Tag: ePhilanthropy

FREE fundraising movies every Monday morning? Sign me up!

Board development, Fundraising

“Going viral” . . .   It is something that every non-profit organization wishes and hopes that their ePhilanthropy efforts will do. For those of you still trying to find your “cyber-sea-legs,” let me give you a quick little example:

Johanna Wicklund is the Director of Program Development & Evaluation at Boys & Girls Club of Green Bay. She sees this awesome thing on the internet advertising free movie clips every Monday focused on fundraising and non-profit best practices. She signs up and forwards the information to her fundraising BFF who is Anne Lemke, the Grants Coordinator at Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh. Anne looks it over, signs up and forwards it to one of her favorite non-profit bloggers . . . which is ME, of course. I look it over and get excited. I sign-up for the free “Monday Movies for Development Directors” program and decide to blog about it.

Ta-da! This is what is meant by “going viral” with an idea, product or fundraising campaign. It feels very similar to a snowball rolling downhill, gaining speed and size.

Let me backtrack and talk a little bit about “Monday Movies for Development Directors“. This is a free service provided by Chris Davenport over at 501 Videos. Click the link I just provided, scroll down to the bottom of their landing page, give them your contact information, and every Monday they will send you a short clip of a fundraising interview focused on any number of resource development topics including (but not limited to):

  • finding donors
  • special events
  • social media
  • major gifts

The list literally goes on and on.

As Ron Popeil used to say, “BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!”

The free clips you receive on Mondays are what people in the industry call “teasers”. You get some valuable information, but you are left wanting more because what you just tasted was so darn yummy! Of course, there is always more to consume, but it isn’t free anymore . . . you can have to pay a small price for it. In this instance, 501 Videos seems to be selling a number of different products including:

  • Movie Mondays Pro (online access to more detailed videos related to your Monday movie clips)
  • DVDs including “Top 10 Best Movies for Helping Board Members”
  • Movie making services to produce a marketing video focused on your non-profit and its services

Please don’t misinterpret the Ron Popeil reference. I am not being snarky or critical of Chris Davenport or 501 Services. “Sampling” is a common practice (heck, it is a best practice) when it comes to marketing. Chris’ heart even seems to be in the right place if you read about his story on his webpage.

Yes, I’ve signed up for Chris’ “Monday Movies for Development Directors”. So far, I like what I see . . . I might even purchase a few DVDs if I continue liking what washes into my inbox every Monday.

If you want to see a little sneak preview, click here and you’ll see a short clip titled “Strengthening Donor Relationships with Questions”. It really is quite good.

I’d like to thank both Johanna and Anne for directing this viral snowball in my direction. If you like what you see and want others to catch what you’ve caught, then post this blog to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest accounts. In addition to Chris getting some business out of it, perhaps I can get a few more people to subscribe to my blog.  😉

Does your non-profit access other FREE fundraising resources? If so, please use the comment box below and share that information with your fellow fundraising and non-profit professionals. Come on . . . pay it forwards! You’ll feel after sharing, which is what philanthropy is all about.

Here’s to your health!  ACHOO . . . I think I’m catching a virus!?!? (Yes, this last link is to a funny YouTube video about sneezing. Enjoy!)

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Some Insight on Facebook Pages Insights

Mondays with Marissa, technology

Tools are better if you know how to use them. When it comes to social media, Facebook is a very powerful tool. But are you using it to it’s highest potential? Luckily, Facebook gives you some help in figuring that out with their analytical tool called, Insights. To access Facebook Insights, you need to be an admin of your organization’s facebook page. In the admin panel (which you should see when you are logged in and looking at your page), click on the graph and you will be taken to the Insights section of your page.

Upon first glance, Insights can be a bit confusing. There’s graphs and charts and numbers – oh my! All things that should tell you something about your organizations activity online. But what was most confusing to me was Insights terminology. Facebook analyzes each post with the following terms: Reach, Engaged User, Talking about This, and Virality.

What that what?

Today we’ll take a look at what these terms mean and how understanding them can help your posts make more of an impact on all social networks.

