Social Media for Nonprofits

Last night I did a social media training for the marketing committee of the Cancer Challenge, a local nonprofit just beginning to consider using social media as a strategy. Social media campaigns for nonprofits have some different parameters from those for businesses. Let me share with you the high points:

• Set a simple goal. Nonprofits are likely to have a large, loose membership rather than a small, focused team. Members will have varying levels of comfort and experience with social media, and you can expect some random behavior. There will also be lots of people who will be willing to give a few minutes to help out. A clear, simple, narrowly focused goal is what you need. For the Cancer Challenge, their first step is simply to get as many of their volunteers and supporters as possible to place a link to their website on the social media networks they already use. One of the committee got the brainwave of heading an email "How you can really help in 30 seconds." Chances are, many of their list will go ahead and take that 30 seconds.
• Make it easy for members and volunteers. Unlike staff, who can be assigned tasks, volunteers need a task to be easy. An email saying, "Please link to our website on your Facebook or Twitter page!" will work better than, "Please go set up a Xing page about Cancer Challenge and then make us a Squidoo lens." Include easy instructions on how to place a link, and your chances of success are high.
• Have a next step for the enthusiastic. There will be plenty of people who'll take that first, simple step and stop there. That's fine. But there will also be some who get into it, and are willing to do more. Have something for them to do. For the Cancer Challenge, the people who place a link on Facebook and want to take the next step can be asked to add links at any other pages they already have access to (got an old MySpace page, maybe?). Then they can be asked to consider creating profiles at other social media networks where they don't already have a presence, and adding a link.
• Make it fun for contacts. Once the word starts to spread, any added amusement value will help. I reminded the committee of the breast cancer awareness stunt at Facebook last year that had women posting just one word -- the color of the bra the poster was wearing. Committee members came up with some great ideas of how they could get fun content that might go viral going. We sorted the ideas into those that would require technical skill and those that wouldn't -- and they chose one from the "doesn't require technical skill" group. That type will spread faster.
• Get your web site in order. Most social media campaigns aim at increasing traffic to the organization's website. Before you invite in a whole bunch of guests, just make sure that you have this year's information up, and your site looking as good as possible. We had some discussion last night about a few issues with the website, and the group is going to make all the improvements they can. They're also going to install analytics, so they can see which efforts bring traffic.

Social media can be excellent for nonprofits. If nothing else, you have the great advantage of  having people who actually want to spread the word about your cause, rather than just people who are paid to do so. The effect of sincerity which you need for effective social media is always heightened by actual sincerity.

Making a Website for a Nonprofit Organization

Last night Jon Schleuss and I presented the new website we built for the local chapter of the American Association of University Women. This excellent organization has been supporting equity for women for more than a century, and we were glad to have the opportunity to create their new site.

We showed them which pages they could change themselves, which ones had to have changes made by the webmaster, how to use the blog and the calendar.

The experience brought out some of the differences between working with businesses and working with other kinds of organizations. Here are some things to keep in mind when you build a website for your organization:

• There may be a lot of different responses. While workers in a business generally are invested in the success of the website, members of an organization may not be. Some of the members of the AAUW didn't see the point of having a website at all. Others worried that the new functionality would interfere with the current methods of communication within the group. There were concerns that changes might offend the webmaster. It may be necessary to spend some time with the membership paving the way for changes.
  
• There might be too many cooks. During most of the creation of the website, there were only one or two people from the organization involved in decision-making. Once the site was up, there were suddenly dozens of decision makers. With other organizations, we've seen all decisions have to go through multiple committees, or be passed around informally for weeks waiting for consensus. The AAUW currently has a couple of empty pages. Jon expressed it by saying, "Rebecca and I have personal websites, but this is a website for your whole group, so it should reflect the whole group. We're waiting for your input as a group, and as soon as you've decided what information you want there, we'll add that." My past experience is that members usually want changes after launch -- no matter how much discussion there is ahead of time or how long the conversation is left open -- so your organization may need to budget for the cost of making changes after completion.
• There may be rules. The AAUW has lots of rules, ranging from the way logos should be displayed to the punctuation of the content. Corporations sometimes have this sort of rule as well, but national organizations nearly always do. Whether to use "e-mail" or "email," whether abbreviations and acronyms are allowed, and whether to use honorifics like "Ms" or "Dr." are among the usage issues that often come up. The central site for the organization usually has these rules posted, though local members may be unaware of them. It's worth checking for such rules and passing them on to your web designer and copywriter.

I've done web content for religious institutions, professional associations, community organizations, and nonprofit groups. Invariably, the benefits of the website are similar to those for businesses, in terms of improved communication, new members, and increased funds. The process may be a bit different, but it's worth doing. In this case, the members of the local chapter are proud to say that their new website is the best branch website in their state. They're right about that. Their new design expresses the lively, diverse, dedicated nature of their organization, and should help to bring the next generation of educated women into the group.