1. Foundation Center - Some topics include an overview of the funding research process for individuals working in the arts, including visual and performing artists, creative writers, filmmakers, etc. and an introduction to the world of corporate support and to the effective utilization of the Foundation Center’s resources on corporate giving.

2. NTen – Topics include “Become a Facebook Rockstar” and “The Constituent Pyramid – Using Social Media To Convert Followers Into Supporters.”

3. Network for Good - A free training series on nonprofit marketing and online fundraising, supported by Network for Good and guest speakers.

4. Idealist - According to their web site, these webinars are “designed to help career service professionals understand and speak to the unique issues around the nonprofit career search.”

5. VolunteerMatch – This site’s Learning Center includes introductory and advanced nonprofit webinars from best practs for recruiting online to engaging pro bono and skilled volunteers.

6. TechSoup - These online seminars help to make technology make sense for nonprofits. Topics include online video, mobile technology for advocacy and activism and creating effective surveys.

7. GuideStar - This nonprofit reporting company offers a broad range of topics suitable for nonprofits and professionals who work with or provide services to the sector, some related to their site and services and other more general topics.

8. Wild Apricot – This software company produces quality content and webinars for nonprofits, both sessions to introduce their membership management tools as well as broader topics such as “Competing with Social Networks: Recruiting Members in the Facebook Age.”

When it comes to convenient and affordable learning opportunities, clearly webinars are a viable option for anyone involved in the nonprofit sector.

What webinars do you recommend for nonprofits?

This post is part of a series of posts I’m writing to help demystify social media tools and to give nonprofit organizations concrete steps they can take to use these tools to enhance their communications; better engage their constituents (and donors, and volunteers); and build their brand in new ways to new audiences.

What is a Facebook Page?

Because The Foraker Group is an organization, we’ve set up a presence on Facebook – the most popular social network on the Internet – using a Facebook Page. A Page on Facebook is different from a Profile which you as an individual might have as a Facebook member. Pages are for companies, organizations, products, celebrities and other entities or individuals wanting a more professional presence on Facebook.

Some organizations – including many in Alaska – have set up Profiles instead of Pages. They may have done this a year or so ago when Pages weren’t as prevalent, and they have probably built a large friends list over time. Unfortunately, if an organization has a Facebook Profile instead of a Facebook Page, they are at risk of losing the content and contacts they’ve accumulated because they are in violation of Faceboook’s Terms of Service i.e. the fine print in your Facebook user agreement. Facebook regularly disables Facebook Profiles that they deem a violation of their rules.

You can immediately tell the difference between a Facebook Page and a Facebook Profile because Pages have Fans while Profiles have Friends.

An important difference between a Facebook Page and a Facebook Profile is that a Page is publicly accessible to people who are not members of Facebook so it becomes a powerful Web presence for your organization that shows up in Google Searches. Facebook Profiles are only accessible by your Facebook Friends which means someone must be a member of Facebook and then send you a Friend request (which you must accept) in order to interact with your organization through your Profie.

Benefits of Using Facebook Pages

How can your organization benefit from a Facebook Page? Many nonprofits are limited in budgets and resources for outreach to constituents, donors, the media and the public. While a web site can serve as an effective destination for an organization, many people these days consider web sites as places for background and archived information rather than an active and dynamic communications tool.

Also the money and time costs of designing, building and maintaining a web site can be a burden, particularly if an organization’s site was not designed with an easy-to-use content management system. Many nonprofit organizations are saddled with outdated web sites where they are at the mercy of Web developers for even the most simple updates.

Other organizations use their web sites as repositories of information, for a list of services, to house a calendar of events, but when it comes to outreach, they are relying on an electronic newsletter – or even a print newsletter – to get the word out about their organization and important events. These days, a web site by nature is too static – and often too overloaded with information – to serve as a consistent outreach tool for shorter, more frequent messages.

While a blog is a useful tool to publish content more frequently, a blog can also be a burden on an organization’s resources if they aren’t equipped to publish content on a very regular basis.

A Facebook Page doesn’t demand the same kind of content publishing and is instead a more conversational resource where shorter bits of information – usually with a link to additional information – is the norm.