Reach

This is the simplest statistic out there. Reach simply means the number of people who see your post. Facebook has a very complicated algorithm that figures out what to post in a person’s News Feed. For example, you’ll notice that time of day, the type of post (status update, link, question, video, etc) can impact your total reach number.

If you click on the number next to the post, Facebook will break this number down even further into the categories of Organic, Paid, or Viral. Organic includes people who liked your paged and people who haven’t. Paid is the number of people who have seen your post because you used a Facebook ad. Viral is the number of people who saw your post because one of their friends liked it or commented on it.

To me, the most important thing is that your reach numbers are always going up or at least remain consistent.

Engaged User

Facebook defines an engaged user as someone who has clicked on your post. Anywhere on your post. Again, Facebook breaks this number down into Photo/Video Views, Other Clicks, and Stories Generated.

Photo/Video Views is pretty straightforward. This number answers the question: “Did the photo you posted cause someone to click on it?” The Other Clicks number is the number of people who clicked on something else included in the post like a person’s name, or the timestamp, or the number of people who liked the post. To me, stories generated is the most interesting. This is the number of stories that were posted on someone’s timeline due to their interaction with this post.

What I keep in mind when looking at my Engaged User number, is looking at the type of post it is. I find that most people will interact with a post if it contains a photo. Once I figured this out, I now make sure that most of my updates include photos.

Talking About This

The numbers in the Talking About This Column simply tell you how many likes, shares and comments your post received. That’s it. Again, looking at this number along with the type of post it is will give you a better idea of what type of posts are successful on your Facebook page.

Virality

For me, this is the most confusing statistic in Insights. Basically, if you take the number of stories generated (found under the Engaged User category) and divide it by the total (found in the Reach column), you get your post’s “virality”. The best thing about this statistic is it is a really fast way to see which posts are generating the most stories.

Now that we have a better understand of what all of those graphs and numbers represent, what does it all mean?

Facebook Insights gives you a picture of how people are interacting with your page, and that’s the whole point. You want to build a community to get more people involved in your non-profit mission. Use these numbers to figure out what your community wants. Maybe they don’t like photos. Maybe they love being asked questions. The bottom line is that Insights shines some light on what’s working and what’s not.

An important thing to keep in mind about all of these numbers is that Facebook will only track a post for 28 days. In other words, to see the full picture, you’ll need to go back and check. Facebook also makes this easy in allowing you to export your data and keep it for your own records.

As you can imagine, there is so much more to Insights than what we’ve covered here. You can read more about this tool here.

Finally, I realize that Facebook isn’t the only social media site out there. In fact, it might not even be the right one for your agency. However, I believe that analyzing your posts and how your target audience interacts with it on any site, can only strengthen your social media community. If you are looking for a tool that helps you analyze Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, check out ThinkUp.

Has Facebook Insights helped you shape your organization’s Facebook community? We’d love to hear some stories in the comment section below!

Non-Profits Can Mobilize Slacktivists Using Social Media

Fundraising, Mondays with Marissa, technology

Hi, my name is Marissa and I am a slacktivist. I admit to thinking I am politically active by sharing my thoughts on issues with my friends through social media without really taking any other political action. It is easier for me to “like”, “retweet”, “+1”, or “share” something than it is for me to write a letter to my Congressperson.

But is slacktivisim a bad thing? And how can you use this passive involvement of others to actually make something happen for your non-profit organization and mission?

This past week, I caught an episode of my favorite news source, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. His guest was Ben Rattray, founder of a website called change.org. As the interview went on, it became clear to me that Rattray had found a way to take the simple act of a person’s “like” or “retweet” and turn it into powerful political action.

The basics behind change.org are this: a user can create a petition about any issue and change.org will help the user reach out through social media to get people to sign the petition for free. Petitions are simply signed with the click of a button.

If the user decides to pay change.org for their services, they can export the list of people who have signed their petition. Change.org also offers organizations access to sponsored campaigns.

“Sponsored campaigns” are promoted to change.org users who would most likely support your cause. The community on change.org is growing everyday, and I can only imagine it growing even more after this week’s exposure on The Daily Show. Tapping into the already growing community of users could help your non-profit organization gain more exposure. It could also be a great way of generating a list of prospective donors who are interested in supporting your mission and issues.

