Nonprofit Technology Consulting

Dennis Yu CEO BlitzLocal Even if you're bidding the maximum $1 price per click in your Google Grants account, odds are you aren't spending anywhere near the maximum. Here are six tips that can help you reach a bigger audience.

So you're excited that you've been approved for Google Grants: $10,000 a month of free ads! But then you find, if you're like most nonprofits, that you're spending only $1,000 a month, even if you're bidding the maximum $1 price per click. That's $9,000 worth of traffic you're leaving on the table.

Why is this the case and how do you fix it? Here are six things you can try right now.

If you've taken some risks with your organization's video work this year, great news: thanks to The Case Foundation, the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards will be adding a special category for "Fearless" videos. Here's the official announcement:

For six years now, the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards has been putting the spotlight on all the different ways that nonprofits use video. The contest is all about moving the field of nonprofit video forward and encouraging cause video creators to try new styles and strive to make their work different.

Different is just what The Case Foundation is looking for in this year's contest. Did you experiment? Take risks? Did you highlight a failure from your past that's helping shape the future? Share a big idea that will inspire others to dream big? Were you... Fearless? If so, the Case Foundation wants to reward your organization! This year, the Case Foundation is awarding one $2,500 grant to the organization with the most fearless video in each of the four categories, as selected by a panel of special judges.

Think of this special prize as an honorable mention to recognize those nonprofit video creators who aren’t afraid to deviate from the norm, use innovative approaches, and fearlessly tell compelling, honest stories that are from the heart rather than marketing talking points. Fearless video means taking risks for the sake of creating moving content that inspires the viewer. Nonprofits of all sizes are fearlessly making new and interesting video and we want to see more!

These special videos will be announced by See3 Communications and the Case Foundation at the end of the contest. There’s no better time than right now to enter your video to win great prizes like these special grants from the Case Foundation as well as cash prizes and products from Cisco, free registrations to next year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference from NTEN and your video on the YouTube homepage on April 5th. To enter the awards, just visit the contest website and submit your video.

Last year’s contest was a record setter with almost 1,400 submissions from over 800 nonprofit organizations and record breaking views on the website. It’s incredible to think of all the great work the participating organizations submitted. Check out those winners to get inspired.

So what are you waiting for? Enter today. Just log into your org's YouTube account and submit your best work from the past year.

Visit the official DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards homepage on YouTube.

TechSoup invites you or your organization to participate in the 2012 TechSoup Digital Storytelling Challenge! From online discussions and learning opportunities to excellent award donations, TSDigs has something for every organization. This challenge is open to all international social benefit organizations regardless of status or location, and your finished product is yours to keep and use! 

How to get involved:

• Submit a one-minute video or five-photo slideshow to win prizes! (Deadline: February 29 at 12:59 pm Pacific Standard Time.) 
• Encourage everyone you know to participate! Spread the word: www.tsdigs.org 
• Subscribe to our Google group to stay up to date on all of these exciting happenings 

Maybe you think you don’t have time to make a one-minute video? Think again! Remember that video is the content people are spending the most time with online these days, and digital stories are a powerful way to share the passion and hard work your organization puts toward your mission!

What’s your organization’s story? Share it now!

Here's last year's Digital Storytelling Challenge winner:

Flickr Photo by ESML

 

Note from Beth: This past year has been a deep exploration into how nonprofits can use measurement and reflection to improve their practices as a networked nonprofit and using social media.    As part of my work at the Packard Foundation,  I designed and facilitated several peer learning groups and exchanges.   It was a fantastic laboratory to explore the power of peer learning and the right mix.       One of the topics that constantly comes up is, “How do we stay on top of all this learning about technology when we don’t have time?”    I’ve been experimenting on how to do this with my peers so I can better understand how to design for this experience.     One of the participants, Meg Biallas, does this through her blog – using it to synthesize and share lessons learned.   She has also found that moderating panel discussions with peers useful for learning as well.    She agreed to write this post about what she learned from a panel presentation she and other nonprofit social media professionals gave at the Social Media Week in DC – several of whom have presented or participated at one of the Packard Foundation OE Program Peer Learning Exchanges I facilitated.

