Beth's Blog: Nonprofits and Social Media

Federal Hurricane Response Widget

The Federal Hurricane Response widget is a web tool designed to help share information during a major emergency with links to authoritative federal government sites on how to get help; finding friends and family; health and safety information; how to donate and volunteer; and a summary of what the government is doing. The widget is available for anyone to put on their websites, their MySpace pages and their blogs and includes a link to the embedding instructions. Learn more here.

More About Widgets for Nonprofits

| View | Upload your own

About a year ago, I did a lot of research on a screencast about widgets for nonprofits and put together two wikis - Nonprofit Widgets (for a session at 2007 NTC Conference) and Fundraising Widget.  So, I was really interested in hearing what colleague Peter Deitz has to say in his recent NTEN Webinar on the Sprout Widget.  Alas, travel schedule prevented me from hearing it live, but Peter posted his slides and examples.

Here's the links to examples he mentions

KaTREEna Plantometer
Every Human Has Rights
2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference
The Niapele Project
$40 for 40 Years of Fair Housing

I like Peter's analogy of a widget as a bumper sticker.   I've heard some people describe widgets as suitcases.  What's your metaphor for a widget and widget strategy?

Graphing Social Patterns: Notes from Widget Panel

Photo by Jeremiah Owyang

Widgets Panel
Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester Research)
Hooman Radfar (Clearspring Technologies, Inc.)
Walker Fenton (NewsGator)
Pam Webber (Widgetbox)
Ben Pashman (Gigya)

Jeremiah Owyang moderated a panel on widgets but started off with an observation about the geek commitment at this conference.   At mid-day, there is this lively swimming pool and a perfect sunny San Diego day - and the room is packed.

Jeremiah Owyang made the panelists think.  Rather than doing a 2 minute elevator pitch to introduce themselves, he asked to offer a metaphor that describes what their company does.   This is a really useful technique if you need to explain a technology company and how it works to management that may not be technical.   

Clearspring Technologies: 
A channel to connect - connector

NewsGater: 
Kitchen - looks at the feeds as a raw materials and bring into their kitchen to make exotic dishes and feed them to the audience.

WidgetBox: 
Color Me Pottery.   Widgetbox helps you create your pottery and share it with others.

Gigya:
Spine within a growing body.   We become a base for the social media space.

Jeremiah gave an overview of Widget space and the challenges with three slides.   The most important one was some research about what people do on social media sites.  Notice that "look for advertising" isn't on the list.   There were some demographic slides.   I'll track down the slides later.

Then her asked questions of the panelists about ROI, branding, distribution strategy, making money, and misconceptions.

ROI

From a technical perspective, you can report on where the widget lives, click throughs, and embeds.  However, there is an educational gap across the table about how to tie metric into something you can build an ROI.   "Widgets are competing against flyers and newspapers."

Brand Control

Companies are brand central and think they own their brand.  That's wrong.  Consumers own it.  How do you get companies to understand that?

Many companies don't want their brand associated with x-rated content or undesirable images.  Many come to the widget makers saying, "I don't my brand associated with xyz site."  There is an education process to get companies to understand that evangelists are the best thing for a company's marketing strategy.  The more tools you can offer them, the better the marketing.

Distribution

If the brand has consumer loyalty, getting it distributed is easy.  For the other 99% advertisers, they need to
go fish where the fish are.  Get as close to those users as possible.  Widget galleries.  When are consumers in the mindset of embedding content?  (The panelist didn't answer this question specifically, but alluded some research. I imagine there are some potential qualitative insights about this that are relevant to deploying and distributing fundraising widgets.)

Making Revenue

Everything that is new, is not so new.  There are distinct markets:  Social application market as a result of Facebook.    "Bastardization" -  VC's paying VC's.   Panelists said it is like going back to 1997 because everything is still trying to figure it out.

Campaign

There are three phases:

• Concept
• Distribution
• Analytics

You need to have a clear idea of how you're going to approach the phases of your campaign before you implement.  If you build a great widget and it gets distributed and you don't know how you're defining success, you won't succeed.  All the three need to be well defined.

Panelist gave two example of possible outcomes linked to strategy:

• Awareness - Strategy: getting linked to big sites
• Research -    Strategy:  getting to know the people who added the widgets to their pages to better understand them.

I would love to see a generic table, with first column objective and second column strategy.

Strategy Points

• Take the top one or two things that people come to your site for, then you let them take it away
• Identify your audience and who you are.
• A widget is a window into your brand or web site. 

What are the biggest misconceptions about widgets? (outside this room?)

-Don't assume virality.  You can't predict.  Benchmark expectations. 
-Following the crowd and not being true as a company.  Gave an example of ebay Facebook widget and widgetbox example.  Who is using the widget and for what reason.
-Build it and they will come perception. 
-Mixing desktop utility widgets and social media widgets.  Does your widget up to the "make my day" metric put a smile on your face and want to send it out to your friends.
-It's not about page views, it's about engagement.

Digital Podcast has a great summary here.
 

