Category Archives: Community Relations/Outreach

Twitter, confidentiality, nonprofits & more

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Nonprofits, NGOs, government agencies and other mission-based organizations: learn how to use Twitter… via Twitter! Today, May 9, at 9 am USA Pacific time, follow #nptwitter on Twitter. Much more detailed info at the TechSoup Community Forum. If you can’t participate at the time, you can view the discussion later by doing a search on #nptwitter.

But wait – there’s more! Last month, TechSoup hosted a free webinar to discuss ways to use social media to find, communicate with and build community among volunteers, lead by myself and Erin Barnhart. One of the questions that came in but that we didn’t answer to the asker’s satisfaction (our answer was all-too-brief) was:

As a nonprofit law firm for kids, I’m concerned about confidentiality with social media, especially Facebook. What are the hazards in this area?

Offer your answer, and read my own, on the TechSoup Community Forum.

I hope volunteer managers / volunteer coordinators in particular will view these resources. Too many of you think social media is something to be used by those working in your marketing or public relations department. You need to be using online tools to engage with volunteers and potential volunteers yourselves! I’ve been saying this since 1994 – you’re 17 years overdue! Here’s my own advice regarding online social media specifically.

When mega-news strikes

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You’ve got an event or major announcement planned for today. You’ve had the blog and the tweets and the Facebook status updates and the press release all ready to go for many days. You were ready to start posting at 9 a.m., and have a schedule for messages for the rest of the day.

And then – mega-news strikes. Not just big news – MEGA-news. that kind of HUGE event that pushes everything else off the news cycle for HOURS. Even days. That people will talk about for years to come: “Where were you when you heard about such-and-such?”

And you know that absolutely no one is going to read your messages, no one is going to retweet you, no press people are going to call you, and, perhaps, no one is going to attend your event.

What to do?

A lot of you are facing this today. I’m seeing some of nonprofits trying to insert their important announcements amid the endless messages relating to Osama bin Ladan. They probably know it’s a lost cause, but they did all this planning, they hate for it to go to waste…

What should you do with your event or major announcement when mega-news strikes?

It depends…

If your announcement was meant to generate press coverage, retweets, signups, etc., consider pushing the announcement a day or two later, even for a week, if at all possible. If that’s not possible, then revamp your schedule to include a reminder blitz in two or three days, and push your event signup deadlines as late as possible.

Do not cancel your event unless you are absolutely sure no one is going to show up or that the press is absolutely NOT going to cover your announcement.

And consider this: your event might actually be a gathering that people are needing, particularly if the mega-news is tragic. Consider what happened to Knowbility in 2001:

Knowbility is a nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas, and their signature event is the Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR), where volunteer teams of Web designers and developers with nonprofit organizations get together and build new Web sites (or enhance existing ones) to make them more accessible for people with disabilities and/or using assistive technologies. The teams meet the nonprofits they will work with mid week, spend an evening together, and then the web-building day is two or three days later, on a Saturday – all the teams come together in one place and go crazy with the one-day web-buildling. You’ve heard of barn-raisings? This is a web-raising! But in 2001, the day the teams were supposed to meet the nonprofits they were matched with was — the evening of September 12. The day before, on September 11, there was talk of canceling AIR. But someone said, “No, let’s do it. Maybe people will need this.” And so the events were held, as scheduled. And attendance was not only excellent, but the event evauations were filled with comments about how grateful people were to have had the opportunity to do something at a time when they were filling quite helpless. The event became one of the most special Knowbility ever held.

If you go ahead with your event in the midst of a mega-news event, be ready for the mega-news to come up and be discussed at your event. You may need to provide some time for that to happen. But it’s also okay to say, at some point, “Okay, let’s focus for the next hour on the reason we are here today…”

Ongoing conversations re: social media & volunteers

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There are some terrific conversations going on over on the TechSoup Community Forum regarding nonprofits using social media, setting policies for online activities, and more. Go ask your questions for your own nonprofit, NGO, government agency, etc. to get your own questions crowd-sourced – and offer your own advice/commentary!

Here are followup questions and discussions to the recent webinar on using social media to recruit and support volunteers:

“How does one find a “great trusted social media volunteer?”
Lots of tips already in answer to this question – offer your own!

Volunteers updating your organization’s blog – appropriate?
What editorial guidelines do you need for this?

When do you delete Facebook posts?

When do you remove posts on your organization’s Facebook fan page? What do you deem to be ‘offensive’ posts—versus those that might be odd, semi-coherent or off-topic? And do you have a formal policy

how do I set up a facebook page for my organization without locking it permanently to a particular person
Very detailed answers already!