Reporting Social To Stakeholders: Guest Post by Meg Biallis

This week I moderated a panel of nonprofit professionals as part of Social Media Week DC. But it wasn’t just another “Facebook 101” or a chance to pontificate about Pinterest. These professionals came to talk about standardizing the reporting process – about integrating social media results into the traditional reporting procedure.

Here are the key takeaways from a discussion with Danielle Brigida (National Wildlife Federation), Carie Lewis (The Humane Society of the United States), Alison Carlman (Global Giving) and Alison McQuade (EMILY’s List).

Influence the decision makers.

Help leadership understand the impact of social media by turning them into users. This allows them to see, first-hand, the impact of social media communication.

Carie Lewis explained that the Humane Society worked often and early to build buy-in: “We wanted the upper management to speak the social language, we wanted to get them online. Sometimes our president tweets more than the organization!”

How does the leadership views social media? Does it have a history of trying new things? Carlman explained that Global Giving’s leadership was already web-savvy, so implementing social media was a no-brainer However, Carlman needed to do more convincing with organizations in previous roles.

Find someone who will go to bat for you. Lewis explained that one of the Humane Society’s board members used to work at AOL. “His digital background is great, and he’s really become like a mentor to me.”

Metrics should match the mission and goals.

Your metrics depend on your ultimate goal. For example, the Humane Society uses social media primarily for customer service, while Global Giving uses it to drive fundraising. Quantify what you’re looking for. Do you want 2,000 signatures? Do you need to raise $50,000 for a pledge drive? If that’s your goal, then demonstrate in your reporting how Facebook helped you achieve it.

Both Lewis and McQuade pointed out that they don’t measure direct number of likes, though sometimes stakeholders like to hear about impressive milestones (“We just reached 10,000 fans!”). McQuade encouraged other nonprofits to take some time to understand EdgeRank to find out who’s actually seeing your content.  That can help inform the content you post going forward. (This process is also called “After Action Reviews”).

Report regularly and you will be rewarded.

Brigida said there are two benefits of reporting metrics. First, by showing growth, you can advocate for more resources.

The Humane Society actually used Facebook to raise money for an additional staffperson – and they got one!

But secondly, reporting helps you learn how to do your job better. “There’s a lot to learn from your online community,” said Carlman. “We capture important conversations, and figure out how we can better communicate with our donors.”

Learning was key for Brigida at NWF. “We started examining where our mobile traffic was coming from, and found that a good amount was going to the kids section of our site. That gave us the idea to create youth-specific iPad apps.”

Final thoughts from the panelists: Social CRM, gatekeepers, and learning in public.

Brigida: “Social CRM is the future. I would be happy if we could connect publicly available data with our internal membership databases.”

Lewis: “Social media is everyone’s job, but you need one person to be the gatekeeper.  We do quarterly privacy trainings for our more than 100 administrators who manage our affiliated social media accounts.”

McQuade: “It’s possible there may be no way to standardize these processes. Sometimes it feels like there is no standardization in nonprofits at all. But the important thing is to be responsive, to be available. That’s just part of having good donor relations.”

Carlman: “Report on learning. Be okay with telling stories of failure. When testing out new social platforms, take some time to experiment and do it well before giving up on it.“

What’s your first step to standardizing social media? What’s one thing you can do help your management and stakeholders begin to embrace social?

Meg Biallas is a Communications Associate with Fight Crime: Invest in Kids in Washington, D.C. She blogs about social media  on herpersonal blog, Meg Goes To Washington. ). This post was originally published here.

Frank Barry Director, Professional Services Blackbaud What's the thing that separates the top 1% social fundraisers from the rest of the pack, and how can any nonprofit, large or small, put big numbers on the board? 

According to a study by Blackbaud, NTEN and Common Knowledge, over 92% of nonprofit organizations have a presence on at least one social networking site, but most raise very little money through their social activity.

In fact, 87% have raised under $1000 on Facebook since they began using the platform.

A big part of what holds nonprofit organizations back is the fact that they can't risk full-fledged social media adoption because they're short staffed must focus on creating revenue and running programs (as in helping real people in the real world).

The best part of the NTC? THE PEOPLE!

