Arts Appreciation Campaign.
Launched February 1, the campaign is free to nonprofits, and encourages them to use social media in the form of email outreach, facebook and twitter as a way to recruit their volunteers, donors, board members, clients, and patrons to submit reviews of their work for the larger nonprofit world and the public to examine.
In case you are not yet familiar with GreatNonprofits (GNP), it operates like a Tripadvisor or Yelp for the nonprofit sector, whereby people who have had an experience with a nonprofit can share that experience with a larger community.
By publishing these reviews, GNP helps raise awareness about the importance of these groups, and showcases the many reasons to continue supporting their work. Nothing tells the story of the typical nonprofit better than the real stories of those involved in its work!
The way the campaign works is simple. Organizations with 10 or more positive reviews at the end of February will be recognized publicly both by GNP and by Guidestar, the premiere site for philanthropic research on the web.
Perhaps equally valuable, from the perspective of the nonprofits that participate, this campaign will allow nonprofits to take advantage of free, social media tools to collect tangible evidence of their organization’s value in a way that engages their community of supporters going forward.
Those of us active in the nonprofit arts community know that our organizations are a critical part of building the kind of society that can deal more effectively with intransigent problems like economic disparities, poverty and other social inequalities.
We know that promoting the arts in the long-term will strengthen society's ability to withstand business cycles and natural disasters in order to aspire to a better future for all.
Therefore, I urge you to participate in GNP's campaign, and help our valuable arts organizations regain the support they so badly need from their communities. Write a review of a nonprofit arts organization, or - if you’re a nonprofit – invite reviews from your supporters at GreatNonprofits.
As frequent readers of this blog know, many pitfalls of online contests have been discussed here. It’s an honor to have Beth ask me to guest post so I will do my best to live up to the quality readers are used to. With the launch of public voting on the Pepsi Refresh Project, now is a good time to discuss the efforts we’re taking to set the new standard for transparency in online contests.
For those who don’t know, the Pepsi Refresh Project is a new effort to empower individuals to make a positive impact on the world. We’ve pledged to award more than $20 million to support innovative ideas that move communities forward. Anyone can apply for a grant and the public decides who wins.
Each month, Pepsi will award grants up to $1.3 million to the winning ideas across six categories, including: Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education.
We collaborated with organizations that are dedicated to making a positive difference in the world to design and implement the Pepsi Refresh Project. Our partners include GOOD, a leading platform for thought and action revolving around pushing the world forward; Global Giving, an online marketplace that connects people who have community and world-changing ideas with people who can support them; and Do Something, the largest non-profit teen charity.
Global Giving will vet contest applications to ensure they meet the requirements — for example, grant proposals may not contain profanity or involve political advocacy for a particular party. Each month, we accept 1,000 submissions, and all of the ideas that comply with our Official Guidelines are then posted online for public vote. We’re doing our part to bring transparency to the process by featuring a monthly leaderboard showing which ideas are getting the most votes.
Pepsi has developed an Advisory Board of leaders of non-profit sectors with extensive experience in each of the six award categories. They’re CEOs, foundation presidents and some of the most innovative thinkers in social good, chosen for their proven track record and commitment to moving the world forward. They are not paid for their efforts and they will not have any influence on the balloting or awarding of grants.
We’ve also compiled a team of Ambassadors, who are emerging leaders in the six award categories. They range from start-up founders to activists to neighborhood advocates. They will work to involve the nonprofit community and cultivate creative and innovative ideas in their category. Ambassadors will identify trends in submissions and invite thought leaders in their field to champion promising and innovative project ideas.
So, what’s different about this contest than other online contests? First, never before has a trusted brand engaged in the work of doing social good with the level of resources behind the Pepsi Refresh Project. Pepsi is giving away an unprecedented $20 million in grants and inviting the public to rank the best ideas in an open vote. And the grants are available in a range of sizes, to foster ideas as small as a community garden and as large as groundbreaking medical research. The Pepsi Refresh Project stands apart from other programs in that it is open to a broad spectrum of ideas, and it will be a sustained year-long effort.
Our theory of social change is that new ideas are born from optimism, a curious mind and a creative spirit. We can make a difference by equipping people with the means to bring their ideas to life. And, we believe social media and digital engagement can fuel, extend and inform these efforts.
This focus on social engagement is driven from the highest points of the PepsiCo organization – and you can expect to see great things on this front from PepsiCo over the coming years. What is at the core of all of our efforts is how can we continue to help and support the space by being an organization that is open to exploring and working with all of the bright minds and emerging technologies that are driving social media forward.
Through the Pepsi Refresh Project, we’re helping to move people’s ideas from wishful thinking to reality. The results so far have exceeded our expectations. After just 72 hours, we quickly hit our 1,000 submission limit for the first month — including at least one submission from each state. We look forward to tracking the winning ideas and we can’t wait to see what people come up with next.
The lesson is: if you listen to what people have to say and give voice to their perspectives, you can inspire people and empower their ideas to refresh the world.
Perli Ni is the CEO of GreatNonprofits.
