The Cost of Free Technology for Nonprofits: Thoughts On Ning

Photo by Eurleif

I've been working in nonprofit technology since 1992. In those days, I was "circuit rider" where I traveled around New York State to work with very small local arts councils in rural areas. I was Jill of all trades, assisting with a wide range of technology needs, from training to installing local area networks.  (Yes, I used to crawl under desks and plug in wires.)

One of the projects I developed and implemented for NYFA in the late 1990s was called "KIT: Knowledge in Technology" where nonprofit arts organizations developed a strategic technology plan.   The first step was doing an assessment of existing hardware, software, and work processes.   I'd often walk into offices and see computers like those above on people's desks.  And even in those days, those computers were antiques.  But these donated computers were FREE!

Back then, my favorite question was: "What is the cost of a free computer?"  How much time are you wasting having to reboot and redo work because the computer crashed?  What's the cost of feeling so frustrated that want to bang cha cha on the keyboard?  What's the cost of being one click away from disaster?"

Almost twenty years later, with the price of computer hardware much lower,  we don't see ancient computers on nonprofit desktops quite as much.  But have seen grassroots groups and nonprofits turning to free, proprietary social media software services and getting burnt when the software company has to start charging or even worse goes out of business.

Last week, Ning, announced a complete end to free services for its users.   This includes many, many schools, community groups, and grassroots nonprofits that embraced the free service since it opened its doors in 2007 and will now be forced to pay, or relocate their communities, or say farewell.  We've been seeing the end of the era of free social media applications over the past few months.  Last November, Causes, a popular and free social networking fundraising application, ditched its Myspace widgets and Ideablob closed its doors.

So, if era of free 2.0 is coming to a close, should nonprofits start to think about the cost of free and take a different approach?  

In a post by TechCrunch, those who pay for premium services will be paying more, and those who are getting their social networks free of charge will be asked to pay or move their communities off the platform.  

Manny Hernandez, author of Ning for Dummies, nonprofit social media consultant, and organizer of two of the most successful nonprofit communities (Tudiabetes and Estudiabetes) on Ning, offered his two cents to the new CEO of Ning. He is concerned about the small nonprofits and grassroots groups that will not be able to stick with Ning because of cost.  Many of these groups are trying to make the world a better a place. 

He suggests that Ning rethink this decision and offer a special nonprofit donation program.

Ning has a fiduciary obligation to make the company profitable for the shareholders and you want to make sure the 98 employees remaining on staff can continue to keep their jobs for a long time. But I urge you to consider the impact your decision will have on the nonprofit space and ask you explore options comparable to initiatives like Google Grants, YouTube’s Nonprofit Program and the Salesforce Foundation so that the nonprofit groups that have been increasingly adopting Ning (while possibly buried in the long tail) will not be left to fend for themselves.

Start a Petition »

His post sparked a community plea to Ning to keep its service free for grassroots nonprofits and community groups and Amy Sample Ward also wrote about it.  Amy's concern is also for the many grassroots activists, community groups, and small nonprofits that can't afford to pay a fee and thus will be denied access.  There are over 500 signatures on a change.org petition to Ning requesting that they keep the service free for schools and nonprofits.

A recent article on Mashable, Ning: Failures, Lessons, and Six Alternatives takes a harsher view about the end of free, saying the free lunch is over and we need to start getting used to paying:

And just as we’ve grown used to paying for music through apps such as iTunes and getting cheap access to films online through Netflix, it’s about time we suck it up as consumers and start paying for the bandwidth we use, from web hosting to online storage to site creation and maintenance. As we all know, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

The article goes on to challenge online community builders to think about a community sustainability plan.

If you’re the creator of a social network, you should probably be passionate about the hobby, interest, community or business you decided to build a network around. And you should be attracting and enlisting equally passionate users as part of your community management plan. If you and your community can’t find a way to pay a modest monthly fee for the goods and services you use in your network, you might have one of two problems: You’re not passionate enough to moderate a community on your topic, or your topic isn’t inspiring your network to keep it afloat.

What does this mean for nonprofits?    For one thing, they have to be aware of the cost of free, especially with software that supports their vital relationships with donors and supporters.   In other words, don't put all your online relationships and donors in one free software basket and consider the alternatives before you adopt free technology.