If you've ever been to a Nonprofit Technology Conference, you know there's something amazing about all the people you meet - the opinions, stories, and experiences they share. It's the diversity of our community that makes us strong.

That's why we work so hard every year to raise $10,000 to send staff from small nonprofits to the show. This year, as they have for the last few years, Convio is matching those funds dollar for dollar, so that we can send 50 folks who would not otherwise be able to attend.

And when you donate you'll get a vote - a vote on which pop song the NTEN staff will rewrite and perform at the NTC.

There are just about 2 weeks left in the campaign, and we clearly need your help. For the last few weeks, we've tried everything we can think of. I tried my hand at busking, we mined for bitcoin, we've raided our penguin's piggy banks – all to no avail.

This week, Brendan learned that as good an idea as it may seem, you just can't raise money in World of Warcraft.

Links to original infographic

This post covers some simple techniques to give your fans the content they want most and inspire more engagement.     Many times we’re on the hunt for the tips of what to do and when we find them, we just implement them.  But how do you know if those tips are producing results?    To get more impact, you need to do some measurement to help you continuously improve and get more ideas about what to try next.     This posts offers some tips on how to use measurement to share content on Facebook that your fans really, really want.     You’ll enjoy more visibility, more interaction, and more conversions.

I found this wonderful infographic that takes you through the process of setting goals, making them measurable, picking your metrics, and making decisions based on your data.  What caught my eye was that last step of looking at your data and figuring out if you have met your goal.      The infographic offers a yes/no decision tree that I think is an excellent analysis framework that can lead to improvement.

Facebook analytics programs like Insights, Edgerank Checker, and Simply Measured free reports give you tons of data points.  I only look at these:

Reach
Virility
Content Analysis of Comments on post and shares

I look at these on a per post basis.   I also pay attention to and test these variables:  Time of Day, Day of Week,  Content Type

Here’s some tips on providing powerful content for your Facebook channel that you can improve with measurement.

1.   Timely, Relevant, and Quality Content: I have found that using the technique of  ”news jacking” or piggy backing on breaking news that is relevant to your audience and giving it your spin, inspires more comments and shares.    For example, when I shared this cartoon about PR disasters during the Komen’s flap, received a high number of shares and comments compared to other content post in the last month.      I’ve learned by tracking my content against metrics that relevancy rules – and sharing relevant links with conversation starters produces interaction.

2.   A Picture Can Inspire Many Shares or Comments: Again the visuals have to be relevant to your audience.    I also know from tracking my metrics against content for years now that my Facebook audience responses to easily digestible practical information, especially tips expressed visually or relevant humor.     For example, this post illustrating some simple privacy tips received a high number of post shares and comments.    This post, testing the concept that babies and cute animal photos get shared more often, received a high number of likes and no shares.

3.    Variety of Content Adds Spice To Your Page: Want to claim a space in your fans’  News Feeds?    Vary the content you post.  Facebook’s Edgerrank, the score that determines what content gets into users newsfeeds, rewards variety.    Don’t just post links all the time.   Make sure your posts vary and include  photos, videos, polls, status updates, questions, and links.     When I’m sketching out my editorial plan for the month, I column for “type” to make sure I don’t get stuck in a content type rut.    I also look at the analytics for engagement by content type per post.

4.    Consistency is Not the Hobgoblin of Small Minds: Research has shown that if you have a consistent posting schedule of high quality content that your audience wants, they will come to you.      Dan Zarrella’s research suggests posting every other day is is optimal.   This is a general rule of thumb that you should test and adapt for your audience.    Watch for signs in your metrics that you’re posting too frequently.   I use this rule:  I don’t ever post content for the sake of posting content and if there is breaking news that I know from past data that my audience will love, I post more often.

Having a regular theme each week is also useful.    I discovered this by doing a content analysis on comments.   I posted this fun, but practical link to social media icons on a Friday.   In the comments, someone shared it with their network calling it a “Fun Friday Geeky Share.”   I started a regular post on Fridays to share a “Fun, Friday Geeky Share‘ which gets a high number of shares, likes, and comments.