Change.org also connects users with local and national media outlets. Remember when Bank of America was going to charge $5/month for using a debit card? It was a change.org user who created a petition that 300,000 people signed, which gained national media attention. This, of course, resulted in Bank of America deciding to drop the proposed fee hike.

So, what could change.org do for your organization? You could create  a petition connected to your mission and use change.org to engage individuals who sign your petition. A recent article on Mashable states:

“slacktivists are 2x as likely to volunteer, 2x+ as likely to ask for donations, and 4x as likely to ask others to get involved.”

If you’ve seen KONY 2012 or Bully, you know how quickly a message can spread through the internet. Projects like these have inspired many people to get involved.

Even if you choose to not use a platform such as change.org for your agency, there are still lessons to take away from the foundation they set-up.

Make it easy for people to get involved. If you have a blog on your site, make sure you have social media buttons at the bottom of each post to allow users to share your message with their friends.

Create a community. Peer pressure is a powerful thing. Use it for good. If you create a community on a social media site (e.g. Facebook, Twitter or even on your own blog), then make sure you take the time to reply back to those who leave comments as well as recognize those who are sharing your content with their social network.

Support a cause that supports yours. If there is a petition out there that helps your mission, then get involved and sign it. If people see that you care about an issue they also care about, they might take the time to visit your website to learn more.

It was exciting for me to see how change.org makes a difference in our communities with a tool as simple as a petition. And I guess that’s the big takeaway from it all; the easier you make for people to get involved, the more people will be.

Is change.org a network that your organization could benefit from? I’d love to hear why or why not in the comments below! Or are you using other providers or platforms to accomplish the same objectives? Please share.

Want access to donor data? Then your non-profit needs a strategy!

Fundraising, technology

This week we’ve been talking about technology and donor data at DonorDreams blog. Tuesday’s post, which was titled “What can’t your donor database do?,” looked at all sorts of interesting functions and features associated with database software packages. Wednesday’s post, which was titled “Wow . . . Non-Profit Donors are Naked!,” examined various free online tools that can help you capture invaluable data for inclusion in your donor database. If you missed either of those posts, I encourage you fo circle back and check them out!

Yesterday’s post got me thinking about social networks (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc). We all agree that these sites possess an unbelievable amount of free personal information about our donors. Yet, I see so many non-profit organizations struggling with social media.

I suspect that non-profit organizations are too thinly stretched and don’t dedicate enough time and resources to developing an effective social media strategy. I believe a little bit of time and lots of thoughtful strategy can go a long way towards getting donors engaged, which gets you closer to that FREE and invaluable donor data.

The following are just a few ideas that even cash strapped non-profit organizations can implement:

Get “friendly” online. You can’t just set-up your Facebook page, Twitter account or LinkedIn presence and expect people to find you and connect. Look over your donor list, identify your top few hundred donors, and actively ask them to connect.

Content is important. I’ve seen too many Facebook pages with little to no content, which begs the questions “Why did I like this page in the first place?” Perhaps, it might be worth your time to sit down over a cup of coffee and talk to 10 of your more active donors. Ask them what kind of information they’d like to see your non-profit post on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. I could rattle off all kinds of ideas today (e.g. pictures of your mission being brought to life, transparent sharing of program outcomes, etc), but none of what I say matters. What matters most is what the people who you want to join your social network want to see.

Engagement is king. Your agency needs to understand the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. Social media is not about shouting at the top of your virtual lungs various things about your agency on your social network pages. That was so Web 1.0. If you want your social media strategy to work, then you need to engage your donors in “conversations”. People don’t just cruise over to your Facebook page or Twitter feed to check out what you’re saying and posting. They get there because you’ve drawn them over with a shiny object. I’ve seen some non-profits do the following to build a following and engage donors:

  • Run a contest online. During a certain period of time, anyone who likes your page or follows you gets entered into a raffle and a chance to win something (e.g. iPod, iPhone, iPad, gift card, etc). It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does need to be fun and something people value. It could also focus on submission of something for judging (e.g. picture, essay, etc).
  • Ask for opinions. I’ve seen organizations poll their social media followers on a variety of issues. Those issues could even be operational in nature. For example, ask donors and supporters to help you name something. Or ask their opinions on adding a new program or expanding to a new site. This can be particularly effective because people love to be asked their opinion.
  • Become an advocate. How many online petitions being circulated by non-profit organizations have you signed in the last 6 months? I know I have signed at least four. This can be particularly effective because people love to be asked to get involved in ways that supplement their financial support. It is an easy way to help a donor feel involved. Besides, you’ll probably end up asking them to consider making an online contribution at the end of the petition process.