Using a Facebook Page Effectively

At the very minimum, here are a few things you should do with your Facebook Page:

1. Connect your blog to Page. If you have one, add your blog’s RSS feed URL to the Notes section of your Facebook Page so when you post to your blog, it automatically updates your Page.

2. Add Facebook Events. If you hold events, particularly regularly occuring events, you can use the Facebook Events feature to augment your Page. The Events tool integrates with your Page, and you can use it to spread the word about classes, meetings, etc. using a tool that makes it easy for others to invite their own Facebook friends to your event.

3. Link to Resources. While Status Updates can be intimidating for some people, updating your Facebook Page doesn’t have to be hard. Connecting your blog updates your Page status as does adding new events. You can also post links to relevant resources including those on your organization’s web site as well as others on the Web.

4. Respond to Comments. As you gather more Fans on your Page, people may start commenting on your Status Updates. A quick response is always appreciated and helps strengthen relationships. Your response doesn’t have to be long – just an answer to a question or acknowledgement of what they’ve said. While it is important to interact with your Page Fans, don’t feel obligated to respond to every single comment, but don’t ignore them all either.

5. Favorite Like-Minded Organizations’ Pages. If you are visiting another Alaska nonprofit or company Page that you think might be relevant to your own Facebook Fans, you can click on the link on the upper left side of their Page and choose Add This Page to My Page’s Favorites. Then add their Page to your Page. This will appear in a box on the left side of your Facebook Page Wall with their logo and a link to their Page. It is appropriate to ask them to Favorite your Page back, however, reciprocity is not an obligation here.

Facebook Pages are easy to set up and easier to maintain than a web site or blog. They also give you a direct communications channel to the people who you serve or who you want to reach with important messages about your organization. And when one person interacts with your Facebook Page, that action can be seen by dozens or even hundreds of their Facebook Friends giving your organization an instant and exponential reach beyond your own contacts.

Does your organization have a Facebook Page? If so, please include a link to it here so we can visit it!

Nonprofit organizations are discovering the power of social media, some faster than others. There was recently a lot of backlash over a post by Seth Godin titled The problem with non.

For many people, his words seemed unfair when he said that many nonprofits use excuses like “lack of resources” or a seemingly inherent “resistance to change” attitude to avoid social media. I have to say I agree with most of what he said, first because I experience what he has experienced every day as a speaker, teacher, and consultant to nonprofit organizations. And second, because even if you disagree, this conversation must happen again and again until things change for the better.

While I agree with most of what Seth says in his post, I don’t agree with this statement:

Of course, some folks, like charity: water are stepping into the void and raising millions of dollars as a result. They’re not necessarily a better cause, they’re just more passionate about making change.

Seth, it isn’t MORE PASSION that makes a group like charity: water effective at stepping into the void. It is because they more fully embrace the changes in the ways we communicate. I’m sure nobody at charity: water will claim more passion for their cause than folks busting their tails for other good causes. I’m sure everybody at charity: water will say their buy-in to understand, use and leverage social media tools and the new ways we all communicate made a huge difference.

For the record, on a near daily basis I hear these things from people working in the nonprofit sector:

11 Reasons Nonprofits Give For Not Using Social Media

1. I don’t understand it.

2. I don’t have time.

3. We don’t have the resources.

4. We don’t even know where to start.

5. It’s overwhelming.

6. I can’t figure out how to use it for my organization.

7. There are legal issues we can’t sort out.

8. I don’t know how to avoid the “crazies.”

9. Our firewall won’t let us use these tools.

10. We’re still trying to figure out how to update our web site.

11. We are afraid our employees will waste time with these tools.

Personally, I have solid, reasonable, practical tips to overcome each of the above (which will be an upcoming blog post).

Back to Seth Godin’s post. I whole heartedly agree with this statement:

The marketing world has changed completely. So has the environment for philanthropic giving. So have the attitudes of a new generation of philanthropists. But if you look at the biggest charities in the country, you couldn’t tell. Because they’re ‘non’ first, change second.