Tag: GSP West

How To Make Your Content More Shareable: Screencast

I learned something today from two of my readers, Nick Temple and Michele Martin about to add the "Share on Facebook" and "Digg This" links to your posts automatically on typepad.  These options might be called "Social Media Optimization" (more here)

Nick asked the question.  I replied by email with a cc to Michele.  I saw this on her blog.  She responded with the instructions (I posted here)

I decided to make a quick screencast.

Now, I have some questions. I need to explore whether there is a way to see at glance and side-by-side comparison which of your posts have been added to del.icio.us, stumble upon, facebook, etc.  Looking at the numbers may give you some indication of what your readers thought was valuable.  I would like to see if number of comments correlates.

What I'm really curious now is your behavior.  When you are reading this blog in a reader, to you use the feed flare options?  When you come to the page itself, do you use the feed flare options?  Why or why not?  I'm trying to figure out if this is useless extras on your blog or can be valuable.

If you are enjoying this post,  subscribe for free.

Universal Museum Widget

I'm headed off for the Museum Computer Network conference  in Chicago tomorrow.  Kurt Stuchell just finished a project and created a new widget called the Universal Museum Media Podcasts & Blog Widget.  The widget contains a collection of museum podcasts and blogs.  If you don't see your favorite museum's podcast on this list, contact Kurt Stuchell.

He has made the widget available on Facebook and it can also be added web site, MySpace (hmm ... is the museum crowd on MySpace?), and blogs like I've done.  Kurt says that individuals with iPhones can access the media contained in the widget and hopefully within the year many people with cell phones can also listen and watch the podcasts and blogs. 

It looks like the widget was created in grazr.

This is an interesting idea for organizations with similar missions or programs to band together and distribute content in a Web2.0 way.  Curated podcast RSS feeds anyone?   What do you think?

 

A Nonprofit Version of Widget Box?

When I saw the words "nonprofit widget," I had a senior moment.  I remembered that almost a year ago I was working on screencast about widgets for nonprofits to build community and had set up a wikispace called nonprofit widgets.    Today, I came across an interesting post from John Bell of Digital Influence Mapping Project blog has an interesting idea, nonprofitwidget.org:

Non-profits need to engage their brand ambassadors now. We need nonprofitwidget.org to emerge not as just another clearinghouse (like widgetbox) but as a toolbox for promotion and measurement for nonprofits who would use this type of resource.

Here's how nonprofitwidget.org can work:

• All nonprofits can publish their widgets in this directory which features all of the requisite download and embed protocols to relieve the necessity of too much technical knowledge.
• A directory of developers with rating systems would help nonprofits connect with folks to build the widgets.
• A promotion toolbox will give the nonprofit staff a set of procedures and tools to help promote their widgets
• A voluntary "membership" link will allow all of the folks who are using the widget to remain connected.
• Each widget "page" would feature and aggregate set of links to the blogs who feature that widget thus sending some link love back to those who publish the widget. 

Unlike advertisers who will wrestle with how to measure the use of widgets in terms they are used to (online advertising - see this WaPo article from Saturday), nonprofits have everything to gain by activating their greatest asset - their supporters and fans.

I think that slapping up a widget and not having strategy doesn't work.  Great to have the tools, but you need a strategy.  Also, you need to find your inner super activist or connect with someone who is already an evangelist for your cause or organization and is a super activist on social networking sites that have people who may be interested in your cause. 

 

Get $10,000 for your nonprofit and a t-shirt!

I bet that headline got your attention.  Yesterday, I facilitated a workshop at the Money for Your Mission Conference sponsored by CCSNYS.    Katya Andresen was the keynote speaker and while I read her book and heard speak before, I'm always blown by her presentation skills - great stories, great visuals, and engaging.  And, I always learn something.   One thing I learned is that they just launched another widget fundraising contest over at sixdegrees.org - here's her blog post about it.

Widget Fundraising Case Study: Translated Into Italian!

Via my flickr stream

Francesco Santini translated and published  the widget fundraising case study on the Italian portal on fundraising. How cool is that?

Update:

Dear Beth,
your comment on my blog is a great honor for me!

Despite of my bad English language knowledge I want to translate the article of my blog to let you read what I wrote....

Guide for the best use of fundraising widget and even more
(http://matteopaolini.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/guida-allutilizzo-dei-widget-per-il-fund-raising-e-non-solo )
"With great honor I announce that from yesterday the "Guida all' utilizzo dei widget per il fund raising" is avaible,  an innovative opera on fundraising field wrote by one of the guru in the use of Internet for nonprofit association, Beth Kanter, and translate in italian language with creative commons license by my colleague and friend Francesco Santini and me for Fundraising.it, the Italian web site on fund raising.

This a very useful guide, not only for the nonprofit sector. In fact it shows how to set a realistic goal, crafting an effective message, identifying likely prospects, incorporating social networking sites into your implementation efforts, in addition of shows how to best use the Chipin widget.

So it is a true web marketing guide summarised in 16 pages to read all on one breath!

Who are interest in, can download the guide by clicking here!"

I hope we will keep in contact in the future, maybe for my degree thesis (I'm one of your fan and work to a project with you would be a dream for me!).

Best wishes,
Matteo Paolini

YackPack

 

A couple of days ago some of my twitter friends who are videobloggers started talking about Yak Pack.  The metaphor is a web walkie talkie.  It is a little widget that allows live chat on any web site.   The videobloggers were using it on their wiki.  When I arrived to check it out, I heard Michael Verdi talking to a few others about the video blogging documentary.  It was a little strange, reminded me of citizen band or "CB" radios we used to use as teens in the late 1970's.

