Category Archives: Community Relations/Outreach

Leverage UN days, weeks, years & decades!

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International days, weeks, years and decades offer excellent outreach opportunities for nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations, charities, and others trying to improve our communities, our individual lives, and the environment. There is a commemorative day or week, as designated by the United Nations general assembly, for just about any subject you can think of, and on top of that, there are designated years and decades you may also be able to utilize for outreach efforts.

You can use these designations to tie in your organization’s events and programs, through issuing press releases, writing op-ed pieces for local media, blogging on a related topic, offering yourself for interviews to radio and TV, or even holding a special event. If you mention these days, weeks, years, etc. on your blog and web site, you increase the chance of your organization coming to the attention of anyone doing a search online for information about these days, weeks, etc. Look for Twitter tags that are trending on these topics, so can have your Tweets reach an even wider audience.

For a list of these UN days, weeks, years and decades, see either this part of the UNESCO web site or this page by the UN Association of Canada. 

So far, 2012 has just one UN designation: International Year of Cooperatives. Organizations focused on microfinance, rural business development, small farmers and all organizations that support co-ops / cooperative enterprises in some way should all already be thinking about what they are going to do to leverage this year’s designation to promote their work and the needs of those they serve. Credit unions and even REI need to be thinking about leveraging the International Year of Cooperatives as well!

By the end of 2011,, 2012 will have at least two other designations from the UN as well.

It’s not too late to leverage 2011, which has been designated as:

2011 is also the International 10th anniversary of International Year of Volunteers (IYV+10), and the United Nations Volunteers programme is leading its promotion. In addition, 2011 is also the European Year of Volunteering 2011.

Individual countries and individual organizations also have their own designated days and weeks that may be different than other countries and agencies.

So, how are YOU going to leverage International Year of Cooperatives? Or the next UN Day, September 8: International Literacy Day (UNESCO)? Or any UN day, week, year, decade, whatever?

Tags: cooperative cooperatives, co-op, co-ops, credit, union, unions, women, business, small, micro, enterprise, investing, investment, United, Nations

Accountability is a MUST for nonprofits, NGOs & charities

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The corporate world loves to say that nonprofits and NGOs should act more like businesses. But the reality is that there are two things (at least!) that nonprofits, NGOs, charities and other mission-based organizations must do that corporations do not have to do:

  • Nonprofits, NGOs and charities are focused on their mission, not profits. Helping the homeless, providing financial literacy classes to low-income community members, helping victims of domestic violence, working to reduce the number of stray and at-risk animals, providing live theater, offering dance classes, and various other activities may not ever see any financial return on investment (ROI) for a nonprofit, but they will provide lots of non-monetary, and very much essential, ROI for the community as a whole.
  • Nonprofits, NGOs and charities have to be transparent about their expenses, in a way that corporations would never dare.

It’s that second bullet point that for-profit businesses would fight tooth-and-nail if it were a requirement for them, yet they will demand it of the third sector, and start poo pooing expenses they see as frivolous, but that they would never, ever scrimp on for themselves: copy machines, computers, software, salaries for expert staff, heating, cooling, water, electricity, staff health insurance, etc.

Like it or not, third sector, your organization has to be transparent about expenses. And that does not have to be a bad thing: there is absolutely no shame in wanting to pay expert staff to deliver the best services possible, for needing things like copy machines, computers, software, etc. Don’t shrink from talking about those expenses: affirm them, to show just how expensive it is to provide quality services toward your mission. Doesn’t the community or clients you serve deserve the best in whatever program or services you provide?

And don’t be surprised when your financial transparency leads to more donations!

For more information:

Tags: transparency, accountability, accountable, scrutiny, accounting, finances, donations, donating, funding, sponsorships, investment, investing

Tech Jargon – Let’s Rebrand Email

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The Internet is now the Cloud.

Telecommuting is now workshifting.  

Virtual volunteering is now microvolunteering.

What was done on USENET in the 1980s and 90s is now crowdsourcing on social media.

So, since we love coming up with new jargon for old things, then it’s only a matter of time before someone comes up with a new name for email, right?

In honor of Friday, my favorite day of the week: How should we rebrand email?

Snarky/humorous answers will be the most-welcomed.

Answer in the comments section here, or via Twitter. The first answer is from

Erin Barnhart:

Microstatic conversations

And, FYI, this is how I posed this question to my Twitter feed, : (see more re: How I Use Twitter, including my frequently-used, frequently-followed tags)

is now . is now . How should we rebrand email?

