Tag Archives: communities

Should you leave Twitter & Facebook for the fediverse?

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It’s a mouthful, but bear with me:

The non-profit, distributed, community-oriented fediverse might be something you need to check out and use, for your personal and professional activities – and maybe the nonprofits you work for.

More and more users are leaving Facebook and Twitter to join such communities because they are uncomfortable with the corporate policies and the owners of the companies. Some nonprofits feel that they have an ethical duty to NOT be associated with such.

Most folks are staying on Facebook and Twitter, but creating profiles on other platforms, including the fediverse, just in case they decide to change their social media patronage altogether.

The fediverse is similar to social media networks like Facebook or Twitter, but it’s not controlled by any one corporation. To you, the user, it will feel like any social media channel, but how it is set up and organized in the background is very different from for-profit platforms.

The fediverse is a network of social media servers that share one another’s content. If I set up my account on one server and you set up your account on another server, we can still see and repost each other’s content because the servers are part of a “federation.” To the user, it feels just like, say, Facebook – you see all the content of those you follow – you will have no idea they are signed up via a different server than you unless you really look for it.

The only challenge you will probably ever face as a user on a fediverse is when you sign in – you have to remember the address of your server. I do this the same way I track my passwords. But, again, otherwise, a fediverse feels just like any other social network.

The most famous example of a fediverse is Mastodon, which is a lot like Twitter. When you join Mastodon, you have to join via one of its servers. Most people join via the “social” server – it’s the first one you see when you go to the site to create an account. Each Mastodon server has its own policies and administrators. If you do not like a change in policies on the server you have joined, you can leave one for another without losing followers. Most servers follow the Mastodon Covenant, which requires a basic level of administrative service as well as active moderation against various forms of hate speech. But, honestly, as a user, you probably won’t ever have to deal with ANY of this.

An added bonus: “Mastodon’s robust REST APIs are based on ActivityPub, a W3C standard”. That means Mastodon has a commitment to accessibility!

This article in InfoWorld by Andrew C. Oliver offers the best argument I’ve seen for creating a Mastodon account and for thinking very seriously about the consequences of supporting Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with your content.

As for me: I am on Mastodon and am using it more and more. I still have an account I use for professional reasons on Twitter, a Facebook professional and a personal page, and a mostly-personal Instagram account. But I like having alternatives – especially Mastodon and Reddit (and I’m getting more and more benefits from Reddit – including lots of traffic for my blog and two consulting jobs). I haven’t deleted my personal Twitter account but I use it primarily to encourage people to follow me elsewhere (difficult to do, since the Twitter algorithms now seek out such content specifically to downgrade it and keep it from being viewed by most followers).

For the nonprofits I work for, including TechSoup: I do have profiles for them on Reddit, and was able to reclaim TechSoup’s Reddit group, and posting there has resulted in some traffic here on the TechSoup community. But I still haven’t put any of them on Mastodon – mostly because I know that, in the case of one of the nonprofits I work with, none of their clients or donors are on it. But that could change… and I need to be ready.

What about you and the nonprofits you help/work for? Are they exploring other social media platforms with an eye to not over-relying solely on just one channel? Remember: no social media platform is forever. Eventually, the one you love most will go the way of AOL communities, MySpace, Friendster…

Also see:

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

For detailed information about leveraging online tools to support and involve volunteers, whether they provide their service onsite at your organization, onsite elsewhere, or online, get yourself a copy of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. Online platforms and social media channels come and go, but the recommendations here are timeless. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere on this subject than than The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

If you have benefited from any of my blogs or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

My 2021 summer teaching gig at Gratz College

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I am so pleased to announce that I will be teaching a course for Gratz College this summer: MGT 553 Using Technology to Build Community and Grow Your Organization. It is part of the college’s MS in Nonprofit Management. 

The 553 course will examine online networking tools that can be used to foster connectivity, communication, and collaboration in order to strengthen nonprofit and religious-based organizations. As someone that has been online since the early 1990s and still believes that online communities are the heart of the Internet, I could not be more excited to teach this course! I will use a mix of books, online readings, podcasts and my own audiovisual materials to explore how mission-based initiatives can use online tools to create a sense of community among donors, volunteers, clients, neighbors and partners, and how to attract new people to be a part of those communities. It’s a class about facilitation, trust-building, outreach, and working with humans – online. 

The original course was designed in 2016 by Dr. Deborah Kantor Nagler, who passed away because of COVID-19 in April 2020. It has been bittersweet to have this opportunity because of the global pandemic, and I have dedicated this revised course to Dr. Kantor, who I’m so sorry I never met.

Much has changed since this course was last taught and, of course, I have my own approach to the subject, so I’ve spent a LOT of time creating new lectures and lessons. Online community has gotten buried under ad-ridden web sites with questionable content, memes and hate speech. I hope my course helps students see the potential of online communities for the nonprofits they are affiliated with and plays even a small part in bringing back civility to the Internet.

