Last Spring I had the opportunity to sit on a social media panel at the Phoenix Business Journal’s Annual Non-Profit Business Summit. After a strong Q&A from peers in the industry who were either eager to begin or expand on their own .org’s social media efforts, Jaime Casap of Google, proceeded to tell the lunchtime crowd of over 800 business professionals that Twitter was a just a “fad.” With the average age in the room pushing 45-50 years of age, Casap’s message was exactly what this crowd was waiting to hear. I left knowing that Phoenix nonprofit leaders had been handed a takeaway: online community building should be met with a certain degree of skepticism.So, when UMASS / Dartmouth Center’s nonprofit social media usage study was summarized on online last week, I was relieved to learn that the nation’s nonprofit leaders have, in fact, taken bold moves to collectively leverage social media. It’s not hard to see why 89% (up from 75% the previous year) of charities studied in 2008 make use of social media. After all, social media represents the well-established offline community outreach efforts so indicative of nonprofit organizations. But what really jumped out to me was the revelation that 45% claim social media is “very important” to their fundraising strategy – flat and slightly down from the 46% claim recorded in 2007.
- Nonprofits stifle themselves when it comes to changing their fundraising strategies. And why should they? Most organizations have been raising money the same way for decades, if not centuries. Simply posting a Facebook Cause page won’t replace the work of resource development (not to mention that Cause pages don’t work). Rather, nonprofits need to integrate social media into their current fundraising efforts – using the combined efforts of development, community outreach and marketing to open a two-way dialog with donors.
- Because nonprofit structure tends to favor both political and information silos, donor data can be disparate resulting in both substandard and redundant communications. Last year my wife and I donated to an organization that sent the exact same “thank you” letter to each of us individually no less than three times. This certainly made us wonder where our dollars were going. Wouldn’t it have be easier (and cheaper) to find us online?
- Nonprofits need to centralize their donor communications so they’re left in the hands of the professionals. IT and data management staff are not communicators, nor are they incentivized to communicate with donors. Today’s donors demand two-way dialog. No other medium is suited to do this more effectively than social media. Nonprofits should consider taking note of companies who are successfully utilizing social media as a customer service engagement tool – this recipe can work for them too.
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Great post Chris!
ReplyDeleteI think what the social media world has yet to communicate are simple ways nonprofit organizations can leverage online social media tools to support their fundraising efforts. Even with a grounding in both fundraising and social media, I am not even sure what the answer is!
Part of the problem is social media strategies are so customizable and agency specific. Another problem is social media is organic and when you "try" to do something, it usually doesn't work. Another problem is that social media users tend to value personal authenticity; people want to hear from people, not organizations and they don't want to be "sold" while using social media tools. This creates a roadblock for nonprofits using social media to fundraise. Finally, nonprofits generally don't understand fully what social media means and relegate it narrowly only to Facebook and Twitter, where it really can be so much more.
So, I think the social media world needs to better communicate best practices. A best practice might include getting your current donors and volunteers to promote your organization and it's funding drives through social media. Have it come from them instead of you. Another best practice would be to use social media tools to ask donors and volunteers what they think. Or better yet, to create a forum where donors, volunteers and recipients can all exchange ideas on how to improve the community.
The problem is, only one of those three "best practices" would actually be considered fundraising by nonprofits. Maybe the real issue is we need to redefine fundraising?
Awesome post Chris!
ReplyDeleteI have always worked with small nonprofit organizations - generally the kind with a 1-person development shop. In my very first position, as a 15 hour a week development director for a local agency with a $3 m budget, I needed to hit the ground running and cover a lot of bases.
One of the first things that I did was to establish relationships with the areas three local weekly newspapers, the daily paper, and the local community organizations - Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, etc.
Print media is dead or dying. In many respects I consider today's social media - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - to be an extension of that original work - a method of connecting, stewarding and bringing your organization's story to the general public.
Just as there was no measurable ROI on the work that I did with those newspapers (we eventually got a weekly column in one paper but I couldn't tell you how many donors it brought in), I don't know that you can effectively measure the ROI of social media.
But, isn't anything that's FREE and has the potential for spreading so much good (by merely telling your story and CONNECTING - with your donors and the general public) a GOOD thing?
I am old enough to remember the time when nonprofit organizations were arguing about whether or not they should have a website ...
Aaron and Pamela - Thank you so much for sharing your comments and thoughts. This blog is a work in progress and I appreciate your input, expertise and ideas. Social media definitely takes work, in fact, sweat equity, to generate momentum and begin to see a return. Without a doubt, there is no turnkey approach, no patented method of measurability. But if the idea that these are merely tools (link print, radio, etc.) can be embraced by nonprofits, I know great things can happen.
ReplyDeleteChris,
ReplyDeleteI think what nonprofit organizations are looking for are some good reasons why and some good ideas how to use social media. But, I think it needs to be simple for them - and it can be simple for them. I don't think every nonprofit should use social media unless they know how it aligns with their mission.
While there are online "authorities" like Beth Kanter's blog, I don't know that we have a local "authority" on how Metro Phoenix nonprofits should leverage social media. How can you use this blog to serve Arizona nonprofits as that "authority"?
What I see out there is the social media experts want to give all the information, all the details, of every social media. It becomes too complicated and too jargon laden, which scares people off. Keep it simple, right?
I like where you are going with this, keep working it!