Anyone involved with a nonprofit or any consultant working with a nonprofit who DISAGREES with the above – i.e. the fact that many nonprofits are ‘non’ first, change second -  consider yourself LUCKY to be working in an environment where the fear of change does not dominate, especially of changing and new technologies.

For those of us who are not so lucky – meaning we witness this fear day after day – it is up to us to be the teachers. Evangelizing social media, no matter how passionate, can fall on deaf ears when others are listening through a filter of fear. We need to step back, dial down our enthusiasm for a moment, hold someone’s hand (figuratively and in some cases literally), and present sensible and rational reasons WHY and HOW a nonprofit can use social media regardless of resource limits and regardless of fear.

Channel the fear you encounter from others into something more like caution so that they at least try something; dipping a toe in a pool before they swim in an ocean.

It is up to us to lead the way. If nonprofits – organizations charged with good work for good causes – are behind when it comes to social media, it is OUR FAULTS.

What are YOU doing to help nonprofit organizations get up to speed with today’s technologies and communications tools?

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• Can Small Nonprofits Reap Success With Social Media? (Giving away a copy of Twitter for Dummies) (beth.typepad.com)
• NTEN’s Ask the Expert With Seth Godin: My Notes and Takeaways (beth.typepad.com)

Should nonprofit organizations use social media? Why? How?

Listen to Social Media Goodness.

Would love to know your thoughts!

This is geared toward nonprofit organizations & do-gooders wanting to learn how to use social media marketing for social good.

Will define terminology, explain tools, give brief case studies, etc. and hope it is helpful!

Listen to Social Media Goodness.

I do, however, have some bones to pick about their discussions.

First, they don’t seem to vary their experts. What I found from the initial discussion on the topic of social media that I attended in November was that their guests – Chris Garrett, author of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, and John Haydon, a sales consultant and author of Twitter Jump Start: The Complete Guide for Small Nonprofits – don’t seem to have well-rounded backgrounds in social media. I took issue with much of their advice the first time around although they also did provide some good advice intermittently.

So I was surprised that they brought on the same experts for a second round rather than bringing in some fresh voices and perspectives. Maybe they thought they were offering continuity to their readers, however, what really concerns me is that the nonprofit world could and should be benefiting from advice from the top minds of social media – all of whom are willing to participate and provide their expertise – and yet through The Chronicle of Philanthropy, nonprofits are limited to two perspectives, both of which are more narrow in scope.

To be more specific, here are some things that were said in their February discussion that I think provide limiting – or insufficient – information to nonprofits:

Question from Kevin Johnson, NCC:
How does a small non-profit effectively use FB, etc. without spending all day on those sites?

Chris Garrett:
I advise to set aside a number of hours in the week and stick to it. For example I only check in on FB once or twice a week for a maximum of 10mins a time because I just don’t get as much value from it, whereas being in my home office rather than surrounded by colleagues, I will be on Twitter several times a day, mainly during my coffee breaks (which can be numerous!) as a kind of water cooler replacement.

If you limit your time and know what you want to achieve, while monitoring results, then you can stop the time suck quite effectively.

MY ISSUE: First, I’d never call monitoring the interactivity and results of your Facebook or social media initiatives a “time suck” – yes, it takes time, however, as we begin to realize the exponential power of social media to augment our nonprofit campaigns, it is more of a time commitment that must be made on a regular basis to maintain this valuable tool. Do we call composing and sending out press releases time sucks? Or crafting our newsletters? I just think it diminishes the value of social media by referring to its maintenance in this way.

MY ADVICE: I think that it is unrealistic to tell a nonprofit that 10 minutes once or twice a week on Facebook is sufficient or advisable. If a nonprofit organization is just getting started, their monitoring load will be small, but they should check in daily. Set aside 5 minutes a day to review your social media assets. If you only have Facebook, that five minutes may be much shorter or can be put to good use posting something of value to your Facebook Page after accepting suitable friend requests and responding to any Facebook messages. This is not wasted time. Just be strategic about the time you spend by knowing what it is you want or need to achieve before starting.