I'm connecting it to the questions that came up on yesterday's Community Squared telephone conference to discuss tagging communities and got onto the topic of how online communities are changing given Web2.0.  I was reflecting about snippets of conversation that happen around tagged items in the NpTech tagging community -- although not all have been deeply reflective conversations.  I used the metaphor of a school of fish swimming together in a tag stream.  Etienne, or someone asked "Does swimming together in a tag stream make us a community?"

So, here's a tool that may (or may not) facilitate those conversations around "stuff" or tagged items.   And, there's been some emerging use in this way, of course, from the online learning/educator community.

Via Stephen Downes I discovered some reflections from Always Learning about how they used Yak Pack to record audio conversation and then easily published the conversation.

Help the VTECH Community ...

Got fundraising ideas? ChipIn!

Via Network for Good and ChipIn

You can remember and honor the victims of the tragic events by making a donation to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. The fund was established by the university to aid in the healing process and generate financial support. Money raised will be used to cover expenses such as: Assistance to victims and their families Grief counseling Memorials Communication expenses Comfort expenses You can also spread the word about the memorial fund by adding the charity badge at right to your website, blog or social networking page; all you have to do is click on "copy" and you can display the badge anywhere online.

 

Wall Street Journal Article on Fundraising Widgets

 

Trying to catch up before I head for NTC, and found this on Lucy Bernholz's blog.  It lead this excerpt.  Damn, don't have a WSJ subscription!   Maybe some kind soul will send me an email with text so I can forward to my mom and dad.

Got it from reader: Download Kanter-article-WSJ.pdf

Widgets Change Context of Your Content

www.flickr.com More Flickr photos tagged with onecampaign

A badge that grabs all the publically tagged photos with "onecampaign".  I need this for a screenshot for a presentation at NTC about widgets.   What point do you think I'm trying make?  Comments?

Jason's Job Widget and the Show Yourself Widget

Jason over at Democracy in Action has created a job posting widget!

 

• Beth Kanter

• Flickr/cambodia4kidsorg
• Myspace/sharingfoundation
• Linkedin/bethkanter
• Twitter/kanter
• YouTube/bethkanter
• Skype/cambodia4kids
• Technorati/kanter
• Get your own Widget

That's the show yourself widget via Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day with a hat tip to Stephen Downes. 

I'm so weak. Back to work.

Screencast: Using Widgets to Build Community on Blogs Featured on NTEN Blog

 

Original photo remixed from flickr photo by Stinky Peter
Screencast in conjunction with NTEN
View the screencast as higher quality flash file -takes longer to download here

I'm so excited!  My screencast on widgets is featured in this month's NTEN newsletter in a section pointing to "How To Build Online Community."  The link will take you directly to the screencast, but I also went to the trouble of putting together some extensive program notes that will help you explore widgets in more depth and provides credits to all the wonderful cc licensed material I used in the screencast.  I didn't want those to get lost.  They follow below.

Screencast Program Notes

These program notes will help you implement some of the ideas presented in the screencast. If you have questions about widgets or want to share your organization’s experience (good and bad), the NTEN Affinity Groups, particularly Emerging Technology, Nonprofit Bloggers, or Nonprofit Webmasters, are good lists to connect with your peers on these topics.

Act 1:  What

What we're talking about are web widgets and the definition is:

A Web Widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate html-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. They are akin to plugins or extensions in desktop applications. Other terms used to describe a Web Widget include Gadget, Badge, Module, Capsule, Snippet, Mini and Flake. Web Widgets often but not always use Adobe Flash or JavaScript programming languages.

Robin Good recently interviewed Marshall Kirkpatrick about Mash-ups and he asked Marshall to define widgets in the context of the conversation.  Here's his definition:

A Widget is a piece of code that enables a non-technical website publisher to pull in data and a display for that data from another website, so they can have, say, news ticker headlines or a personal horoscope, or local weather or an RSS feed.

Act 2:  Why

A few important questions to ask before your consider adding a widget to your blog or web site.

You need to think about these questions first, widgets second

• Does your web site or blog publish excellent content on a regular basis?
• Do you ask good questions that lead to conversations online?
• Do you have strategies for encouraging those conversations and linking them to your content?
• Do you write blog posts that inspire lots of comments?
• Do you employ a social networking or online outreach strategy that engages your regular readers and enables new readers to discover you?

Since widgets were fairly new, I installed a mail widget on my blog and asked nonprofit techies what they thought. 

Here's a summary:   

Using widgets is not yet a common practice on nonprofit blogs and folks are still experimenting and learning.    Still, there are benefits:

• Easy to use, don't need technical skills
• Can help you extend or enhance the conversation on your blog
• Can help you "listen" by gathering feedback and other information from your blog readers
• Can help you easily link to other sites, content, or individuals
• Can help make your blog more "findable"
• They are lots of fun

You can read a more detailed report of what folks thought here.