The bottom line for me is twofold:

  1. Donors are giving away valuable personal information about themselves online for FREE. It is worth investing a little time to engage them because you’re already trying to do it in other ways as part of your resource development program.
  2. Nothing associated with your social media presence will happen by accident. You need to put together a strategy and execute your plan (regardless of how simple it may be).

If you are looking for more in-depth ideas on Facebook best practices, I suggest you read what the good folks at DIOSA Communications  are suggesting.

What does your agency do to engage donors on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest? What metrics do you use to track your effectiveness in inspiring and engaging participation on your social network platforms? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Have you “Googled” yourself lately? You’d be amazed at what you find!

Fundraising, Mondays with Marissa, technology

How do people get to your website?  A lot of people are going to use a search engine to find a website. They simply type what they are looking for into a search bar. Most of the time, the website they are looking for is at the top of the list.

I say “most of the time” because there are instances where this is not true. The top result might be an article written by the local newspaper about your organization in which case your website might be listed second or even third. The order of search results when a user types the name of your organization into a search engine can tell you a lot about the quality of your website and interactions on social media sites.

Note: For the purpose of this post I will be talking about Google as the default search engine as it widely recognized as a leader in search.

Google is constantly changing and perfecting the algorithm they use to determine how pages are listed when a user searches for something. For example, recently they added “Search Plus Your World” which personalizes results based on your social network connections. The good news about this new feature is that you can help Google figure out how your site gets listed.

Before any of that can happen, you have to find out where your nonprofit agency currently stands in the rankings. Here’s how:

  • Make sure you’re signed out of your  Google account
  • Go to www.google.com
  • Type the name of your organization (or other search term associated with your mission) into the search box
  • Record the top ten results

What came up? Was your site first? Maybe it was your Facebook site. Or your Twitter feed. Maybe it was a Yelp review of an event you held. Was a third-party site listed where you were mentioned?

Make sure you pay attention to the order as they are listed in popularity. A study in 2011 found that the site listed at the top of the Google search results was clicked on 36% of the time. The site listed second was only clicked on 12.5%.  The tenth site on the list was only clicked on 2.2% of the time. If your site is not listed at the top of the page, you’re going to want to change that.

Now, how can you improve the Google results standings for your website?

  1.  Tell Google about it. Google wants to tell people about you, but first they need to know you exist. You can tell them by submitting your content. This will ensure that Google has your site in their index. In most cases they already do, but you want to make sure.
  2. Describe things in detail on your page. The crawlers that Google sends out to the internet can only read text. Every word on your page can be used in the algorithm to send a person to your page. If you have wonderful photo on your site that includes words, Google is not going to know about it. Make sure all photos have captions or use ALT text when posting a photo.
  3. Create quality content for your users. If you do this, people will want to visit your site again and again. This is the main basis of the rankings on the results page. Yes, putting words on your website that are associated with what you think a user might enter into a search engine to find your website will help people find your site once, but will it make people want to come back?

That’s it. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Just kidding! Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a huge business and a very complicated subject. For more information you can check out Google’s guidelines by clicking here.

Ok, so we’ve talked about what you can do for your agency’s website, but what about all of those other results. In a perfect world, I would like to see my organization’s website listed first followed by all of the associated social media sites.

How does that happen? Again, the key is to get people to visit your sites, and being active on your social media sites will do exactly that. Also, make sure that all of your social media sites are listed everywhere you can. The description section in most social media sites is a great place to list your other sites if you are not given any other options.

Implementing changes to ensure that your site is at the top of the results list can dramatically increase the number of people (aka prospective donors) that know about your organization. Schedule time to Google yourself from time-to-time and stay on top of it!