Question from Liz Ogutu, ILRI:
I work for a livestock research institute where I find it pretty difficult to package our products in way that can be used to raise funds online. The research work takes years and some of the work is yet to produce results. We rely on government funding but this is insufficient and we are constantly looking for funds. I wonder if you can advise us to use these online tools to raise small sums of money – which has worked for some non-profits. How can we package research to fit into Twitter and Facebook?

John Haydon:
Liz – thanks for attending the chat session.

I’d need to know a bit more about what you’re looking for, but here’s a great article to read as a starting point: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/if-i-started-today/ Hope that helps.

MY ISSUE: Why didn’t John say something about blogs here? He does link to the ever-prolific and savvy Chris Brogan to provide that “getting started” advice – and Chris does advice using a blog – however, rather than sending readers away having to dig for this key piece of advice, it seems like a natural to put it up front in the discussion.

MY ADVICE: While many people might argue with me about this, I do believe that right now blogs tend to be the ideal hub for our social media activity. As we establish social media assets, nothing brings them all together and acts as a gateway to them as well as blogs or blog-engine-driven web sites that allow RSS and widgets to be embedded into their templates.

If your nonprofit has loads of research that is part of the work you do, you can link to the documents from your blog as separate blog posts with summaries of each one. Then by connecting your blog to Twitter using a tool like Twitterfeed, links to those posts and that research is automatically tweeted to your Twitter page with a link back to you blog. You can also import your blog posts directly into your Facebook page so your Facebook fans can access them easily.

Question from Cecil Stell:
I need to know how do you put a fundrasing page on facebook

John Haydon:
Cecil – there is a “pages” tool in Facebook. I’ll post a video tutorial on the topic next week. Promise.

MY ISSUE: Again, the answer to this isn’t too hard to explain briefly and then mention oa video tutorial at the end of some sound – and accurate – advice. If this discussion series is going to be ongoing, sure it is nice to point to new assets that will appear “next week,” but I’m a firm believer in providing value – and direct answers – from the get-go rather than promoting something that isn’t here yet.

MY ADVICE: On Facebook, there is a useful application called Causes. You can create a Facebook Cause for your nonprofit organization or for a campaign your organization is running to solicit support as well as to accept donations. You can find out more about Facebook Causes at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about. You do need a Facebook account to set up a Cause and you can link to it from your personal profile as well as from your Facebook Page.

Question from Cheryl, small arts nonprofit:
All right–we’re blogging, Tweeting, and have created a Facebook page to supplement our website. We figured out how to link the blog to Facebook (hurray!). Now, what’s the best way for us to catch the public’s eye and gain more followers?

John Haydon:
Cheryl – yay! Sounds like you’re right on track!

The best way to catch the public’s eye actually has nothing to do with these tools, though. You have to be remarkable, as Seth Godin says. What can your organization do that will really get people talking?

And don’t play safe. Playing safe is in the middle. You need to go to the edge. Be the most colorful or be the only one without colors.

Pimp your non-profit itself – that will light up the social networks.

MY ISSUE: While I love Seth Godin, using his advice “Be Remarkable” without any followup advice on that topic isn’t really answering the question of “how can my nonprofit catch the public’s eye and gain more followers.” The next piece of advice “don’t play safe” and “you need to go to the edge” – what kind of advice is that for the nonprofit reader who is looking for some specifics. This is frustrating advice. And the last advice “Pimp your nonprofit itself” – what is that?!?

MY ADVICE: Setting up social media outlets or channels is the easy part – the tough but also rewarding part is to translate those accounts into active, interactive and valuable resources where you can engage your audience but more importantly encourage them to engage their social networking friends to join your Page or Cause on Facebook or follow you on Twitter. You need to continuously add valuable information on your blog that isn’t just telling people about something but asking them – starting a dialogue.

You need to be using Twitter for more than just linking to your blog posts but tweet live from events you attend, tweet summaries of meetings you’ve held, tweet updates of fundraising efforts, tweet questions to your followers to gauge their attitudes, interests and needs.

And in terms of Facebook, there’s an incredibly affordable, opowerful and targeted tool built right into Facebook called Social Ads. You can purchase an add for as little as $10 per day for a 5 day run to effectively reach a highly targeted audience with an ad that can lead people to your Facebook Page or Cause or even your blog or web site. Wherever you lead them with an ad, make sure you have a mechanism to engage them and “capture” their information such as a way to Fan or Follow or a quiz to take or something they can subscribe to. The last thing you want to do is invest in an ad on Facebook and then let those who click on that ad disappear into the ether.