Tags:  jargon, technology, terms, tech, cyberspace, language, communications, humor

 

Working WITHOUT Tech Tools

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I am absolutely slammed this week with work, so I don’t have time to publish a blog every working day, as I usually do (though I do have time to Tweet).

But this is too good just to Tweet: a group of college journalists have published an issue of their campus newspaper without using any digital technology. Hilarity ensued.

I never had to use a typewriter in a newsroom, but I did have to use hot waxers, typesetting machines, exacto-knives and dark rooms (and I still have a couple of t-shirts with stains from photo development chemicals to prove it).

Are those skills wasted? Not at all. In fact, I now proudly note my pre-digital experience on my CV, because when I didn’t do so, I was told the reason I didn’t get a communications specialist job in East Timor a few years ago – which I very much wanted – was because the UNICEF staff person doing the hiring felt that I wouldn’t know how to do my job without the latest and greatest digital tools.

But this comment really got to me in this article about the college students using primitive news room technology:

Regardless of the stress or the obscene amount of paper that’s accumulated on the newsroom floor, I won’t forget what this project has given us. We’ve formed this sort of newsroom camaraderie that I hadn’t experienced before, and it means everything.

No question: we’re losing that kind of camaraderie of the work place. Everyone is work shifting (the term telecommuting is so passé), doing their work from home, from a coffee shop – anywhere but next to a co-worker. And that’s a loss. That’s not an improvement.

How I Use Twitter / Microblogs

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I’ve written a primer for mission-based organizations on using microblogs, including Twitter, so rather than repeat that advice on how to get started using such, thinking strategically about using such, etc., I’ll tell you exactly how I use Twitter.

I seek out Twitter feeds:

  • dedicated to activities that help women in developing countries have more control over their lives (it’s a priority issue for me), OR
  • dedicated to resources to help nonprofits, NGOs and other mission-based organizations use Internet, computer and other networking tools, OR
  • dedicated to resources to help mission-based organizations effectively engage the community/volunteers

AND

  • from organizations or individuals I want to follow and that/who share information I feel is a priority for me to receive daily or that’s mostly different from their Facebook page or email newsletter

If I already get all the information I want from an organization or individual via their Facebook page or an email newsletter or a blog, I don’t subscribe to their feed via Twitter as well. And I don’t follow every Twitter user that follows me, though I do check out every new follower. That offends some folks – they feel you should follow every person or organization that follows you, that you should follow every person or organization that you already follow on Facebook or via a blog or as a newsletter subscriber, etc. I don’t. I’m on information overload already; Internet tools, including so-called social media, is not just about receiving information – it’s about controlling it in such a way that it stays meaningful and essential to you.

In addition, I also follow certain phrases on Twitter. Some of these I search for daily, some I search for weekly. These include:

  • #volunteer
  • #volunteers
  • #VolunTweet
  • #microvolunteering
  • #nonprofits
  • #nonprofit
  • #ngos
  • #humanitarian
  • #ict4d
  • #TechWomen
  • #WomenInTech
  • #Tech4Good
  • #digitaldivide
  • #NP
  • #NPTwitter
  • #VirtualTeams
  • #distributedteams
  • #workshifting
  • #TechSoupDYB (for TechSoup microvolunteering projects; I helped relaunch this initiative earlier this month)

A term I follow, but doesn’t generate much information regularly, is #withoutvolunteers, a tag that allows someone to post a short message that says what the results would be if an organization didn’t involve volunteers. Sadly, most posts with this tage are phrases like “We couldn’t do what we do!” or “We would have to cut services”, both of which imply that volunteers are just unpaid staff and reduce the need for employees.

Lastly – your nonprofit, NGO, or other mission-based organization or department needs to make it clear to staff about who owns a Twitter feed – this story from the BBC does a good job of explaining why establishing ownership is essential.

Also see: my primer for mission-based organizations on using microblogs (including Twitter)

And, ofcourse, follow me on Twitter! I post a lot to my Twitter feed that I don’t share via Facebook.

Tags: microblogs, microblogging, Twitter, Tumblr, social, media, outreach, communications, marketing, public, relations, collaboration, community, volunteer, engagement

Feuds in the nonprofit/NGO/charity world

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I work with nonprofit organizations, international agencies and even government offices that don’t get along with each other. And it leaves me in an awkward position when I’m talking with such an organization about some activity or resources that would be oh-so-appealing to another organization. I know that, when I make the suggestion for collaboration, or even just an email update or event invitation from one organization to the other, a heavy silence will fill the air – or some quickly-made-up excuses will flow and the suggestion will be ignored.