Gratz College is based in Philadelphia. It just celebrated its 125th anniversary. The College’s historic focus is on Jewish studies and education, and it continues to be internationally recognized as a leader in developing effective educators, professionals, leaders and scholars, both within and beyond the Jewish community, with a broad commitment to the intellectual and professional growth of diverse constituencies, grounded in Jewish values. The college is renowned for its Holocaust and Genocide Studies. They also offer an M.A. in Human Rights, with courses in areas such as Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Children’s Rights, Sexual Identity and Gender Rights and Refugee Rights.

Per the emphasis of the college, some of my examples of effectively using online tools to engage and build community will be from programs focused on historic genocides and prevention of genocide – you can see a list of Twitter accounts I will be featuring here (additions are welcomed).

I love teaching at the university level. It is one of my very favorite things to do, right up there with riding my motorcycle. My experience to date? I was the Fall 2015 Duvall Leader in Residence at the University of Kentucky’s Center for Leadership Development, teaching sessions on online leadership. I have also guest lectured at classes at Portland State University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work and St. Edward’s University on both volunteer management-related topics, usually virtual volunteering, and on using online tools as a part of nonprofit service delivery and outreach. And I regularly train professionals in these and other topics: in 2020 alone, I created and delivered workshops for the University College Dublin Volunteers Overseas program, Centre d’étude et de coopération internationale / Centre for International Studies and Cooperation—CECI, the Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service, the USA Office of Healthcare Information & Counseling, the Points of Light Foundation / Corporation for National Service, America’s Service Commissions (ASC), and the Community Foundation of Henderson, Kentucky, among others (my busiest year as a trainer ever).

For the time being, I’ll also be continuing my very part-time role with TechSoup, helping to manage the TechSoup online community – introducing topics, answering community questions, trying to attract new participants and helping to move the community to a new platform before summer. Yes, joining and participating in the TechSoup community is going to be one of the assignments for my Gratz College students!

So, if you want to book me for a training or consultation, know that my schedule is very tight now and through August! And it’s also that time of year when I start getting contacted about leading workshops in the Fall, so it’s not too early to talk to me about my schedule after this class is done.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

Of course, you can have on-demand training from me regarding virtual volunteering anytime, through my free videos on m YouTube channel and via my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. If you want to deeply integrate virtual volunteering into your program and expand your engagement of online volunteers, such as in an online mentoring program or other scheme where online volunteers will interact with clients, you will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers – even after home quarantines are over and volunteers start coming back onsite to your workspace. And purchasing the book is far, far cheaper than hiring me as a consultant or trainer regarding virtual volunteering – though you can still do that!

MLK words for what’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri, USA

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“I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.”

Speech by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Grosse Pointe High School, March 14, 1968

Everything old is new again, & again

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People watching TV and writing about it online with their friends at the same time?!. Breathless buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz!!!

Am I talking about the Super Bowl last weekend, and so many people live tweeting it? Or the last episode of 30 Rock last week? Or the Olympics last year?

No – I’m talking about something that’s been happening for at least 30 years.

I’m talking about Usenet, a worldwide Internet discussion system that started in the early 1980s. Usenet was not only the initial Internet community – in the 1980s and 1990s, it was THE place for many of the most important public developments in the commercial/public Internet: it’s where Tim Berners-Lee announced the launch of the World Wide Web, where Linus Torvalds announced the Linux project, and where the creation of the Mosaic web browser was announced (and which revolutionized the Web by turning it into a graphical medium, rather than just text-based).

It was also the place where there were discussion groups – called newsgroups – for everything imaginable: volunteer firefighting, accounting, classic cars, computer repair, tent camping, hiking with your dog, nonprofit management, college football teams – and, indeed, television shows.

Yes, as early as the 1980s, many thousands of people all over the USA were gathering online with friends to talk in realtime about what they were watching on TV. While I didn’t write online during the X-Files in the 1990s, I fully admit to running to my computer as soon as an episode was over, to read what everyone thought and to share my own reactions. Usenet TV and entertainment-related communities fascinated me so much at the time that I ended up writing about them at my day job: about how members of the online communities for the X-Files, Xena, and other entertainment-focused newsgroups engaged in online volunteering & various charitable activities. That was in 1999.

There’s nothing really new about people live tweeting what they are seeing on TV, except that more people are doing it than were on newsgroups and that it’s being done on Twitter now.

And I bring this up because I keep finding articles and research that claims online volunteering or microvolunteering is new. It’s not. Helping people via the Internet, in ways large and small, is a practice that’s more than 30 years old, and just-show-up volunteering without a long-term commitment, which until recently was called episodic volunteering (and I called online versions of it byte-sized volunteering back in the 1990s) has also been around for decades.

We’re not in uncharted territory regarding volunteering or any human interaction online – so let’s embrace our past, learn from it, and give the true innovators, the real pioneers, their due! Rebranding practices and approaches is fine, but let’s not deny our past in the process – there are some great learnings from back in the day that could really help us not so make many missteps online now!