What are the best tags for nonprofits to use in their social media activities?
How to get the right people viewing your activities!

Did you miss the live webinar last week on Using Social Media to Support, Involve and Recruit Volunteers? Then enjoy this recording of the event (slides and audio).

More questions on TechSoup you might want to answer or view:

Is it a worthwhile organization for a nonprofit to document what software they have

      , what software everyone is using, etc., and to share this information in a deliberate, obvious way throughout the organization, so that everyone can know what resources the organization has?

 

Sending text messages to 50 non-smart phones

    “Anyone have a great, cheap or free resource for sending text messages to 10-50 cell phones at once from a web site or special application on a computer (not a smart phone)? I work with three different volunteer groups that want this ability, but each group is a mix of smart phone and cell phone users.”

The Unofficial Web site re: your organization/program

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The Internet took away much of the control regarding information – what’s available and who controls it – that organizations and individuals had enjoyed previously. One of the results of this anyone-can-share-information platform is that there are many unofficial web sites for nonprofits, government agencies, NGOs and other mission-based organizations.

Look up a specific USA national park or state park on Google, for instance: you will receive a long list of web sites that offer information about that park’s features, accommodations, programs and more – but which is the *official* web site? It can be hard to find it amid the unoffical ones. And consider this: is the official web site as good as some of the unofficial ones?

You can go to the Peace Corps web site (which is excellent) and learn how to be a volunteer. You can also go to several unofficial web sites for advice, like Peace Corps Online, the “Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteer,” or this one by contributors to the Unofficial Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook. Why do these unofficial web sites exist? What information do they provide that the official web site doesn’t? How does the Peace Corps feel about them? You might be surprised at the answer to that last question!

 

Unofficial web sites for nonprofits, government agencies and NGOs pop up for a variety or reasons. Some of these unofficial web sites are nothing but online ad farms; the goal is to use the well-known name of the nonprofit to get people to visit the web page and then click on advertising, for which the web site creator gets money (sometimes as little as a penny per click). But some unofficial sites are set up because someone feels passionately about a subject and feels the official web site does not provide all the information that is needed. Often, these people wrote the organization and suggested this or that change/addition be made. Maybe they got the standard, insincere Thank you for your email. Your suggestion will be taken into consideration. blah blah blah. Maybe they got no response at all. And months later, when nothing changes on the web site, they decide – hey, I’m going to do this myself!

Unofficial web sites may provide important information regarding your organization that isn’t available on your official web site. They may provide better information that what’s on your web site. In either case, they can be drawing traffic away from your official web site – or, in fact, they can be generating more traffic to your official web site and programs.

What should you do if you discover there’s an unofficial web site about your organization, a specific program at your organization, about volunteering with your organization, etc.?

  1. Determine why the site exists. Is this an ad farm, or is this an individual who cares deeply about your organization and wants to help people connect with it? Which it is will determine how best to approach those behind the site – if at all.
  2. If you cannot find a “contact us” link on the unofficial web site about your organization, go to the WhoIs database and see who owns the site; you will be able to find email addresses there for the site administrator/owner (as well as a postal mailing address).
  3. If the site is merely a verbatim repeat of what you already have on your web site, offering no different or additional information, write the site administrators and request they take the information down. Remember: for whatever you write, YOU own the copyright, and you have the right to demand your copyrighted information be removed. Welcome the administrator to link to your site, as an alternative, but make it clear that over-quoting is copyright violation.
  4. If the site implies that it is somehow officially-affiliated with your organization, write the site administrators and tell them this will need to change. Offer a sentence or two that you would like on the site that will clearly disclaim any official ties between the site and your organization. If no change is made and the site continues to portray itself as someone officially-affiliated, have your legal council write a letter.
  5. If the site provides inaccurate information, contact the organization and say so! Be specific!
  6. Is the site in response to a lack of information on your web site? If so, remedy the situation! You can ask the site administrator for permission to use his or her material on your site, offering him or her a thank you for that permission, or, you can create your own information that you believe fills in the gap on your own web site. Whether or not you remedy the situation will be determined by the Internet community; if they like your new information, they will replace links to the other web site to your own. If they don’t, expect that unofficial web site to remain high in Google searches.
  7. Does the site address subjects that your organization is not allowed to, because of legal/liability issues, or because it’s not directly related to your organization’s mission? As long as there is no violation of confidentiality policies, nor violation of the law, you may need to stay hands off. But not being able to include such information on your own web site doesn’t mean you can’t have a partnership with that official site. For instance, this unofficial web site for Peace Corps members, Peace Corps Online, is referred to by the Peace Corps official web site. And you will note unofficial volunteering web sites listed at the end of this blog that, I suspect, the parent organization or government agency is quite happy about.
  8. Is a thank you in order? Be honest: does the web page or web site drive people TO your web site? Is it well-written? Is it factually-correct? Does it address subjects that your organization is never going to do, for whatever reason? If your answer is yes to any of these, you need to write the administrators and thank them for the page or site, however much it hurts to have some of your information control taken away from you. It’s up to your organization to decide if this web site information needs to be incorporated into your official site, or if it’s actually a good thing that it’s outside the official fold. Either way, create a good relationship with the person or people behind this site. You might even be able to bring them into the fold as a volunteer!
  9. Educate staff and volunteers about this unofficial web site. Is it appropriate for them to refer people to these unofficial pages, for instance?