As you can see, I am pretty darn opinionated about what constitutes solid advice to nonprofit organizations. Maybe I’m so reactive because I’ve been working with nonprofit organizations to bring the onto the Internet in meaningful and fruitful ways since 1995, and it is hard for me to see some of the advice that is being put out there for nonprofits to consume that truly doesn’t serve them well.

There are so many fantastic experts out there including Beth Kanter and Beth Harte and even Allison Fine (who does the monthly podcast about social media for nonprofits for The Chronicle) and even Tom Watson (who they’ve had on talking about his book but who has a wealth of experience) who get this stuff and provide sound, thoughtful advice that it is a shame The Chronicle is sticking with the same two guys.

Am I over-reacting? Am I being nit-picky? Would love to hear what you think about all of this. And please recommend other great nonprofit social media experts out there!

Whether or not these tactics have actually been successful in the past, they tend to be the typical course of action. Even if they are not cost effective or time efficient, more often than not, everyone at an organization can at least agree on the statement “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Unfortunately, today’s funders and constituents are no longer consuming their information in the same ways. Today’s marketing tactics are not familiar. So how does a nonprofit with limited capacity get up to speed?

Social Media Marketing (SMM) – marketing through blogs, microblogs, social networks, podcasts, etc. – addresses several issues that nonprofits face as they evaluate programs and activities for their staff and volunteers.

1. Cost – How much is it going to cost us? We don’t have the money for this.

2. Time – How much time is it going to take? We’re all stretched to the limit.

3. Capacity – How many people are going to have to manage this? We’re short-staffed.

Like any tools and tactics for marketing, nobody can say that social media marketing is free and takes little or no time. Every time you reach out to constituents or funders, there is an associated cost. Social Media Marketing doesn’t erase that. But here is how SMM addresses marketing issues many nonprofits face.

1. Cost

Assembling the tools you need to engage productively in social media marketing are more often than not free. There are free blogging tools such as WordPress.com and Blogger.com. Almost all microblogs are free such as Tumblr and Twitter. Video sites such as YouTube are free to upload and host your videos. Utterli is a free solution to podcasting. So when it comes to costs, the tools are downright affordable.

The other cost often associated with SMM is consulting. Few nonprofits have staff on board who are familiar enough with social media to assemble an integrated social media toolset for the organization. Consultants in this area aren’t cheap, however, those who work with nonprofit organizations are sensitive to cost and can develop a basic foundation of social media tools to get started for a reasonable price.

Ideas: Many nonprofits have staff members or volunteers who are very familiar with social media – and they might even be the teens or 20-somethings who tend to get overlooked when it comes to marketing initiatives. One of the biggest mistakes nonprofits can make today is to fail to tap into the digitally savvy young people in their circle. Elevating them to “Social Media Coordinator” could bring much needed knowledge and energy to the fore.

2. Time

Social Media Marketing takes time, there’s no doubt about it. But does it have to be unmanageable madness? Of course not. If an organization takes the time or invests in a consultant’s time to set up a compact set of social media tools – a blog, a microblog, and a handful of social networks or media sharing sites – they can immediately begin tapping into the conversations that are already happening online without them.

If all of those tools are integrated and inter-connected, then it will take even less effort to manage and maintain them.

Ideas: Make sure all social media accounts are set up using a single email address, preferably one dedicated to Social Media Marketing and not somebody’s work or personal email. Managing emails is much easier when all social media correspondence and friend requests go into a single pool. Take advantage of email filters to more quickly sift through the emails that need to be addressed versus the ones that can simply be archived.

3.  Capacity

Part of the “capacity solution” was addressed in #1 – tapping into the resources you have but may be overlooking.

I know of an organization that has a 20-something person passionately engaged in social media and actively interested in helping with social media initiatives at work. However, the social media duties have been assigned to a person who is unfamiliar with the technologies and sites. While that person is a highly qualified marketing person who can engage in strategic thinking, they are uncomfortable with social media. Therefore, the organization has missed powerful opportunities to engage and grow their membership and increase their brand visibility because they’ve failed to tap into the right resources for the job.