Before you go hog wild on widgetbox and install every widget known to mankind, consider the following:

• If most of your readers are following you via blog readers, they may not "pop" out of their reader to visit your browser.
• On the other hand, many blogs end up being positioned higher in search engine searches, so there must be some blogs that are being discovered via the browser and not a reader.  So, perhaps widgets should be designed to reach first-timers or new readers.  Consider them as a strategy for point of entry. You need to know from where your audience is coming to your blog.
• Consider your audience when you select a particular widget.  If you're a podcaster and your audience is likely to a microphone installed on their computer, than those message widgets might make sense.
• The use of widget must be linked to the topic, content, or purpose of your blog.  For example, linking a poll to a post on the topic.

Act 3:  A Few Good Examples

Group 1:  Interactivity

Polls

One of the most used widgets by nonprofits are the audience poll widgets.  Katya Andresen explains why.  Polls are a great way to get reader feedback too.  I used the Vidzu poll to get feedback on a blog post here.  In the screencast, I demonstrated how easy it is to add a poll to your site using the widget, PollDaddy. 

• You can do a general reader survey like, the nonprofit tech blog
• You can connect it to content in a post like the Bamboo  Project
• Or you can connect to the key goals of your blog like Save Guimaris

Chat and  Messages

The example I showed in the screencast was on Dave Wallace's blog, Life Kludger.

Message/IM Widgets: I installed the message widget from Odeo and the IM/Chat Widget from Meebo.   Using mail widgets and chat client wigets but depends on your audience.  Are they likely to use these features to engage with you?

The best comment line can be found at Emergency Trap Blog.  Its from MobaTalk and has a better interface and also automatically shares messages you've received.   

Be sure to test these widgets to make sure they are installed and work.

Group 2:   Content

This group of widgets allows you to take content from one site or location on the web and easily republish it elsewhere.

Here's a few examples:

Delicious Badge:  I use this widget to publish my social bookmarking bookmarks on my blog.

Flickr Widget/Badge:  If your organization is using flickr to say run a photo content or a community tagging project, it makes sense to add a flickr badge to your web site.  The Flickr widget lets you select all your photos, a particular tag or group.  It lets you customize the color, size, format, number of photos, etc.

Technorati Search Widget:  If anything else, I use the search widget on my blog to retrieve posts I wrote about a while ago, but can't quite remember when or what category I filed them in.  Visitors or readers might find the search useful as well. There are a lot of search widgets and thankfully Christine Herron did an exhaustive review of search widgets.   With that said, I get complaints from some  of my blog readers about the Technorati Search Widget, so I'm looking for suggestions.

Group 3: Fundraising Widgets

When I produced this screencast, widgets for fundraising or charity badges were just being announced.  The market is changing rapidly and there have been a lot more personal campaigns and activity.

Fundraising is the life blood of nonprofits and is another area of active experimentation using strategies called “personal fundraising”  Think citizen donor, citizen philthanthropist.    Widgets, charity badges, blog fundraising plugins allows your supporters become messengers for your cause. the shift is now from the organization raising money to the supporters taking on that role/responsibilities. The Widget just helps people track their commitment and shows progress being made.

Katya Andresen of The Nonprofit Marketing Blog has written extensively on the topic of personal fundraising.  You'll find these posts here and I'd drop everything and read them now!

I wrote a case study about my experience launching a personal fundraising campaign here.

First of Its Kind lists the top ten personal fundraising campaigns and has lots of excellent how-to guides.

Britt Bravo recently put together a terrrific list of personal fundraising causes.

I've aggregated a lot of these and other resources on the topic on my wiki portfolio.

Act 4: Where to find widgets

There are three general types of sources to find widgets to install on your organization's blog or web site:

1.   The particular Web2.0 Social Networking Tool or Service

Many widgets I came across are designed to work with various Web 2.0 social networking tools like del.icio.us, flickr, blip.tv, Technorati, etc.   So, if you are already using one of those services and want to integrate content onto your blog, check on their web site first.  Now, they may not be calling it a widget, some refer to as "badges."  Simply look in the "help" section of your favorite Web2.0 social networking site.

2.   A Widget Gallery or Directory for your Blogging Platform

I'm not a techy, so I use typepad.   Typepad has integrated widgets into the blogging platform, so adding a widget is even easier than cut and paste!  It's one click!   There is a widget gallery where you can go shopping for widgets.

There are also other platform-specific widget directories:  wordpress (here and here) and blogger  If you're on another platform, try the Squidoo Widget Finder Lens.

I went through the typepad collection and installed (unstalled) a lot of them because, to be honest, some did not hold promise for a nonprofit org blog.  With that said, the collection is growing and I did find the ultimately easy to install and just what I wanted delicious linkroll widget here, The Vidzu Audience Poll Widget (here) as well as a few other good possibilities for the nonprofit blogs here, here, here, and here.
Since widgets installation is integrated with my blogging platform it was one less click to install or unstall -- and not time consuming. 

I played around with the widget that allows we to easily stream my delicious links on my sidebar. (If you're not using typepad, don't despair, you can grab the code for a number of delicious widgets here, here, and here)  I am a big tagger so this was a must-have widget for me.  However, I don't want stream my entire collection of links though.  So, set it to stream based on the tag "linkblog" and that way I can relate the links to current posts or whatever theme I'm researching.