Non-profits can do without the Pepsi-Starbucks-Chase-Kohls voting thing

Fundraising, technology

Perhaps, you’ve had the same experience as I have had in the last few years . . . Your your favorite non-profit organizations ask you to please take a moment out of your busy day to “VOTE” for them in some for-profit company’s social media contest so that they might win “big bucks”. If so, then maybe the following describes your experience, too.

So, of course, I open a new browser window (possibly log into Facebook if that is where it is happening), migrate to the company’s voting page (e.g. the Pepsi Refresh Campaign), and start looking for instructions on how to help my favorite non-profit agency. In a flash, I’m being asked for personal information like my name, email address, waist size, hat size, and shoe size (yes, I am exaggerating, but am I really that far off???)

I close the browser and feel really good about doing something for my favorite charity. It didn’t even cost me a penny. Woo Hoo!!!

And then it happens . . .

The next day, the day after that, and the day after that . . . the charity keeps circling back to me with messages like:

  • We’re still behind in the voting and need you to do it again, AGAIN, a-g-a-i-n!!!!!
  • We need more help. Would you please post this opportunity on your Facebook page?
  • We still need more help. Would you please be proactive and ask everyone in your social network to get out there and vote for us.

UGH . . . Stop the insanity!!!!!!!!!!

This has gotten so bad in the last few years that it isn’t uncommon for me to be asked at least once per month by someone to do something like this. It is the Pepsi Refresh Project . . . American Express Members’ Project . . . Chase Community Giving. Currently, it is Starbuck’s “Vote.Give.Grow.” campaign.

This insane kind of corporate philanthropy has me so insane that I find myself doing crazy things like stealing table tents.

Yesterday, I met a friend at Starbucks, which is when I saw a table tent advertising the Vote.Give.Grow. campaign. I subtly looked about, grabbed the table tent, folded it in half and stuck it in my jacket. Why? I dunno . . . it was instinct, but I can tell you that I felt like I was striking a blow against “The Man” and trying to “Stop the insanity” in a very small way.

I told you . . . embarrassing behavior on my part! However, I think it speaks to something larger, which is why I’m blogging about it this morning.

A year ago, Forbes magazine wrote a story titled: “The Democratization Of Corporate Philanthropy“. In that article, they talked about the consequences of participating in a campaign like: “voter burnout and diverting resources” . However, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Engaging your donor base in such a way does nothing to advance your mission or message. All you are doing is advancing the corporation’s marketing interests because they now have your donor’s personal information.

I also suspect that asking your donors to do something they might find annoying or offensive is counterintuitive to good donor stewardship. Rather than making your donors feel good about their investment in your mission and showing them the ROI around their contribution, they see you doing non-mission related work and advancing a for-profit organization’s agenda.

Hey donors! I have a better idea. Let’s focus on donating our own money and stop trying to spend other people’s money. Sure, you probably have a lot less than millions of dollars to giveaway, but I am fairly sure you’ll feel better about yourself if you invest the same amount of time in researching your charity of choice and writing them a personal check.

Perhaps, fundraising professionals would be better served by investing their time in helping donors find a sense of “self actualization” rather than helping corporations advance their marketing objectives and build their profit margins.

Am I off base on this? Is anyone else as annoyed as I am about these kind of voting programs attached to corporate philanthropy? Perhaps, we should organize a social media campaign aimed at stealing table tents that advertise these kinds of corporate philanthropy voting programs?!?! If you’re equally agitated about this subject, please scroll down and use the comment box to share your experiences and feelings. Additionally, please weigh-in on what you think other consequences might be for non-profits who participate in these kind of programs.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Virtual Nonprofit Technology Fair

Fundraising, Mondays with Marissa, technology

This past week, I had a the pleasure of helping a friend at the National Science Teacher Association Convention. There were penguins, dissections, and lots and lots of technology.  Of course, while I was there I kept my eye out for new tech resources for nonprofits. Here’s my report from the a weekend of hanging out with science teachers.

Square is awesome!

My friend was there promoting a science review game he has created. We were selling his game at the booth and used Square to handle credit card transactions. I was excited to have the opportunity to use this credit card reader in the field after writing about it earlier this year. I can happily report that Square worked wonderfully.