With all that said, I should note that there are two organizations I have created unofficial web pages for.

One is a for-profit organization that has an online questions-and-answers forum. The same questions about volunteering and community service get asked again and again. So I created unofficial pages that answer these FAQs. I have Google ads on the site that have generated enough revenue to pay for all of my web site expenses (which in this economy, was something I very much needed!). People, especially young people, that use the forum are getting their questions about volunteering answered more thoroughly than ever before as well. I still can’t believe this for-profit company didn’t think of doing it themselves.

The other is for a nonprofit organization. My page is regarding my favorite program that this nonprofit undertakes. IMO, the organization does a lousy job of helping its target audience access that program. Six months ago, I created an unofficial page to help people access that program – and it now ranks second in a Google Search on the program topic.

On a related note, see

Groups for “young professionals” exclude me

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I love networking. I love meeting people, hearing about the work of others, telling others about my work, finding ways to work together, learning things I didn’t know, sharing my knowledge, being challenged, challenging others, and on and on. Especially if red wine or beer is involved.

But, apparently, a lot of professional networking groups do not want me: I’m too old.

Consider a group here in Portland, Oregon, for example: it’s for young and emerging nonprofit and public sector professionals in the area. Or another group in Detroit, described as mobilizing young professionals to get the energy up at nonprofits and to bring new ideas to fundraising and outreach.

I find this again and again all over the USA: groups focused on technology, on nonprofits, on some aspect of nonprofit work (the environment, the arts, children, etc.) that say, explicitly, “this group is for young professionals who….” Because, you know, what the heck does someone over 40 know about the Internet? Or innovation? Apparently, we don’t try new things, we’re not risk takers, we’re not daring, blah blah blah.

The descriptions on the web sites and online communities of these organizations make it clear I am not wanted. It’s not just that I’m hurt to be left out of such groups and excluded from the networking and learning I so enjoy; I also think it’s sad that these groups isolate themselves from knowledge, skills and a diversity of viewpoints that group members might find particularly valuable, regardless of age. These “young professional” groups also contribute to the stereotype that people over 60, or over 50, or over 40 — take your pick on which group you want to stereotype — don’t have fresh ideas, aren’t tech savvy, aren’t innovative, do not like to learn and have nothing to offer.

I hear a lot about how traditional volunteering leaves out people under 35. I’ve been hearing about that since I was 30, actually. And I do see it in many organizations, hence my work over the last 15 years trying to get organizations that engage volunteers to create a diversity of volunteering opportunities that will appeal to a diversity of volunteers. I get that some groups have left out “young professionals,” and that these groups are trying to address that. But the solution is not to create an exclusionary group where no one but “young” professionals are welcomed.

Is your web site for everyone, or just the elite?

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For three days the last week of March, I was in a place that had very slow Internet access: a senior citizens home. No, I’m not a senior citizen yet, but my grandmother is, and I was staying with her while visiting family back in Kentucky.

I was profoundly disappointed to find so many, many of your web sites that were not accessible with a slow Internet connection.

People don’t visit web sites for flashy graphics or award-winning designs. They visit web sites – particularly those for nonprofits, NGOs, schools, state offices and other mission-based organizations — to:

  • get directions to your organization
  • find out where to park once they are there
  • see what hours you are open
  • read more about your upcoming programs, events or activities
  • find out how your organization involves volunteers and if volunteering is something that might interest them
  • see how your organization spends donations
  • see how your organization might help them, a family member, a neighbor, a friend, etc.
  • see if you have any jobs available
  • read about your accomplishments
  • and to retrieve various other information.

Do you want everyone to be able to access this information, or just those with the best Internet access?

