Conversational Case Study: Myth or Fact - Can Small Nonprofits Win with Social Media?

Photo by HeyDee

Almost a year ago, Allison Fine and I finished a reflection paper on the lessons learned from the first America's Giving Challenge from the Case Foundation.  This year, we are experimenting with incorporating social media techniques as part of the evaluation process for the second America’s Giving Challenge.

While we've used traditional research methods, including a survey of 720 Challenge Participants and interviews,  we are facilitating “Conversational Case Studies” that explore best practices in integrating social media with fundraising campaigns by the America’s Giving Challenge (AGC) winners.  A conversational case study is a write up our interviews identifying a few questions we still have.

The first case study explores how a small organization, Darius Goes West, was successful in AGC. We wanted to begin with a small group because one finding from the survey of participants was that people still think that being a small organization is a disadvantage to using social media successfully.  Our detailed case study with Darius Goes West reveals some fantastic insights and learnings.

We end with questions that we’re love to discuss with you:

• Whether your participating in an online contest or implementing a fundraising campaign using social networks, you’ve got to engage your fans and make it easy for them to share your organization’s story with pride and joy. What techniques are you using?
• How have you used social media to personalize your interactions with potential supporters? Does it work?
• If you are with a small organization, how have you used social media successfully without a big marketing budget?
• How can we put to rest the assumption that large organizations have an automatic advantage using social media?

So, go join the conversation in the comments over at the Case Foundation blog.

Comments

[grabspecialsale]

everything is possible to me so i would say " yes Small Nonprofits can win Social Media."

[Katie]

We are a regional nonprofit that has been successful on social media. However, I think that more than size and budget, chapter-based organizations have a harder time. Because most of the country is covered by different chapters of our org, we can't ethically promote outside our region. This has been a bigger struggle than simply budget or staff.