{"id":119,"date":"2011-12-15T04:45:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T04:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyoteblog.posterous.com\/what-nonprofit-government-agencies-get-facebo"},"modified":"2020-02-11T08:25:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T16:25:03","slug":"what-nonprofit-government-agencies-get-facebo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2011\/12\/what-nonprofit-government-agencies-get-facebo\/","title":{"rendered":"What nonprofit &#038; government agencies &#8220;get&#8221; FaceBook?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t think <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\">FaceBook<\/a> is the  greatest thing since sliced bread, but I do think it&#8217;s an important part  of a nonprofit or government or other mission-based organization&#8217;s  overall <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotecommunications.com\/tips2.html\">box of outreach tools<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But so few nonprofits or governments &#8212; or corporations, for that matter  &#8212; &#8220;get&#8221; FaceBook. For instance, many of them post endless pleas for  donations as their status updates. Or post incredibly boring &#8220;events,&#8221;  like that the Executive Director is going to speak somewhere. Or that  the new annual report is now available. Or launch <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.forumer.com\/jcravens\/43876\/FAIL%3A+charity+giving+popularity+contests.html\">yet another contest<\/a>. ZZzzzz.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some organizations that &#8220;get&#8221; FaceBook, in my opinion:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kystateparks\">Kentucky State Parks<\/a> &#8211; posts about upcoming special events at different parks, or special  deals, like women-only retreats. Every post makes me want to go! I&#8217;m  &#8220;friends&#8221; with a lot of state parks, and in comparison, all the others  are oh-so-boring in what they share on FaceBook (if they share anything  at all). Are you listening, Oregon?<\/li>\n<li> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/peacecorps\">PeaceCorps<\/a> &#8211;  posts mostly about what PeaceCorps members are doing in the field and  special recognition or events where members are honored. I imagine  thousands of former PeaceCorps members, as well as current members,  swell with pride with every post, being reminded of what a fantastic  institution they are a part of, and are further energized to become  advocates for PeaceCorps with friends and colleagues.<\/li>\n<li> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/USAID.News\">U.S. Agency for International Development &#8211; USAID<\/a> &#8211; posts about what USAID is doing and accomplishing in the developing  world, and what new strategies they are about to incorporate. Every post  says &#8220;We&#8217;re active, we&#8217;re focused on what people <em>really<\/em> need, and we&#8217;re getting results.&#8221; Your tax dollars at work!<\/li>\n<li> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wougnet\">Women of Uganda Network<\/a> &#8211; I&#8217;ve been a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wougnet.org\/\">WOUGNET<\/a> supporter for <em>many<\/em> years, so it&#8217;s no surprise to me that their Facebook status updates  would make me go &#8220;wow&#8221; so often. Every post is &#8220;here&#8217;s another fabulous  thing we&#8217;ve been up to to help women and girls access computer  technology.&#8221; Same for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/29483989@N04\">their Flickr account<\/a>, for that matter. Ladies, I swear, I WILL get to Uganda soon!&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Mayhew-International\/141386897397\">Mayhew International<\/a> &#8211; This organization is based in England and is focused on humanely  changing the stray dog and cat situation in a variety of countries,  including in Afghanistan, by encouraging people to become responsible  pet owners and by dispelling myths about stray animals. They don&#8217;t post  endless photos of animals in awful conditions; their posts give me hope  that this is a battle that can actually be won, and dogs and cats can be  valued and bring joy in any country, in any culture.<\/li>\n<li> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Humane-Society-of-Henderson-County\/201306703642\">Humane Society of Henderson County<\/a> (Kentucky) &#8211; Here&#8217;s an incredible success story, an organization that a few years ago was being attacked by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peta.org\/\">PETA<\/a> and the public for its horrific conditions and practices, and now, is  an organization that welcomes the public and volunteers into the  organization and is a model for other animal shelters. And their  Facebook use is part of that <em>amazing<\/em> turnaround.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What do all these FaceBook users have in common? <strong>Their status updates are so compelling that I <em>want<\/em> to read them! <\/strong>They  are using FaceBook to micro-blog about &#8220;wow&#8221; things. And I feel like  there is a caring human writing their posts, not a cold PR person trying  to manipulate me. I feel like they are my &#8220;friend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What happens when these organizations post to FaceBook? <strong>People respond:<\/strong> They click &#8220;like&#8221;. They post glowing comments. They repost to their own  status on FaceBook. They blog about it. They tell their friends. My  guess is that these organizations see greater attendance at events,  greater numbers of volunteers signing up to help, and probably an  increase in donations &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotecommunications.com\/culture\/online2offline.shtml\">tangible results that make online activities worth doing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.forumer.com\/jcravens\/44068\/What+nonprofit+%26amp%3B+government+agencies+%26quot%3Bget%26quot%3B+FaceBook%3F.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Original version of this<\/a> from 28 September 2010 (note who&#8217;s here and who isn&#8217;t!)<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t think FaceBook is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I do think it&#8217;s an important part of a nonprofit or government or other mission-based organization&#8217;s overall box of outreach tools. But so few nonprofits or governments &#8212; or cor&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-relationsoutreach","category-tech-tools"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3fFJB-1V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5405,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/5405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}