Entire organizations hurt each other’s feelings all the time, just as people do – because organizations are made up of people. But often, what one organization views as a criticism or an act of conscious disrespect by another organization is actually incompetence or thoughtlessness – it’s not at all a deliberate act. It can be an email that doesn’t receive a response or a phone call that doesn’t get returned (They are ignoring me! They hate me!) or a duplication of activities (They *know* we already do an event like that! They did this to try to steal our thunder!) or an event that doesn’t get announced until late (They didn’t tell us about this earlier so we wouldn’t be able to participate!).

I know one organization that believes it’s in a feud with another organization – but that other organization has no idea there’s any hurt feelings! So while the Hurt Organization takes every action by Other Organization as an attack, a slight, an insult, etc., Other Organization is completely oblivious that Hurt Organization feels that way.

Sometimes, a feud is acknowledged by both organizations – but there’s no effort to get over it. And there always be an effort to get over it, because there’s no room in the nonprofit / NGO / charity world for feuds. Disagreements? Yes, those need to happen, and it may be you never see eye-to-eye about what the approach should be to homelessness, or women’s health care, or stray animals – but the disagreement can be acknowledged by both parties without a silent and/or nasty feud between them. Debates? Absolutely – we won’t evolve or learn if we don’t debate! But silent feuding? That hurts all of us and those we serve.

When I take on public relations/outreach activities for an organization, one of the first things I do is to look at the distribution list for press releases and announcements, invitation lists for events, etc., and I make sure every organization that has a similar mission and is working in the same area is on those lists. That can include groups that have publicly said they disagree with the organization’s mission. There might be some cringing from other department heads, even a closed-door meeting where I’m assured the overture won’t lead to anything positive, but I insist. And every time, maybe after weeks, maybe after months, there’s a thawing of relations: Someone has lunch with someone else. Someone attends another’s special event. A white paper is shared. Small steps.

Maybe the organizations will never like each other; but I don’t have to like you to work with you!

Also see:

How to handle online criticism

Community Relations, With & Without Tech

Don’t use stock photos; make your own photo archive

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One of the many online communities I’m on had a posting by someone from a nonprofit organization looking for stock photos of volunteers to use in a brochure they were producing.

And I cringed.

Stock photos are professionally-produced photos made available for companies and organizations to use to express a certain notion or idea. Stock photos are also of people who have no affiliation with the company or organization that uses them on their web sites, in their brochures, etc. You see stock photos in picture frames for sale.

A stock photo used by a nonprofit organization on its web site, in its brochure, or on a poster is obvious — and dishonest. To me, it screams, “These are professional models who don’t actually volunteer here/aren’t actually clients here!”

Unless the identity of your volunteers or clients needs to be protected (and that certainly does happen — for instance, with domestic violence shelters), you should have a folder on your computer system (on your local network, in the cloud, whatever) filled with digital photos showing genuine volunteers, clients, staff and others, ready for use in your marketing materials and fund-raising proposals.

The good news is that you can easily compile such a stock photo archive!

Begin by ensuring that you have a signed photo release for every volunteer at your organization. Volunteers should be asked to sign such a form at the time they attend the first orientation or volunteering session or with their completed volunteer application. If you intend to take photos at an activity or event where clients will be present, you will also need to get a photo release form for any clients (or anyone else) who might be photographed. You can find samples of photo release forms by typing in this phrase into Google.com or your favorite online search tool:
photo release form

Next, make sure every paid staff member, every unpaid volunteer, every client and every parent or guardian of a client knows your organization’s policies regarding taking photos in association with your organization’s activities (again, just type photo policy into Google.com or your favorite online search tool to find examples of such), and within the boundaries of those policies, invite them to take photos in association with your organization’s activities and to share these photos with your organization. With most smart phones and other handheld tech coming with a camera, your volunteers and clients may already be taking photos. Remind everyone associated with your organization, via regular meetings or regular online or print communications, both of these policies and that you would like such photos shared with you (people need to hear messages more than once in order to have them in mind).

Note in your event or activity announcements if photos might be taken. Whoever takes photos should identify him or herself to those being photographed. This should be a part of your photography policies that you have communicated organization-wide.

When photographing at events where people may not know me, I ask that whomever kicks off the meeting to announce that I’m taking photos that could appear on our web site or in printed materials, and that if anyone does not want their photo used, they should raise their hand any time they see me taking a photo they might be a part of so that later, when going through photos later, I will delete any photo of a person who is raising their hand, or crop them out of the photo. This worked really well when I took photos at community meetings in Afghanistan (more about Taking Photos in the Developing World, a resource I developed while working in Afghanistan in 2007).