5.   Short and Sweet: Research shows that posts of 80 characters long perform well.     But don’t be a slave to this rule.    As Mari Smith points out in her post about encouraging more shares, now that Facebook increased the maximum update size from 420 characters to 5,000 characters, experiment with “mini-blog post” as long as the content is timely, relevant and helpful, you stand a greater chance of getting lots of shares.

6.   Experiment With Timing: There are several research studies that look at averages for page likes and comments and have suggested that weekends and evenings are optimal times for posting – perhaps because there is less clutter in the newsfeed.   My takeaway is to make sure that I am posting when my audience is there to engage, not when it is convenient for me.    Again you need to test.     When I experimented on posting on Saturday,  I got the most ever shares on this post – but it is hard to say whether the timing was the critical factor or because it was a visual with practical information.

7.     Include a call to action: share, like, comment:    Many nonprofits have discovered that a simple, clear call to action to share some content results in their fans sharing content.  Of course,  the content itself has to be timely, high quality, and relevant.

8.     Celebrate milestones, share good news: Audiences love to celebrate victories no matter how small.     My Facebook Page recently welcomed its 10,000th Fan, so I posted an update to celebrate and thank everyone.   It generated a higher number of likes than other posts.

9.     Always be commenting: I had the pleasure of hearing Guy Kawasaki speak about his book “Enchantment” and one of his tips was “Always be commenting” was a big takeaway for me that I have tested and tested.  It works.   I always post content as my page administrator, but then I comment in the thread as an individual.   I don’t have to respond in real-time to comments, but part of my work flow is to respond to comments in batches in two ten minute spurts a day.    I use Nutshell Mail to make it manageable.

10.   Repeat proven stuff:    I don’t do cut and paste repeats.  I look for themes that work and repeat those.   If I repeat the same content,  I try to do it slightly differently – like just a visual versus the link.

The most important practice is the sense-making of comparing my content to metrics and getting ideas of what to test next.

What have you learned about what works best in using metrics to give your audience the content they want?

 

 

 

Jenn Howard Director of Technology Kids In Need Foundation Technology is an integral part of your communications process, even before your missives make it out the door.

The idea for a great campaign can start anywhere within your organization, but it will still pass through the same hands on its way to the donor, through a similar process every time.

Whether it's a complex, multichannel campaign or just a simple awareness touch via email, the idea has to be fleshed out, content created, maybe some shiny graphics put in place (#squirrel). Finally the piece is reviewed, edited, and approved before it’s time to hit the send button.

Technology is an integral part of that entire process, even before your missive makes it out the door.

You won't find many people saying that direct mail appeals are going away anytime soon – and for good reason. They're not. Email isn't going anywhere, either.

But we are hearing more and more that social media is the future of nonprofit fundraising.

And it's important to plan for the future. Where would nonprofit fundraising be if the postal service didn't deliver hundreds of millions of letters every day for a pittance? What if that went away? And what's going to happen to email when the Millennial generation becomes a big part of your donor base. They may not be using email.

Time to get ahead of the curve! Join Filiberto Gonzalez at our upcoming webinar, "Social Fundraising 2.0", for a look at the latest data, tools, and case studies.

> Learn more and register today!

We'll cover:

• Social media by the numbers: Who uses social media and how does it related to them
• Examples of nonprofits which successfully fundraised through social media
• How to develop a fundraising strategy that fully leverages the power of social media

This week my brand page on Facebook, Beth’s Blog Facebook Page, reached 10,000 fans when Kim Murray clicked the “like” button.      Inspired by the Humane Society celebration of reaching one million fans,  I couldn’t let benchmark go by without some commentary.    While numbers of fans isn’t the most important metric,  it is a milestone nonetheless.     My Facebook Page has been an important listening post to learn about what nonprofits are thinking and saying about social media.     My metric for success is that the dialogue inspires at least once insightful blog post per month and it has certainly over delivered.

What better to celebrate than with an interview with Kim Murray who became the 10,000th fan. .

1.   Tell us about yourself!

My name is Kim Murray. I’m a writer – currently working on a novel that explores the dangers of too much science/technology, especially in the realm of extreme religious fundamentalism. I don’t work with nonprofits currently; however I do have a project that I’m working on that will eventually (ideally) turn into one.