3.  Third-Party Widget Directory and Aggregator Sites

There are widget directory sites like snipperoo which organize various widgets for end-users to pluck and install and for widget developers to upload and share.  However, what the newest thing is something called a "Widget Aggregator."   As described at the recent Widget Live Conference "New widget aggregators are forming to organize and classify the world of widgets into simple and easy to deploy collections. These aggregators offer one widget box to rule them all, creating a single point of integration for new widget users."

Widgetbox For bloggers like me, Widgetbox offers a Widget panel. Once this panel is placed into a sidebar of a blog, any widget can be added simply via drag and drop.  It supports a range of blogging platforms.

Although the interface was a little geeky - after clicking around - it was very easy to install (and unstall) and update the widgets and panels I installed.

Act 5: Summary:

-Widgets have the potential of extending the distribution and connection of a nonprofit's content and can also can be useful in amplifying the community s associated with an organization's web site or blog.
-Widgets are easy to use and install and do not require special technical skills - they're fun too!

How to get started ...

-Successfully using widget to realize outcomes is going to be a matter of experimentation and learning.  Above all, the widget needs to be connected with your blog's content, readers' interests, and amplify conversation.

-Pick a few widgets, install them, and track them over a period of a month or so.  Figure out if your strategy is bringing in new traffic, generating more comments/activity on your blog, etc.  If not, do be aware to ditch it.

I wrote, shot, edited, and produced this screencast a few months ago and I'm already seeing how a lot of changed in the widget landscape.  So, if you'd like to add your thoughts, please drop a comment in the post.

Credits
Opening Sequence
Music

nervoso con las guitarras by: norelpref

Photos
Robots
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stinkypeter/91821888/in/photostream/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stinkypeter/91821889/in/photostream/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stinkypeter/91821886/in/photostream/

People at desk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremyfoo/

Dictionary
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvk/

 

Nobs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/driggs/

 

Ze Frank's Word Game
http://www.zefrank.com/wp1/magnets/index.html

Conversation
http://flickr.com/photos/chrisheuer/

 

 

 

Outreach Strategy
http://flickr.com/photos/pdr/

Geek Skills:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acaben/62925785/ 

 

Geek:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sd/7746599/

Grow A Geek:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmyroq/110996294/

Money:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/noahwesley/120499365/

Steve Bridger's Widgets of the World Untie! Must Read!

 

The above slide is from a session I did with David Wilcox in the UK on social media in January.   I wish at the time I had Steve Bridger's excellent analysis and roundup of using widgets or charity badges for fundraising or advocacy, focusing on examples from the UK and beyond.  Well done Steve!

Steve points out a new widget in the UK called Carebadges and notes it aspires to be the yellow bracelet campaign of the web.  I like the analogy.  He also writes about several other widget examples, but I won't spoil them for you - go read it. 

Steve also points to an article from Dion Hinchcliffe called "Tracking the DIY Phenomenon" which explains perhaps why widgets have caught on.  Hinchcliffe uses the analogy of Home Depot - that widgets have enabled users to create the DIY web, using these "off the shelf" tools to customize web content. He points out the concerns:

So while it's clear that there's a lot of value to end-users to repurpose the valuable functionality and information from elsewhere on the Web for their own needs, what does this confer to the Web sites that offer them?   Doesn't making it possible for users to "peel off" the best parts of a site and stick them on their own ruin the monetization model that powers so much of the Web?  I'm talking about page views and the resulting advertising revenue.

Interestingly, despite these concerns and others (like protection of IP displayed on someone else's site) I'm seeing Internet startups and successful online properties both take a careful look at "widgitization" and other forms of openness, like APIs.  The value proposition of chunking up and modularizing content and services into bite-sized reusable pieces is becoming increasingly clear.

Here Hincliffe talks a lot about the power of the network effect as it applies to web content:

You move beyond the single Web site model and turn the entire Web into a content distribution system.  Certainly, the rise of RSS and syndication proved the power of this model: the best content would rise to the top of the ecosystem it became  part of us, and while the syndication ecosystem is now very large, it it's no match for the power and reach of the entire Internet.

He offers some points to consider when embracing the model of letting users innovate using your content and services in a widget form elsewhere on the Web, theoretically letting it be used in hundreds or even thousands of creative news ways.

Advocacy Widgets: 18seconds CFL Summit in San José, CA

Now, this is a cool use of a widget!  It is part of an awareness raising campaign about switching to CFL light blubs.  I can customize the widget to give me the information by state, city, or zip code.

The 18seconds.org CFL Summit is taking place on February 22, 2007 and will be held at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San José, CA.   The Summit, hosted by coalition partner Yahoo!

Summit participants will discus issues, share accomplishments and plan the next steps to help America switch to energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).  Currently, there is a lot of attention on global warming and energy efficiency in the United States, and the Summit organizers believe that we can capitalize on this momentum to bring CFLs to the tipping point.


It takes about 18 seconds to replace a conventional incandescent bulb with a CFL.   This group of actvisits is formalizing an effort to make the CFL the bulb of choice for America by creating the 18Seconds Coalition – a cross-sector “network of networks.”  The coalition is open to organizations, elected officials, corporations, nonprofits and individuals that want to champion the CFL cause as a means to save money, promote energy awareness and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  They invite you to join coalition, which we will formally launch February 22.