Frequently encourage volunteers, employees and clients to share photos they have taken at your events or during volunteering activities with your organization (they need to hear this message more than once!). The best way to share photos is, IMO, via Flickr (photos can be shared with just your organization, without sharing them with the entire world) or via Drop Box (don’t accept photos via email – it uses too much bandwidth and will slow your emails down!).

As photos come in to you, create a folder on your computer or drive for photos you might want to use on your web site, in a brochure, in a fundraising proposal, etc. Look for photos that have at least one of these qualities:

  • shows action
  • shows smiles
  • shows diversity
  • teens
  • seniors

If you don’t have software or an operating system that allows you to organize and search photos easily, create a naming system for photos, sub-folders and files on your computer so you can easily find photos for certain kinds of images, such as photos that show:

  • female participation
  • senior/elder participation
  • multi-cultural participation
  • physical action
  • enjoyment/happiness
  • caring
  • etc.

If you can afford to use a professional photographer and have photo setups, where volunteers pretend to be in the middle of a service activity, or where staff pretend to be engaged in their work, great! It’s okay to set up a photo — just use your own folks, not professional models.

Stay genuine! That attracts people much more than even the slickest of stock images.

March 26, 2018 update: I was working on a very large PR campaign with a colleague. I wanted to solicit photos from various sources to use in our campaign, photos of people engaged in an activity that related to our campaign. She wanted to use stock photos. I relented for various reasons. A year later, I stopped at a gas station in Kentucky, and while inside, looked up at a poster about job opportunities with this particular company. There was a series of photos that I guess were meant to represent people that work for the company. And among that series of photos was one that we had used prominently in our own campaign, which had nothing to do with gas stations… I realize it’s unlikely that anyone else made the connection, and I certainly don’t dislike gas stations – I’m quite fond of their services. But it was a reminder of why using stock photos is often a very bad idea.

March 8, 2021 update: Here is a fantastic blog about a company that created its own photo stock library, using its own assets (it’s own offices). I think going round your building with a smartphone, taking snaps and adding insta filters will always trump purchasing stock images. What a great task for volunteers to undertake for your organization!

Harry Potter fans make a difference – as do other fan groups

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Back in the 1990s, when I was directing the Virtual Volunteering Project, I researched the phenomena of online fans of TV shows, performers and sports teams using the Internet to organize volunteering, donations and other support for various causes and nonprofits. I thought it was such a splendid example of both online volunteering and DIY volunteering.

There are thousands of online communities for people who want to to share information and excitement about a particular television show, movie, sports team, celebrity, hobby or literary genre. And just as offline communities and groups will often “pass the hat” at their gatherings for a good cause, these Internet-based fan groups often come together online or in person to improve their communities, promote a cause or generate funds for a nonprofit organization. Often, these fans engage in philanthropy with no prompting from any charity or formal organization.

It’s been almost 15 years since I wrote that, and I’m pleased to see that this tradition is continuing. The latest example: The Harry Potter Alliance, a group 100,000 Harry Potter fans all over the world, has raised $15,000 for aid in Darfur and Burma and $123,000 for Haiti. Its Deathly Hallows Campaign is attacking hunger, bullying, child slavery and more.

We are an army of fans, activists, nerdfighters, teenagers, wizards and muggles dedicated to fighting for social justice with the greatest weapon we have– love.

Accio Volunteers!

Tags: outreach, networking, connections, friends, connect, network, volunteering, volunteers, community, engagement, volunteerism, social, business, Harrry Potter, DIY, books, movies, novels, fiction

It’s okay to say “no” to an online connection

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When the popularity of the World Wide Web exploded in the late 1990s and every individual and organization decided they each needed a web site, requests abounded for link exchanges:

I’ll link to your web site if you will link to mine.

At first, it was an always-say-yes proposition. But nonprofit organizations in particular realized quickly that it wasn’t a good idea to link to anyone who asked: what if the request was from a corporation engaged in activities that went against the mission of the nonprofit? or if the request came from an individual who had material on his or her web site that insults particular groups of people, or encourages people to break the law? Many organizations developed web link policies; for instance, a nonprofit would link to a web page only if its content was directly, obviously related to the mission of the organization.

Now, the popularity of online networking sites permeates our culture, with everyone, including many nonprofits, in a rush to build up their online profiles on various platforms and to build a high number of online friends. But is it really appropriate for you to accept every invitation to connect to your profile on an online networking site?