2.  How did you discover my FB page?

I attended a local unconference for nonprofits about two years ago with the intention of learning how I, as a blogger, could help local nonprofits… you & your blog were mentioned several times. I went home and immediately included your blog on my Google Reader, but somehow only just now got to clicking on your FB page.

3.   I noticed that you have been blogging for a couple of years.  How and why did you get started?  Any words of wisdom about blogging?

I started back in 2005, I’d graduated from college but hadn’t yet found a job. At the time, my husband was in medical school and I was going insane trying to keep myself occupied, so I started writing. I started my current blog in 2008 just after I gave birth to my first daughter. Words of wisdom about blogging? Know why you’re blogging and be real. There’s nothing uglier than a blogger with a sense of entitlement.

4.  I noticed that you had a badge to Share Our Strength on your blog.  Why is this cause important to you?

The fact that 1 in 4 children in the U.S. (the UNITED STATES !!!! – multiple exclamation point worthy) live in food insecure households just kills me! When I taught high school English, I saw first-hand the negative effects of hunger on children in school. I used to buy bags of Egg McMuffins on my way to work and, before school started, I’d hand them out to kids who stopped by my classroom.

5.  You call yourself activist, what are some causes or ideas that you are standing up for?

Just recently I’ve joined the MissRepresentation.org social action campaign as a local representative. Together with Girls Inc. of San Antonio, I’m organizing the very first meeting of MissRepresentation Social Action Reps in San Antonio to help champion for change locally in the way that media portrays women.

Thanks Kim and the 9999 other folks who liked my Facebook Page.   I learn something new from you everyday!

 

Rob Wu Founder CauseVox Everyone knows when they hear, watch, or read a good story. We know how to identify one, but how do you create one?

Stories are powerful. From the beginning of humanity, stories have been how we make sense of the world, share wisdom, and explain our existence.

Storytelling is the most powerful tool nonprofits have at their disposal. All good stories engage audiences, influence their behavior, and inspire them to share the emotion felt from the story. It’s used to start movements and create social change.

Everyone knows when they hear, watch, or read a good story. We know how to identify one, but how do you create one?

I was diligently working in the NTEN bullpen, answering phone calls from Nonprofit Technology Conference registrants, when I heard a tap tap tap from under my desk. The penguins were communicating in morse code to send this urgent message:

SOS! SOS! NTEN is subjecting us to unspeakable treatment. They have forced us to listen to NTEN staffers singing show-tunes, brought in Ninjas to limber us up – and are feeding us nothing but cupcakes!

A donation to the 2012 NTC Scholarship Campaign will not only ensure our safe release into the wild (and the return of our piggy banks), it will make our captors eat some delicious humble pie: with each donation, you'll receive a vote on which song the NTEN staff must sing, in public, at the conference. Have you heard Anna sing? We have. Did we mention the unspeakable treatment?

Yes, if you donate three times, you get three votes!

SOS! Release the Penguins! Send 50 nonprofits to the NTC! SOS!

We kicked off Valentine's Day a bit early yesterday, with a post about how much we all love the Nonprofit Technology Conference. In fact, we love it so much, the NTEN staff will send top-secret valentines to anyone who registers today. All you have to do is register before midnight tonight, and we'll take care of the rest.

Register for the 2012 NTC >>

If you can't register today, make sure you do it before Friday, when our NTC registration rates increase.

Since we don't like to make anyone wait for the nptech love, we've asked some of our 2012 NTC speakers to send in video valentines telling us why they love the NTC.  Check them out and add your own video telling us why you love the NTC. Just tag it #luvnptech.

Lucy Midelfort, 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks: Am I Normal?, #12NTCBench

 

Ehren Foss, Prepping Your Progarm for the Pro Bono Tech Volunteer, #12NTCprobono

 

Erica Mills, From Silo'd to Syncro'd: Merging Indvidual Program MEssages & Marching Under Your Organizational Banner, #12NTCsynchro

 

Evan Bailyn, How to Funnify Your Non-Profit and Open the Doors to a Massive Audience, #12NTCFun

 

Laura Norvig, Building & Supporting Drupal Websites: In-House, Outhouse, or Both?, #12NTCinout

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I Love Social Media Measurement

View more presentations from Beth Kanter

Yesterday, I had the honor of kicking off Compasspoint’s Webinar Week, with a webinar on social media measurement 101 as part of my work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.     To mark Valentine’s Day, I took some inspiration from Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the vintage Valentine’s Day Cards pinterest board to create a presentation about social media measurement love.   I tested out the five phases of falling in love with measurement.    Given the topic was measurement,  I couldn’t help but go a little meta and play with incorporating learning analytics into the instruction.    This blog post shares some insights about those two somewhat disconnected ideas.