Not everyone has broadband. Not everyone has a fast Internet connection. If your web site isn’t as accessible as it can possibly be, you are leaving out potential donors, clients, volunteers and others. And maybe that’s okay with you – maybe you are focused only on the elites of the Internet.

But if you do want to be a resource for everyone, then it’s high time you find out just how quickly your web site loads on a slow Internet connection. Ask your volunteers for help in finding people to test your site. To not do so is to say to many, many people, “We don’t want you as a donor, a client or a volunteer.” Do you really want to do that?

Discuss: using social media with volunteers

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On Thursday, April 14 at 11 a.m. Pacific Time USA (2 p.m. East Coast Time), TechSoup is hosting a free webinar to discuss ways to use social media to find, communicate with and build community among volunteers. Happening during National Volunteer Appreciation Week in the USA, its for nonprofits, schools, libraries, and any mission-based organizations are interested in exploring how social media and other technologies might be used to strengthen their current volunteer program.

The presentation will be by Erin Barnhart and me, Jayne Cravens.

We’ll focus on examples of different ways different organizations have used Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms to support current volunteers and recruit new volunteers. We’ll talk about ways to introduce or expand an organization’s use of such tools. And we’ll also review some cautions about using these tools with volunteers.

We want this to be a highly practical workshop, and we want the learning to continue long after the webinar is over. So reply to this message on the TechSoup community forum with your questions, concerns and examples regarding using social media tools to find, communication with and build community among volunteers!

And please publicize this workshop and this discussion thread to your own networks! And please RSVP and attend on April 14!

A few fun links for Friday

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logoA few links for Friday, when I’m not sure anyone actually reads my Blog or my Facebook entries and I’m not feeling very creative…:

  • Howard Sherman, Executive Director of the American Theatre Wing and a good friend (and my former boss at Hartford Stage!) has a delightful blog about after-performance discussions following live stage performances. I have attended these more than a few times, and lead two myself at two different theaters, and he’s spot on with these observations. Made me smile. As does this photo of Howard next to one of my favorite people in the world.
  • I also recently reconnected with another colleague from my theater days, Sharron Boilini, now of the Westport Country Playhouse, who helped give me insight into what attendees might be expecting out of the live online event I’m helping to coordinate for TechSoup (it’s March 30 – join me and hear me try to talk about accounting software for nonprofits!).
  • Was thrilled to find this Japan-based organization: Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. Speaking of Japan, because I’ve raised more money on the monetized pages of my web site (the pages focused on helping individuals find volunteering, community service and humanitarian work abroad), I’m donating anything I raise in March above my target goal to an organization focused on helping in Japan. It won’t be much — I’m not making anything to brag about on these pages — but it will be better than nothing.
  • I’ve created a Flickr set of photos of me at work. Very fun to compile. It’s obvious, isn’t, that I really love to work! See all that I can do when it comes to training for your nonprofit, NGO, or other community-focused organization.
  • Are you a trainer? An online community architect? A techie? A marketer? An oh-so-engaging online facilitator or online event producer? And do you love nonprofits and understand their unique culture and needs? If so, you should check out the cool open jobs at TechSoup.
  • One of my favorite people to follow on Twitter is Frank Conniff. One of his latest: If FAA doesn’t want air traffic controllers sleeping, why not use the screaming babies that always keep me awake on planes.
  • Another favorite Twitter feed of mine is FakeAPStylebook: Affect is verb: “The songs of Liza Minnelli affected the crops.” Effect is noun: “Behold the effect Liza has on the corn!”

One last thing: please don’t be offended if I don’t follow you on Twitter, particularly if I already subscribe to your blog via RSS and have friended you on Facebook and subscribe to your email newsletter, in which case I know what you’re up to, really!

 

Civil Society 2.0

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Civil Society 2.0 is a US State Department initiative to assist non-governmental (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) in other countries in using Internet and networking tools to increase the reach and impact of their work. “Through specific regional events, we gather an understanding of the challenges CSOs face and engage the technology community to help solve them appropriately.” In November 2010, a Tech@State: Civil Society event introduced this idea, and its first application, TechCamp, took place in Santiago, Chile.

This initiative is engaged with many other initiatives, including government 2.0 Netzwerk Deutschland, Digitales Chile, Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) and Geeks Without Bounds.

To stay up-to-date on this initiative, join the Tech@State LinkedIn Group as well as the Civil Society 2.0 subgroup. You can also follow this initiative via Twitter, @TechAtState.

Let’s hope someone from the Civil Society 2.0 initiative realizes they are engaged in virtual volunteering and can join all of the many conversations about such, online and onsite! Would love if they contacted me for more information.