Amy Sample Ward offers some good strategic advice to nonprofits:

• Evaluate your use of social media tools: do you encourage your supporters on other platforms to register on your website, ensuring you have their contact details?
• Evaluate your community: are you reaching a diverse community or operating in a silo?
• Evaluate your relationship with developers: are you using tools that allow you to surface suggestions, ideas, and useful functionality for development? Do you know what the plans are for the tools you are using?

Amy also talks about the potential for nonprofits to build a better marketplace:

It isn’t about having a crazy-liberal or Utopian version of the web.  It IS about adopting tools that we feel comfortable deploying to our communities and building on, knowing they won’t close or leave without notice.

What do you think?   Do nonprofits need to be more strategic in their choices about online community and fundraising software and understand the cost of free in their plans?   Can we build a better marketplace?  Or should we inspire and encourage software companies to adopt a philanthropic approach?

Comments

[charles]

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[Peggy Hoffman]

This post is quite timely in that over as ASAE & The Center we're working with a young group of professionals to "invent" the association of the future by working through key scenarios. I has just posted yesterday in the (not free) e-community space that we needed to address nonprofit's reluctance to be more strategic in their technology choices. While I didn't envision this particular scenario, it does resonate with my concern that we still think of technology in terms of databases and outbound communication and not as a strategic resource.

If we don't take on the responsibility of new vision, then we will not be ready (or invited) to sit at the table when our "free" partners change the rules. And therefore not able to inspire and encourage software companies to adopt a philanthropic approach - which yes I think should be part of their business model.

Thanks again for asking the right questions!

[Anne]

I would agree with those who believe that Ning should remain free for nonprofits and schools - especially schools. Just last week, in a training session, I was asked about the concerns around privacy on Facebook and which platform may be a good fit to bring together a group of youth working on community issues - I immediately suggested that Ning may be a great option. By creating a private social network on Ning, school administrators and nonprofit program managers can a create a private space that can be moderated and is perceived as a safer choice for online collaboration. And it's free - which allows so many groups beginning to get comfortable in the social media space, to be brave enough to give it a try! [Although as I look at the Mashable article, it appears there are some alternatives out there...]

If companies are able to be philanthropic, and realize the good that their platforms can be used to create - then, yes, we should absolutely encourage them to do so! In the meantime, Amy's question around synching your social media efforts to some of your more traditional efforts to ensure data is gathered and contact information retained is a critical set of activities.

So perhaps it is a little bit of both...encouraging philanthropy, while being smart about keeping your online communities intact in the face of a changing marketplace.

[CharlieKalech]

I've been building Web sites since the graphic Web started in 1994 and I have seen a lot of technologies come and go. I am very skeptical about depending upon any third-party for business (be it for profit or not-for-profit).

While we may advise clients to take advantage of the reach social media platforms provide, we view these as ADDITIONAL channels to their Web site and they should be REDUNDANT. For example, in addition to a YouTube Channel, have videos on your Web site -not embeded from YT, but on your Web server- (This helps with SEO as well).

So to those who are using a third-party blog service, get a WordPress blog on your own domain; to those who are only using gmail and Google docs, calendar etc., add redundancy by downloading gmail to your hard drive as well (set gmail to a POP account), keep copies of Google Docs on your computer and use a FREE suite off applications in place of Microsoft Office - like http://www.neooffice.org for Macs or http://www.openoffice.org/ for Windows, sync your Google Calendar with a desktop calendar.

I'm not saying this only about Free applications. I do not advise depending on any third party services (SAS) or cloud computing.

Again, I am not saying don't use them. I am saying do not depend upon them. If you use them, make backups and it is best to have a service which you can substitute in place of any third party if need be.

In my opinion this is part of being a responsible professional. Just like you would not be responsible if you were entirely dependent upon any subcontractor with no alternatives, don't be dependent upon any third-party on-line services without a back-up in place.

[Jake]

There is a mindset that online means free or at least cheap that we need to change.

A lot of free services and open source software can appear free, but neither truly are. They require staff time to keep them up and keep them effective.

Because there is this impression that everything should be free, it becomes difficult to get the budget to use paid for online services. If that attitude didn't exist, all but the very smallest organization would be able to find an extra $20 a month (just a guess on Ning's final price) in their budget to pay for Ning.

I think you begin to change that attitude by showing the real value of these networks to your organization. Fundraising dollars would be nice, but getting decision makers to agree on engagement metrics is probably better.

If you can show a clear benefit, then costs are a lot easier to justify. I'll say more obvious things later.