The Five Stages of  Social Media Measurement Love

It is always important to look at the challenges of adoption of improving organizational processes or individual skills, especially if they are new.    It should always accompany the tips and how tos.   That’s why I always start a webinar with a framework for learners to assess where they are and what change is needed (if anything) to embrace a new way of doing something.     I presented the five stages of falling in love with measurement.  These are:

1.  Denial: You can’t measure social media!
2.  Fear: What if we find out our social media didn’t perform well!
3.  Confusion: I don’t know what or how to measure social media.
4.  Delight: Check out these charts and graphs!
5.  Measurement Love: Connecting measurement to decision-making and getting better results

I did a quick user poll for folks to self-asses where they are and then we had a quick discussion in the chat to unpack what each stage looks like and what’s needed to get to the next stage.      I was surprised to hear from participants that while they have the practice of measuring other programs, they don’t know how to approach measuring social media.      The “fear” stage seems to also go hand in hand with fearing social media in general. Said one participant,  ”We are in the fear stage because our senior leaders fear social media and we’re not sure we get results with social media.”     Many admitted to being in the “delight” stage – that collect data but don’t know how to make sense of it.    Those that found themselves at measurement love – using data for decision-making said that it goes hand-in-hand with their organization’s learning culture.

Learning Analytics

I came across the term “Learning Analytics” in an NPR story about the effectiveness of college lectures and ways to make learning more interactive.      There are different definitions.   Elearning space defines it as: “Use of intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections, and to predict and advise on learning.” I took the very simple approach of thinking of it as a data that can help you see the correlation between learning activities and learning outcomes.

The outcome for this webinar was:   To leave the webinar ready to take one small step towards improving social media measurement practice.

To do that, participants have to be able to implement that step without being encumbered by the denial, fear, confusion, or delight stages.      I took several polls throughout the webinar asking them about their relationship with measurement.  Specifically, I wanted to see if the needle moved from hate to love.      If I look at the pre and post tests, the “love” measurement increased.

 

I also used this poll after different sections of content.     The polling after the section of content about how to make goals measurable showed that the needled moved slightly in the other direction, towards hating measurement.  A follow up question revealed that a big challenge is making goals measurable.       This gives me some more insight about how to make teaching this concept more accessible.

This was just a first experiment in trying to use the concept of learning analytics to help improve instructional design.    It is something I want to explore in more depth – I know that I’m probably not asking the right questions or perhaps not stating them in the right way.    The next step is to formulate questions that relate to the content not learner attitudes.

Bonus:  Spreadsheet Appreciation

One of the most important measurement tools for nonprofits is the spreadsheet.     In this post, Mashable reviews five free awesome social media spreadsheets.   I tested each one.   The one I found most useful was #3 because it could be an easy way to compare or benchmark with other organizations.  However, the use of a pie chart is a little meaningless – I would change to a bar chart.

Do you think that understanding learner’s attitudes and their organizational context is important when designing instruction on new ways for nonprofits to work?    Do you think using learning analytics is of value to helping you improve instructional design?     Have you used learning analytics?   Please leave a comment.

 

 

 

J. D. Lasica Founder Socialbrite A social media strategy should support the overall organization, not just a single department. It is your blueprint, the animating force that connects goals to actions.

How many nonprofits do you know that have incorporated social as part of their overall strategy, or even their communications strategy? Let's go further: How many nonprofits really have a strategy?

Apart from the largest nonprofits, the list is painfully small. That’s too bad, because here's what happens when strategy is not at the heart of your organization’s actions: on a good day, you bounce around from putting out one brushfire after another. On a bad day, the fire wins.

Sound familiar?

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