Also see:

I don’t like “Closed Gardens”

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I don’t like “closed gardens” like Facebook to create online communities for volunteers, clients or members. Not only for all of the reasons I note here on TechSoup, but also because a lot of people do NOT like mixing their social lives with their volunteering lives.

Take this story today on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, that noted a teacher was fired for a photo on her Facebook page that showed her drinking wine while she was on vacation. That’s enough to make anyone paranoid about using their Facebook page for their work or volunteering.

Also, if I am required to join a Facebook group as a part of my volunteering, that means other volunteers and the organization’s employees are going to know I’m on Facebook, and want to become my friend – and be hurt if I say no.

More on why I don’t like “closed gardens” as online communities for volunteers, clients or members. Weigh in there on your own thoughts! (if you try to comment here on this particular blog, I’m going to NOT publish your comment and ask that you over to TechSoup and reply)

Online Fan Communities Work to Save the World

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Even back in the 1990s, there were thousands of online communities for people who wanted to to share information and excitement about a particular television show, movie, sports team, celebrity, hobby or literary genre. Back then, instead of via Facebook or a YahooGroup, it was via USENET or American Online. Just as offline communities and groups will often “pass the hat” at their gatherings for a good cause, or participate in the occasional one-day group volunteering event, Internet-based fan groups came together online or in person back in the 1990s to improve their communities, promote a cause or generate funds for a nonprofit organization. Often, these fans engaged in philanthropy with no prompting from any charity or formal organization. I highlighted some of those fan-based online volunteering efforts. while at the Virtual Volunteering Project in 1999.

I’m not at all surprised that the practice is continuing: the recent National Conference on Media Reform in Boston, organized by the non-profit organization Free Press, featured the panel “Pop Culture Warriors: How Online Fan Communities Are Organizing to Save the World.” This blog details one effort:

The Harry Potter Alliance is a group of devotees worldwide who have hocus-pocused their shared love of the Potter books and movies into genuine social activism. As their website declares, they use the power of the Internet to “work with partner NGOs [non-profit, non-governmental organizations] in alerting the world to the dangers of global warming, poverty, and genocide. Work with our partners for equal rights regardless of race, gender, and sexuality. Encourage our members to hone the magic of their creativity in endeavoring to make the world a better place.”

The Alliance mobilized its fanbase to win a $250,000 grant from Chase Community Giving, beating out more than 10,000 other charities in a Facebook competition. They’ve donated more than 55,000 books to school libraries around the world, including the Mississippi Delta and Rwanda, and are helping to build a school library in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Five planeloads of supplies were sent to Haiti after last year’s earthquake. They’ve registered first-time voters and even petitioned Time Warner to make Harry Potter chocolates Fair Trade: that is, chocolate not made — or cocoa beans harvested — under inhumane conditions, such as starvation wages or child slavery.

The audio of the conference session on online fan communities is here.

If you are a nonprofit organization looking to increase diversity among your volunteering / supporter ranks, find out if there are fan groups in your area. Find them by searching on YahooGroups, GoogleGroups and Meetup.com. Also ask your current volunteers – and ask them to, in turn, ask their friends and family members – if they are a part of an online fan-based community and if that community would be receptive to message about volunteering at your organization. Create a written pitch just for the particular group you want to approach, inviting them to learn more about volunteering with your organization, or inviting them to attend a particular event or activity. Food banks, for instance, could put out word that those hosting viewing parties of a particular TV show could encourage attendees to bring food donations for the food bank. Or an environmental group hosting a trail or beach cleanup could get the word out about the event to fan-based groups. Or a school-based mentoring program could let a local chapter of a fan-based group know about the need for mentors, how easy it is to be involved, the difference mentors make, etc.

As noted in the article I wrote originally about online volunteering by fan-based groups,

  • For annual events: “People should keep in mind that these kind of events start off slow. You shouldn’t try to start huge. Let support build. Let the word get out. It will get bigger every year.”
  • Have a lead person or official chairperson who is well-recognized within the online community to lead communication activities with the group on your behalf. They want to hear from one of their own, not an outsider.
  • Talk to the group before the event about the recognition it may receive. If they are going to show up in their Star Trek uniforms for your one-day volunteering event, get their permission before you have local news reporters come out to film them – no one wants to be made fun of for their passions!

If you are a fan-based group looking for a nonprofit or NGO to support, engage in a conversation with your membership about what that organization should be: some members may already be affiliated with an organization and others may want to join them. Or they may know that a person affiliated with whatever you are following – a TV show, a book, a movie, a sports team, a singer, etc. – is already affiliated with a charity your membership like to add their support to.

And remember: this group will talk after the event or volunteering activity, online, in the online community, about their experience. Work with the group’s leadership to ensure that you hear feedback that can help you improve activities in the future, that might look great on your web site, or that simply might energize your organization to engage with this community again.

Also see Finding Community Service and Volunteering for Groups.