The 18Seconds.org website, built by Yahoo! is a tool to track nationwide CFL purchases by metropolitan area and state.  Any organization can easily download the “badge,” which draws data from 18Seconds.org and creates a tracker on the organization’s website.  Check it out and spread the word!

Lawrence Bender, producer of An Inconvenient Truth, previewed the site at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington D.C. on January 25 and the formal launch will coincide with our San José Summit, February 22. A number of mayors have already pledged to use the site to encourage their constituents to try CFLs, and we hope many more elected officials, organizations, corporations and individuals will launch their own campaigns on February 22.  During the Summit, you are encouraged to share with the innovative ways you hope to use the 18Seconds.org website.

It takes about 18 seconds to replace a conventional incandescent bulb with a CFL.  We are formalizing our effort to make the CFL the bulb of choice for America by creating the 18Seconds Coalition – a cross-sector “network of networks.”  The coalition is open to organizations, elected officials, corporations, nonprofits and individuals that want to champion the CFL cause as a means to save money, promote energy awareness and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  We want you to join this coalition, which we will formally launch February 22.

How I Raised $100,000 for A Good Cause Using Widgets

A lot of people have asked me about those widget fundraising campaigns I did last December.   So, if you're interested, you can learn more.

ChipIn asked me to write up a formal case study on my first personal fundraising campaign using their tool.

Using the ChipIn Fundraising Badge for a Personal Fundraising Campaign
How I raised over $800 for a Cambodian Ophran's College Education in A Couple Weeks
The lessons learned from my action learning experiment

This case study walks you through the step-by-step process of using the ChipIn widget to implement a successful a personal fundraising campaign on behalf of any nonprofit organization or cause. The tips and techniques shared in the next few pages will help your organization guide supporters and transform them into effective fundraisers for your organization's cause or program. The case study looks at how to set a realistic goal, crafting an effective message, identifying likely prospects, incorporating social networking sites into your implementation efforts, and how to best use the Chipin widget.

It's a narrative "wikitation" and you can find it here 

While in the UK two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Nick Booth of Podnosh Podcasting face-to-face.  We've "met" each other virtually via blogging, but with the opportunity to come to Birmingham -- having some face time to talk about the social web - along with Steve Bridger and David Wilcox was extremely valuable.   (Soon, I will post my video of my interview with Nick and some video shooting techniques)

He did an interview with me about widget fundraising -- its brief - go take a listen.

For $10 USD, Send A Cambodian Youngster to School!

Many children in Cambodia do not go to school because their families lack the $10 for a uniform, required for school attendance, and other school supplies. Last year, The Sharing Foundation sewing school made over 1000 uniform sets, each one with two white shirts and blue trousers or skirt.

The Sharing Foundation gave them to needy children in Roteang Village, to the Street Children's Assistance NGO, and to a poor government orphanage.  Our sewing girls, who employed by the Sharing Foundation's vocational training program, earn from the first day of their training, so this is a win-win situation.  This year we plan to make at least 1,250 uniform sets, including some for HIV children's group homes. We'd love your help.

Is there a better $10 gift? Simply click on the orange donate button on the charity badge located in the side bar or right below. If your campaign has the most individual donors, Yahoo will match what we raise.  So, why not help us today!

Network for Good Launches Charity Badges!

via Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog

Network for Good today launches their charity badges with some great support from Yahoo!. 

Having implemented a successful campaign to raise the money to support a young college student named Leng Sopharath in Cambodia that raised $872 using the ChipIn widget,  I set up a charity badge over at Network for Good to support the Sharing Foundation's educational programs which provide educational opportunities for over 1,300 children.

First, let me tell you a little bit more about the Sharing Foundation's educational programs.

Leng Sopharath represents the top of the tier of the Sharing Foundation's educational programs.  In order to get to the point of sponsoring young people for college, the Sharing Foundation begins at the pre-school level with a Cambodian version of a Montessoui Pre-School in its orphanage in Roteang Village.   The foundation also sponsors a "head start" program for the children of the poorest villagers who work in the Foundation's organic program that provides the families with needed income.   In the local village school, the foundation runs an English Language program that is teaching over 500 children to speak English.  The Foundation also provides capital improvements such as a new roof, a new library, and pays for school supplies.   

The village school stops at the elementary level and if students want to continue in high school, they must travel into the Phnom Penh and pay tuitution, a luxury most villagers can't afford.   The Sharing Foundation sponsors over 40 high school students - their tuition, transportation, uniforms, and supplies.  Last year, our first "class" of high school students graduated and ten students passed the entrance exams for college, including Leng Sopharath.   This year, another ten students are being sponsored for college, but not all have been fully sponsored like Sin Vuthey.

Now about the badge.

You can upload personal photos, text, and video.  You can select the recipient from the charities registered on Network for Good (I selected the Sharing Foundation and donations go to TSF via their NFG account).   The main incentive for me to set this up was that you can also create it through Yahoo!’s Network of Giving campaign and the Sharing Foundation could receive up to $50,000 in matching funds, plus publicity on Yahoo!’s web site.  Great publicity!