Credit card transactions were handled quickly and securely. We were able to give the a receipt to the customer via email or via text message depending on what the customer wanted.  Square even allowed us to issue receipts for cash transactions.  This saved us time from having to write out a receipt that the customer might lose.

A few tips:

  • Hold your phone so that you can swipe the card vertically instead of horizontally. Sometimes, when we had the card reader horizontal, it took a few swipes to read the card. When the card reader was vertical, we hardly had any issues.
  • Use the description field to record information about the transaction. You might not have the opportunity to build an inventory (or list of donation amounts). So, use the description field to record as much info as you can.
  • Have all of your volunteers download the app onto their phone. We kept the Square reader in our cash box. This way anyone could grab it and use it if needed.

Chromebooks

I stopped by the Google booth to see what they had to offer. Did you know that there are laptops that run on Google? Well, they do! And they might be your non-profit organization’s best solution when it comes to buying computers for your employees.

Chromebooks are a little different from traditional laptops as they do not have hard drives – everything is stored in “the cloud”.  When using a Chromebook, everything is based in the browser. Documents can be written using Google Docs or Microsoft Office Web Apps. Calendars can be managed with Google Calendar.

We live our lives on the internet, sometimes you don’t need a computer with all the bells and whistles to be productive.

Beyond the change in software, the simplified hardware design means there is less need for technical support. For this reason alone, more institutions are switching to Chromebooks and providing them to their employees, according to the Google employee I spoke to. Besides, many people are now very familiar with Google products, so the switch appears to be an easy one for many people.

Finally, Chromebooks also are available with 3G connectivity to allow users to be connected no matter where they are.

Ting

Now Ting, wasn’t at the conference, but I wanted to throw them into the mix of new technology resources for nonprofits. Ting does cell phone service, but it does so just a little differently.

What Ting offers is a customizable month to month cell phone plan. You can choose the number of minutes, the number of text messages, and amount of data that you need. If you text more than you talk, then you can choose a plan with 6000 texts for $14, 100 minutes for $3, and 500 megabytes of data for $13. Ting will bill you $30/month. If you don’t use all of your minutes, texts or megabytes, you will be credited the difference next month.

How great is that?

Your agency might have some staff members that only need to get email on their phone, Ting can help you customize each plan to the employee. Check out their savings calculator to see how Ting would make a difference in your organization.

Gazelle

This last one is a quick one. What do you do with your gadgets after you upgrade to the newest model? Don’t sell it. Gazelle it.

Gazelle will buy your old technology and even send you the box you need to ship it to them. The great thing is that when people sell items to Gazelle they have a choice: 1) take the money from your sale and put it in your pocket or 2) donate the money to your favorite charity.

I hope you enjoyed our little Nonprofit Technology Fair. What new tech items are you using at your agency? Or which new item did you find interesting enough this morning to investigate more thoroughly and possibly incorporate into your agency’s technology plan?

The Importance of Archiving Social Media Data and How to Do So

Mondays with Marissa, technology

CTRL+S. File -> Save. We all do it when working in Microsoft Word, writing an email, or creating a spreadsheet. When we do, the work we create is saved on our hard drives for later reference.

When writing a tweet or updating a Facebook status most of us just write, press “post” and send it out into cyberspace; leaving no local copy. At the moment, it might not seem like an important thing do, but archiving your non-profit organization’s social media data should be part of your social media plan.

Why, you ask?

Historical Record – Most social media messaging is based around marketing of some sort. In the nonprofit world, our marketing is based upon sharing news, cultivating donors, and attracting event attendees. Wouldn’t it be helpful to be able to search a record of these messages to see if you can pick up on any successful trends that are worth repeating?

For example, imagine last year you tweeted about your annual pancake breakfast on every Tuesday preceding the event. As a result, your event registration went up on the first Tuesday, but you didn’t see the same numbers on the following days. Couldn’t this data help you decide how you’d like to tweet this year? Will you tweet once a week? Only on Tuesdays?

Lawsuits – Social media updates can be used in a court of law. For instance, if one of your employees posts something that slanders another organization or if one of your employees is named in a suit outside of the organization, you might want a copy of your social media records for your protection.