It’s not only your nonprofit that needs to think strategically its online networking presence – you, as a volunteer or employee at a nonprofit organization, need to think about the purpose of your own online networking as well. If you link to anyone, anytime, on any platform, with no criteria for what connections mean to you, don’t be surprised if you find yourself over time lacking motivation to network online, as linking becomes mechanical instead of influential, without any meaning behind your connections. Your links become just numbers, rather than real connections to with which to share and collaborate.

LinkedIn is a professional networking site. My Linkin connections are real connections: they are current and former co-workers and clients, volunteers I’ve supervised or worked with, people who have attended a workshop I’ve presented, classmates, and various other people I’ve worked with in such a way that I would be able to say something about them, people whose work I’m very familiar with, or people who are familiar with my work. That keeps LinkedIn connections of real value to me, rather than the online equivalent of a stack of business cards. My connections can view each other and know that these aren’t just a long list of names and email addresses I have no real connection to — these are my colleagues, in every sense of the word, and my colleagues are welcomed to leverage my connections for their own professional reasons.

By contrast, I’m not always comfortable with professional colleagues and fellow volunteers wanting to connect to me via social networking profiles. Do I really want former supervisors to get regular, automatic updates about my vacations, political causes with which I’m involved, and which Buffy: The Vampire Slayer character I’m most like? Of course, with sites like Google, it’s quite easy for anyone, including potential employers, to find out just about anything about anyone – but, IMO, there’s a difference in being able to find information about me if you go looking for it and are willing to dig awhile, versus getting an automatic electronic update about my political views.

Consider developing your own linking policy for your online networking activities – both those you do as an organization and those you do as an individual. What do you want your links on professional sites like LinkedIn to see about you, versus your connections on make-a-difference networks like Change.org, versus your online social networking on FaceBook? There have never been absolute lines in our lives where work and volunteering ends and social activities begin, of course, and you will always have gray areas, but it’s still worth thinking about, to keep your online connections true connections, with some kind of real value to them.

When you say no to an online connection, consider offering an alternative. For instance, to people who ask to link to me on Linkedin whom I don’t know, I offer the alternative of getting to know each other online professionally, inviting the person to:

  • friend me on my professional Facebook profile (as opposed to my personal one)
  • Follow me Twitter at @jcravens42
  • subscribe to my email newsletter, Tech4Impact, which gives nonprofits and other mission-based organizations byte-sized tips for getting the most out of tech tools, as well as offering a list of my most-recent blog posts.
  • Subscribe to my blog via RSS (not necessary if they do any of the above)
  • Share his or her blog address with me

As I’ve said many times before, the biggest value from the Internet is, and has always been, the ability to connect with people interested in an area similar to what you are interested in, and to be able to collaborate with and learn from these people no matter where you are on Earth. But when I say connect, I don’t mean just marking someone as a connection on LinkedIn or as a friend on FaceBook or whatever. When I want to actually connect with someone online:

  • I send the person an email or make a post to his or her blog, commenting on something that person has written or said. 
  • I post questions, answers and resources on an online discussion group with a membership that includes people I would very much like to know, and that I want to know me (and I still get way more value out of YahooGroups and GoogleGroups than I do LinkedIn or FaceBook).
  • I invite people to post comments on my own network in reply to my blog.
  • I refer someone to a person or resource, in response to something they have written online.
  • etc.

This does lead to real connections — people I end up collaborating with, recommending to others, co-presenting with, even working with or for, or hiring.

And one more thing: accept that there are two yous. Maybe even three yous. Maybe even more.

There is your professional, public you: the one that works at such-and-such company, went to such-and-such university, serves on such-and-such board of directors, lives in such-and-such city and uses your first and last name in your emails and online profiles, etc. This is the you that is easy to find by co-workers, potential employers, even the media. The public you is the one that comes up in the first pages of a Google search.

There is also your personal you: the one that engages in activities you wouldn’t necessarily want all of your co-workers or potential employers to know about in a readily-easy manner, the one that writes Harry Potter fan fiction, the one that is overtly politically-opinionated, and doesn’t use your first and last name in your emails and online profiles, etc. These activities may be easy to find online, but aren’t so easy to associate with you by co-workers, potential employers or the media even if they find it, because you don’t use your full first and last name, because you don’t list the city where you are, because you never mention your employer, etc.

You have to decide where each of your activities, online or offline, fall among these two — or more — yous.

Maybe you want to keep your volunteering activities and books you’ve read and so on in your personal you online activities. Or maybe you want to share even more in your public you profiles. The point is: you have control of the information you share online. Be deliberate, or at least thoughtful, in what you share and how you share information.

Tags: communications, personal, private, outreach, networking, connections, friends, connect, network, volunteering, volunteers, community, engagement, volunteerism, social, business