 

One thing I forgot to add .... this is a beta release.   That means there are bugs to fix and lots of learning too.  So, be sure to review the Network for Good Charity Badges blog for updates and other information.

Fundraising Widget Campaign: Success! Thank You! You Can Still Contribute!

Click To Play

We are very grateful to everyone for their contributions,  links, and advice.   I'm elated that we made goal.  I'm pulling together all my notes and will post reflections about all the campaign shortly!  In the meantime, enjoy the thank you video!

AND, Leng Sopharath is only one of  16 college students the Sharing Foundation is supporting.  In addition, the Sharing Foundation is sponsoring 40 high school students and provides an English program in the Roteang Village School for over 500 kids.   And that's not all, the Sharing Foundation provides school uniforms (a requirement to enter school) to street kids in Cambodia so they can attend school.  's These uniforms are made by girls in our vocational program where we teach these young women sewing skills and pay them to work for our sewing shop or train them for higher paying jobs in the garment industry.

So, if don't worry that we're over goal - there are many children who will benefit from the additional support.

Donors:

Richardo Carreon
Lisa Canter   
Britt Bravo    
Teresa Crawford   
Kenneth Gierke   
Michele Martin   
Thomas Rogers   
Michael Hoffman   
Katya Andresen   
CDJ Wilcox    
Somongkol Teng   
Stewart Robinson
Tim Rose   
Ken Goldstein   
Michael Hannum
The children at Ptea Ponleu Vichea, a youth center in Battambang
Caroline Meeks, Solution Grove
Stephen Sherlock
Paul Lamb
Jonathan Davis   
Nancy White
Alexandra Samuel and Robb Cottingham
Erin Denny (Aka Agent Handy)
   

Links/Posts

Pam Ashlund, Nonprofit Eye Blog (some advice about tax documentation)
Emily Weinberg from the Nonprofit Blog Exchange
Michelle Martin from the Bamboo Project
ChipIn News Blog
CrowdFunding (that is that awesome vlogger Sull)
First-of-its-Kind (Peter Dietz - excellent advice on how to go about these campaigns)
Michael Hoffman at See3
Second Life Blog
Britt Bravo on Blogher
Britt Bravo on her personal blog
smArts & Culture
FiSpace
Micropersuasion
E-politics
Ricardo Carreon
Solution Grove

Mongkol, a Cambodian college student who is studying in the US on a Fullbright Scholarship and knows the importance of a college education had this to say.

Keun Fast, another Cambodian blogger.
Tharum, who I had the pleasure of meeting via my work with Global s, has linked to the Campaign.

I also want to thank Ken Goldstein for sharing with his network on YouTube.

Carnet Williams at the ChipIn blog has kept a record of links and dollars here.

Katya Andresen at the Nonprofit Marketing Blog gave me a guest spot to write about the campaign and solicit advice from colleagues here.

A few more examples of Widget Fundraising Campaigns

Heifer International has rolled out a fundraising widget campaign.  Here's the pitch:

Make this holiday season special by using your blog, MySpace page, or other website to make a difference for a family facing hunger and poverty. We’re calling on online community leaders like yourself to help give the ultimate gift – a brighter future and a way out of poverty and hunger.

Challenge your readers, fans, friends and family to plant the seeds of peace this holiday season by alleviating hunger and poverty. Giving to Heifer International brings peace to the world and makes a meaningful, lasting difference in the lives of families in need.

They also give some simple steps:

It’s easy and fun to invite your community to participate in a fundraising challenge. It just takes a few minutes to:

• Create your campaign page,
• Set a goal for how much you want to raise,
• Copy some code from our site to yours to display a cool donation badge that shows your progress,
• Encourage your community to pitch in on a gift that makes a real difference in the lives of families in need.

You have to register first.  Then they will provide the widget code, campaign, and strategy tips.  I didn't register so I couldn't really figure out the degree of personalization or whether you are replicating their branded materials.  It also isn't clear whether they are using a widget service like Chip In or built their own.

Via Micro Persuasion

I've Been Outed Again As A Slob: This Time A Widget Slob!

I will be honest.  When it comes to tagging, I'm Felix, not Oscar.  Not only have I confessed this on my blog, but I went as far to compare tag sloppiness to car slopiness.  And one colleague, the ever so brilliant, Alexandra Samuels agreed and came to the rescue with some tips to help tidy up my tag collection.

My digital sloppiness has a long history.   Back in the earlier days of Internet publishing (circa 1994-5), UNIX programmer types used to cruise my Arts Wire SpiderSchool instructional web pages and point out to me that in line 24 of code I forgot a quote mark or even worse that I had made a typo in the text. Maybe I should have reacted to this with total shame.  On the other hand, I thought the immediate feedback was a wonderful thing: It helped me improve the pages. So I decided to encourage it with the Typo Police page.  I invited my readers to be copy editors, point out mistakes, and earn a typo police badge.  What happened is that many English teachers and copy editors took up the challenge!

And, last week I was outed as a widget slob by another well-respected blogger no less!.   During the last few weeks of widget experimentation, I had installed (and unstalled) quite a few widgets on my blog.  Yes, it got messy.  Even worse, it cause some slow loading of my content.   So, I asked the commenter for some advice and did a little reflecting on my own and cleaned things up a bit. 