Regulations and Compliance – You may apply for and be awarded a grant that involves a requirement that you use social media. Having a copy of your data demonstrates compliance and can be shared with the funder. Furthermore, if your agency needs to comply with laws such as HIPAA, having your own copy of social media data can prove compliance.

Perhaps, the simplest answer to this question can be found during a discussion about your agency’s document retention policy. In this policy, your board of directors most likely spells out which paper documents (e.g. personnel files, financial statements, meeting notes, etc) need to be kept and for how long. Why should it be any different for data your organization publishes on the internet?

Now, you may be thinking, “Marissa, how the heck do I do this?” Don’t worry, I have some tools to make the job a little easier.

Backupify – This is a paid service, but the back-up of social media is automatic. Backupify covers Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and other Google apps such as Google Calendar and Google Docs.

ifttt.com – ifttt.com allows users to set up “if this – then that” tasks to create a custom data backup plan. For example, all tweets could be saved to Google Calendar for that the day they were originally posted. At the time of writing, iftt.com is free.

ThinkUp – ThinkUp is the most technical of the tools I’m suggesting, but it is the most robust out of the bunch.  ThinkUp is an application that needs to be installed on it’s own server before it can work. You can either talk to your IT department about installing it on your organization’s public server or you can install it for free using phpfog.com. ThinkUp not only archives your data, but it also analyzes it and tells you things that you might necessarily pick up otherwise. ThinkUp is even used by The White House to manage their social media data.

The current state of the web is in flux as the issue of an open or closed internet is debated more often. I suspect that the idea of archiving your agency’s social media data growing in importance. I have included a few more articles below for further reading on the subject to help you and your organization discuss how to do so.

Does your organization already have a plan to archive social media data? What tools do you use? Let’s talk more in comments!

Further Reading:
New York Times: Tools to Help Companies Manage Their Social Media
Mashable: 7 Ways to Rescue Your Curcial Social Media Data from Oblivion

Does your non-profit cell phone policy and apps violate clients’ privacy?

Mondays with Marissa, technology

Apps. There’s a ton of them. Need to track your most recent run? There’s an app for that. Want to keep track of your expenses? There’s an app for that. Need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the a movie and don’t want to miss out on any of the action? There’s an app for that.

We all know there are plenty of smart phone apps out there, but do we really understand what they do once they are downloaded onto your phone?

This past week, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Yelp and fourteen other social media sites were listed in a lawsuit for distributing “privacy-invading” applications. According to a PC World article, these applications are accused of collecting user address book data and storing it on their servers without the user knowing.

This issue is at the top of many minds in the technology field as just last month, the popular social network Path issued a public apology after it was discovered the company used address book data to notify users when their friends had joined the network.

So what does this mean for your non-profit agency? Well, not much if your agency doesn’t allow staff members to use data based applications on their phones. I am guessing though, that nowadays that is a rarity.

When I read stories like this, I often think of non-profit organizations that deal with HIPAA on a daily basis. Many of the employees may have access to company smart phones that allow employees to check in on email while away from the office. Or what if the agency doesn’t supply cell phones and staff members use their personal cell phones to update the organization’s Facebook page?

Phones are so smart these days that . . .

  • information from the email the staff person replied to,
  • the new Facebook friend that was just confirmed, and
  • the phone call that was just made

might be added to the phone’s address book and sent to third-party servers without the user even being aware.

In the case of the HIPAA abiding non-profit (and even those who wish to protect board member and donor information), there could be a violation without anyone’s knowledge.

Even if your agency doesn’t need to protect the identity of their clients, do you really want address book information being shared without your knowledge? These days, with security breaches more rampant, you can’t take privacy seriously enough.

So what can we do?

Decide if your organization really needs to use cell phones. Yes, it is nice for staff members, but is it necessary? Can you get by without them? A radical idea, but it just might be the right one.

If you decide that cell phones are needed, consider providing them only for “necessary staff” instead of allowing staff to use their personal phones. I know this costs money, however; it ensures more control over the use of the phone on behalf of the agency.

Also, consider what type of phone is needed. Does the user really need all of the bells and whistles of an iPhone or can she be as productive with an older generation Android device?