Update: this program has been eliminated by the Trump administration

What is “too much” from an online contributor?

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When a nonprofit, NGO or government agency starts an online community or hosts an online event, they envision questions being asked and the staff or event hosts answering such, all in an oh-so-orderly fashion. No arguments, no disagreements – just a reasoned exchange of online information by all participants.

However, online communities and events rarely work the way organizers or hosts envision. These communities or events have hardly any messages at all or an overwhelming number of such. They may be inactive for days, weeks, even months, and then suddenly, a lively debate may break out that sends message numbers through the roof and makes the organization feel uncomfortable. And on many communities, only a small percentage of members regularly share information or engage in discussions; the rest of the members, often 90% of such, are lurkers, reading messages but rarely responding to such.

Most users still get online community messages via email, so remind members, more than once, how to manage email – specifically, how to filter community or event messages automatically into a folder within their email program. The people who get the most upset about a surge in messages are people who subscribe via email digest, where all messages are put into one single email, so encourage members to change their subscriptions to individual messages and to filter these into a folder of their own, which makes it much easier to find the messages each person will want to read and to delete the messages a user doesn’t want to read.

Remember that lively debates are a natural, important part of a successful online community or event. Don’t panic when they happen: let them happen, think about why people are saying whatever it is they are saying, keep everyone fact-based, and let them run their course. Step in only if

  • someone says something that is not fact-based,
  • if arguments get personal,
  • if people are repeating themselves,
  • if your policies are violated, or
  • if the argument reduces down to a back and forth between just one or two people.

You can tell people to take the argument off the group if you truly believe the argument has run its course with other members, or even dismiss someone from the group if he or she has violated policy – but be ready to quote from their messages and your written policy to clearly show the violation.

When should you suspend or dismiss an online community member? If that person:

  • uses inappropriate language or images, as you define such (be ready to cite specific examples in your dismissal; inappropriate is a really vague term!)
  • makes false or misleading statements even after being cited for such (again, be ready to quote examples)
  • posts off-topic even after being warned not to
  • violates confidentiality rules
  • encourages illegal activity (if you are worried that your community could be held liable if a community member does, indeed, engage in that activity and get caught or hurt)
  • violates copyright or trademark laws such that your online community could be held liable
  • misrepresents himself or herself (for instance, as running a nonprofit organization that turns out not to exist, or as being a staff person from an organization when, in fact, he or she isn’t)
  • chronically posts inaccurate information (claims an organization engages in activities that it actually doesn’t, claims there are certain rules and regulations about an activity when, actually, there are not, etc.)
  • contacts community members or event participants off-list and engages in the aforementioned activities
  • tries to stifle views different from himself or herself (again, be ready to cite specific examples of such, with quotes)
  • threatens anyone

 

You may also have rules about advertising a business, but be careful; if a vendor answers a question like “Where can I find volunteer management software” with “Here’s our company’s product…”, that’s actually a helpful answer. Allow the posting of business information if it is truly on-topic for your group. You may also have rules about when it is appropriate or inappropriate to share information from an online event or an online community outside of that event or community.

Some organizations panic when an online community member that isn’t an employee starts engaging in leadership activities on a group or within an event – when the non-staff person answers questions before the official moderator gets to them, frequently shares events and resources that are on-topic to the community, and otherwise posts on-topic, but posts more than the moderators or facilitators. Don’t panic when you end up with a “super user” – celebrate it! When someone starts exhibiting leadership on your online community:

  • write or call the person directly and thank him or her for the contributions
  • ask the person where he or she heard of the community or the event
  • ask the person why he or she feels so motivated to share

If the person responds to every post to a community, then do likewise: “Thanks, Mary, for that information. Does anyone else have something they would like to add or share?” That encourages others to share as well.

If you want to limit community members to a certain number of posts a day, per person, that’s fine, but that means your staff, including your moderator, has to abide by the same rule!

You may want to approach a super-user about becoming the official moderator, freeing up your staff time for other activities; however, make it clear, in writing, if, as moderator, the person would then be prohibited from sharing opinions. You may also want to invite the person to create and host a specific online event!

By all means, if the person posts inappropriately, per your written policies, tell the person. But don’t reprimand someone for being an active community member!

Also, don’t let one community member dictate what makes your online community or event a success; if one person complains that your community has too many messages, that doesn’t mean everyone feels that way. Survey your community at least once a year so you can get everyone’s opinion.

And a final note: no super-enthusiastic online contributor lasts; it may take a few months, but every super-sharer on an online community eventually slows down. It’s impossible to maintain that kind of unofficial enthusiasm on an online community.