Here's the criteria I came up with for whether or not you keep a widget installed or not:

-Does it help you generate traffic?
-Does it add value to your blog content or for your readers?
-Does have the ability to encourage more conversation or comments?
-How much does it contributes to slow loading?

The latter is a technical issue that Stephen Downes provided more advice about: 

What I would get rid of is:

- anything in Flash, especially if it comes from another site
- other things that come from other sites.

If you do keep stuff hat comes from other sites, it is important that they load last.  They should be at the bottom of your page (the bottom of the HTML; it doesn't matter where it actually appears).

I also noticed that adding embedded video players to my blog posts also seemed to slow things down.

Lisa Canter Brings Sharing Foundation Campaign to 50% Mark!

Lisa Canter has brought the fundraising campaign for Leng Sopharath to the 50% mark!  As of today, contributors have helped me raise $381 towards the $750 goal.  Yeah!  With everyone's help and support, I'm sure we'll reach our goal.

Lisa's post is here.

Almost two years ago at the first Blogher Conference I was lucky enough to interview and get to know Lisa Canter (we aren't related but I learned a few things about the kanter/canter name from her husband, Marc)

I enjoy reading Lisa's blog.  We have a few things in common beyond our last names.  We both were trained as professional musicians and play woodwind instruments. (I played flute. Lisa plays bassoon, I don't know how shse manages to keep up her bassoon chops.)  And, we both are parents of two young children.

Thank you Lisa for your contribution and writing about the campaign too!

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday,  I want to tell everyone how grateful I am for their contributions,  links, and advice.

Donors:
Richardo Carreon
Lisa Canter   
Britt Bravo    
Teresa Crawford   
Kenneth Gierke   
Michele Martin   
Thomas Rogers   
Michael Hoffman   
Katya Andresen   
CDJ Wilcox    
Somongkol Teng   
Stewart Robinson
Tim Rose   
Ken Goldstein   
Michael Hannum
The children at Ptea Ponleu Vichea, a youth center in Battambang
Caroline Meeks, Solution Grove
Stephen Sherlock
Paul Lamb

   

Links/Posts

Pam Ashlund, Nonprofit Eye Blog (some advice about tax documentation)
Emily Weinberg from the Nonprofit Blog Exchange
Michelle Martin from the Bamboo Project
ChipIn News Blog
CrowdFunding (that is that awesome vlogger Sull)
First-of-its-Kind (Peter Dietz - excellent advice on how to go about these campaigns)
Michael Hoffman at See3
Second Life Blog
Britt Bravo on Blogher
Britt Bravo on her personal blog
smArts & Culture
FiSpace
Micropersuasion
E-politics
Ricardo Carreon
Solution Grove

Mongkol, a Cambodian college student who is studying in the US on a Fullbright Scholarship and knows the importance of a college education had this to say.

Tharum, who I had the pleasure of meeting via my work with Global s, has linked to the Campaign.

I also want to thank Ken Goldstein for sharing with his network on YouTube.

Carnet Williams at the ChipIn blog has kept a record of links and dollars here.

Katya Andresen at the Nonprofit Marketing Blog gave me a guest spot to write about the campaign and solicit advice from colleagues here.

Campaign activities:

I've posted about the campaign on my Cambodia4Kids blog and made quick screencast to show folks how to cut and paste the code into blog posts.  I also include some specific ways folks can help other give money.   I'll point to this in my email campaign to contacts which I'll be doing over the next week.

I also got some advice on how to spread the Revver video without using the flash player.   I used that in my post and for a post in flickr.

Ad Revenues VS Fundraising Widgets

Wanna donate?  Click here.

It is probably unfair to compare these two strategies for grassroots internet fundraising.  But I will just for giggles.  Revver pays content creaters based on placing ads on the videos and paying for the click thrus.  For my Sharing Foundation campaign, I uploaded the campaign video into revver.  (I got the idea here)

So, the campaign has earned $331 via widgets to facilitate contributions and $1.72 via Revver click thrus.

In all fairness, my campaign page at ChipIn can only really integrate YouTube at this point, so I haven't been able to consistently point people to Revver.

So, it seems to me that Revver is for the occassional viral video hit ... who would get ziltch from YouTube.  Is that a sustainable model?

Widget Fundraising Experiment: Come on over to Katya Andresen's Blog

 

I'm the guest blogger over at Katya Andresen's Getting to the Point Blog Nonprofit Marketing Blog this week.

I've created a real life personal fundraising campaign for the Sharing Foundation using chipin widget and I'll be sharing what works and what doesn't.   With your help, expertise and guidance, I know we can make 100% of the goal! 

This is uncharted territory.  Think of me as one of your organization’s supporters who has grabbed your organization’s fundraising widget and set it up on my blog.  What advice would you give to your supporters so they are successful in a group fundraising campaign. What do I need to think about? What is the checklist?  What should I try doing?  What internal issues does this bring up for you?

What a deal!  I’ll make all the mistakes, potentially look stupid, and we’ll reap the benefits of learning together!  And, if we're successful, we'll be sponsoring Leng Sopharath's education!

So go over the Katya's blog for the full context and thank you!