Another way to address the capacity issue is to outsource the upkeep of SMM to a volunteer. With the proper setup and with clear written guidelines, a volunteer could be put to good use going through the organization’s SMM email account and taking action where needed.

Social Media Marketing can be a cost-effective and time-efficient way to reach out to potential funders and constituents. Make sure you know your audience. Survey them to see if they have a MySpace page or Facebook account or if they Twitter or blog or even if they prefer email to regular mail. You’d be surprised how many people have shifted the way they want to hear from you, but you just haven’t asked.

How are you changing the way you are reaching out to your funders? Your constituents?

this post was originally written for The Foraker Group blog

Her 5 parts are:

1. Audience

2. Resources

3. Success

4. Technology

5. Evaluation

Read what she has to say.

Pick. Click. Give. – http://pitch.pe/2592

Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Awards – http://pitch.pe/2507

I feel like the SMRs are a living, breathing organism as we continue to gather the multimedia components and set up the social network and microblog presences to truly make it more effective.

Earlier this year, I wrote about PitchEngine for Web Worker Daily. Here are some excerpts. You can read the entire review as well.

Two years ago, a company called Shift Communications introduced the concept of social media releases that incorporated social networks, microblogs, audio and video elements into text releases. A year later, they expanded their concept to include social media newsrooms, spiffing up the traditional text-heavy online newsroom with more multimedia bells and whistles. PitchEngine is a freemium Web app and hosting service that helps non-techies – and even non-PR-types – to build their own social media releases and social media newsrooms.

…

PitchEngine is first and foremost for the person who wants to build a social media release but doesn’t have the technical skills. You can create as many brand accounts as you want for free. Brands represent you or your clients and projects.

Building a social media release includes integrating a company’s Twitter account, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., as well as easily embedding audio and video. The finished product has all the links and elements easily accessible in and around the main press release text. The release is hosted for free for 30 days and then expires and is no longer available which is a suitable duration for an effective PR campaign, however, also an incentive to purchase a subscription for a more permanent social media newsroom.

…

Sure, the biggie PR wire services will probably step up as competitors to PitchEngine in the near future but they won’t be able to be as social media savvy, nimble nor as affordable as Kintzler’s venture. There has also been a recent backlash regarding using social media for marketing and public relations as there is bound to be with the adoption of any social platform for commercial purposes. The conversation about social media marketing has only just begun.

Are you using social media releases for your campaigns, particularly for social causes? If so, how and where? We’d love to see examples!

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So what is social media marketing?

I define social media marketing as using online-enabled sites, applications and tools in an integrated way to empower others to share your message. So this could mean everything from uploading videos that others can pass along to having pages on social networks where others can not only “friend” your organization but also encourage their friends to connect.

While a campaign is usually carried out for a set period of time, the reality of the Internet is that once you upload anything, it tends to live on whether you want it to or not. A social media marketing campaign can leave a larger and longer-term footprint than you might think.

Getting Social in Alaska

The campaign I’m working on in Alaska is called Pick. Click. Give. (http://www.pickclickgive.org) and is very region-specific. The call to action is for Alaskans to consider giving to an Alaska nonprofit when they sign up for their Permanent Fund Dividend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund) in 2009. In case you hadn’t heard while Sarah Palin was on the campaign trail, every Alaskan receives an annual check from the profits of the Alaska oil and gas industry.

Many Alaskans use their PFD to pay bills or to put toward a major purchase such as a new car. The Pick. Click. Give. campaign is trying to not only build awareness of a new way Alaskans can donate while applying for their PFD online but to encourage Alaskans to engage in individual giving.

Will having Pick. Click. Give. on YouTube, mDialog, CauseCast, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking and sharing sites reach the right audience? That remains to be seen.

But by carefully selecting the social media sites, applications and tools for rolling out a campaign online and immediately engaging some of our target audience to participate, we should be able to reach the right people. And all of their friends. And their friends…

What social media campaigns are you working on or do you support?