In addition, regardless if phones are being provided by the agency or not; a clear and strict technology policy must be in place and understood by all employees.

If staff members are provided smart phones, what applications can they use? If it is decided that apps can be downloaded to agency phones, then make sure the person overseeing the policy reads up on the privacy policies of the allowed apps. Most of them can be found online in either the iTunes App Store or Google Play Store. Keep in mind that these policies can change.

Audit your agency’s technology. If your organization currently allows staff members to use their personal phones, there is not much you can do other than make them aware of the issue of apps and how they can compromise your clients’ privacy. However, on phones provided by your agency, see if any of these applications are already downloaded and check out their settings to see if any sharing options can be turned off. When in doubt, hard reset the phone and start all over.

I will be the first to admit that managing the technology of business is not easy. And these privacy concerns do not make it any easier. However, until applications stop sharing information, taking the time to address these issues now could mean avoiding a sticky legal situations later.

I’d love to hear how your organization manages cell phone usage for staff members. Do privacy issues concern you? Let’s continue this discussion in the comment section below!

Kony 2012: How Viral Video Messaging Can Make an Impact

Mondays with Marissa, resource development, technology

Last Wednesday, I woke up to see the same video posted countless times on Facebook and Twitter. It was a 30 minute documentary about the leader of the Lords Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, and what he has done to the people of Uganda. This seemed strange to me because I can’t think of the last time I discussed the situation in Uganda with many of my friends. What was it that suddenly got a large number of people interested in what is happening on the other side of the world? So, I watched the video.

Video is a powerful medium that can be used to raise awareness about your mission. But how do you make a video that people want to share?

Make it personal

KONY 2012 starts off, talking about the world and how “humanity’s greatest desire is to belong and connect”.

Who cannot identify with that? We are all human. We all want to belong. In fact, the reason why I watched the video in the first place was because I wanted to belong to the community of people that knew what this video was about.

The movie continues with a home video from the birth of the director’s son. How much more personal can a person get? We all were born and some of you are parents. Because of that, this clip does wonders for connecting the audience to the cause and once the audience is connected. They are instantly more interested in what comes next.

How can you achieve this in your video? Go straight to the source. Talk to the people who are impacted by your organization. Show your audience how you make a  difference in both your client’s life as well as for the community.

Make it special

There are a couple of key points in KONY 2012 where the narrator lets the audience know they are special. He states, “99% of the world doesn’t even know who Joseph Kony is”. He is letting you in on a secret; giving you information a lot of other people don’t have. People love to feel like they know something that someone else doesn’t. This works to the filmmaker’s advantage because a lot of people wanted to tell their secret after watching the video.

You might not have a mission that is as unique as stopping a Ugandan warlord, but you can define a unique problem that needs solving and tell people about it.

As a nonprofit staff person, it is easy to think that everyone knows about your mission and what you are trying to achieve because you personally live and breathe it every day. But what about those who don’t?

What specific part of your mission do you want them to focus on in order to become more interested in your organization? What don’t they already know?

Make it urgent (and give directions)

KONY 2012 is titled KONY 2012 for a reason. The organization behind the film, Invisible Children, wants Joseph Kony arrested by the end of this year. That’s not a lot of time. They want you to get involved now. Invisible Children has organized an action day in April of 2012, which creates even more urgency for your involvement. The film gives the audience four specific actions they can take to get involved now — one of which is very simply is to share the video.

People want to help. You just have to tell them how they can. In my exerperience, people are more willing to do something if they are given clear and easy instruction (e.g. “share this video”)

One more observation . . . KONY 2012 is 30 minutes long. At the time of writing this post, it has received over 71 million views on YouTube. This is incredible since most videos that go viral are under four minutes long. Take the time to tell your story to build your community. If you connect with your audience, they’ll be sure to stick around. More importantly, they will want to share it with others.

Hopefully, you find my observations about KONY 2012 helpful as your non-profit investigates online video as a way to extend your social media messaging.  You might also want to check out YouTube’s Nonprofit Program.

Do you currently use videos in your social media messaging? If so, is it more for an awareness campaign or as a direct call for donations? What methods do you find to be the most successful? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!