[Andrew]

To build on a couple of the points that Charlie made, and on the reference to WordPress:

* if you do depend on a cloud service, make sure that you can get your data out without too much hassle. I think that WordPress.com makes this relatively easy.

* if you go self-hosted, and get some help with setting up your site, make sure you're not at the mercy of the consultant who provided the help. For example, if the consultant does some fancy stuff to your WordPress site (I'm thinking of implementing the custom post type and typology stuff on the way in WP3.0), can you continue to improve your site without breaking something, or breaking the budget my having FancyConsult hit you with big bills.

Andrew

ps Beth, I used the Zoetica contact page to ask about helping out MD/DC nonprofits with social media stuff. Does anyone ever look at stuff that arrives through that channel? It's been a couple of weeks.

[Amy Sample Ward]

Thanks for continuing this conversation, Beth! I really appreciate you including some of the thoughts I've shared as well.

I know that I'm in a unique position working in a nonprofit and outside of one, but am trying to connect with folks who will be directly impacted by Ning's change (those that think they will not be able to continue using the platform and will try to change platforms or discontinue hosting a community) to discuss further the kinds of questions or areas of consideration that would be involved in selecting software in a sustainable way - would love to hear if you have any ideas or know of any groups!

Thanks again

[Robin Mohr]

As many people have said in other forums, the real problem with the Ning announcment is that they didn't clarify from the start what the changes will be or what they mean by paid - will $5/month be good enough? Free was a good price for an experiment to start with - if it had cost money, we wouldn't have gotten into this at all. We had it in our plan for this year to consider upgrading to their premium services, but now I'm spooked to wonder if it's worth sticking with Ning - if we start paying now, will it still be around in six months? This is always a gamble with technology - will this company survive? Will this feature be available long term? Whether it's free or not, there's no guarantees.

[Mazarine]

Dear Beth,

Thanks for drawing attention to Ning ending their free service. As a group owner and longtime user of Ning, I had hoped it wouldn't come to this. But I think that their decision is a sound one.

It's $20 dollars a month to continue to use the service. Nonprofits could find a donor to take on this commitment, even in this economic climate. Whether it's a board member, or a longtime volunteer, 20 dollars a month is $240 per year, and long term, it's a viable solution to Ning's issue of funding.

Constant Contact, which many nonprofits use, is also around $20/month, and you don't hear anyone complaining about that, do you?

Sincerely,

Mazarine
http://wildwomanfundraising.com

[Katie G]

I think your question about the "free mindset" and making critical choices about technology is a great one. Unfortunately, it seems like if you have a nonprofit mission, many feel like operating costs should be next to nil. Unfortunately, to effectively run a nonprofit, as many of the business persons who sit on our boards should know, you have to have infrastructure. Volunteers, free software/Internet/computer, even free office space can have a cost to an organization that may be higher than we think. If someone gives me a free office, but it isn't someplace where my volunteers can park or where my clients can reach on a bus, it isn't a free office anymore. If I am using free donor software but it doesn't handle the information I need to effectively cultivate and solicit donors in a way that makes sense for us, it also has a cost. This is so important since all nonprofits are under immense pressure to show the highest possible dollar-to-mission.

[Sanjay]

Beth,

You wrote: "Back then, my favorite question was: "What is the cost of a free computer?" How much time are you wasting having to reboot and redo work because the computer crashed?"

Old hardware is not the reason computers crash. Software is the problem. Please do not add to the myth (and the eWaste) by saying older equipment is useless. I am using a 9 year old laptop that someone was throwing away, I installed Ubuntu on it, I have a perfectly usable and virus free system!

[Doug Jacquier]

Irrespective of the debate about Ning and other future pay-per-use applications and SaaS, embedded in Beth's article is the 'elephant in the room' that others have alluded to, namely the obsession in nonprofit circles with 'free' and/ or heavily discounted. By all means grab a bargain when you see one but when is the nonprofit sector going to grow up to the extent of understanding that technology is ultimately no different than any other service required to ultimately support the processes that make a difference. Energy, rent, materials, even the cheap office coffee, has to be paid for, just like in any other office. If you are not generating sufficient income from your supporters to meet your basic requirements (let alone a decent living wage for any employees you may have, but don't get me started) you need to either:
1. Get a lot better at what you do very quickly (and listening to Beth is a great start - yes, Beth, you were right about Twitter and I was wrong ;-)
or
2. Stop what you're doing and divert the resources to someone who is succeeding in your cause area. The world doesn't owe your take on the cause (or your ego for that matter) a living.