Packaging Your Organization to Communicate Impact The Way the User Wants to Experience It

I’ve had the pleasure of consulting closely with countless unique clients with diverse missions, yet all face a common challenge. They struggle to position their organizations effectively in a manner which communicates the impact of their organization to various demographic segments. The challenge, common among most non-profits, goes beyond messaging to encompass internal operational silos, departmental or programmatic territorialism, false profiling of market segments due to lack of proper evidence, and an overall challenge in defining each organization’s role in changing the world for the community they serve in an appropriate way – all the while addressing the communications preferences of disparate populations. Does this sound like too many balls to juggle in the air? I argue this is not the case.

More often than not, organizations approach challenges such as user-intuitive information architecture (navigation) on their web site and through other communications channels without taking into account how unlike individuals will navigate and interpret information. An exercise recently conducted with one client’s technology and web review board unexpectedly triggered surprised looks as board members realized for the first time that individuals tasked with the same objective in reviewing, critiquing or navigating a web site will not only interpret and perceive navigation, visuals, interactivity, and messaging differently, but will adamantly argue that their views apply to all. They’re all disagreeing, but they’re all right – their way is “the right way.” One of the first lessons I learned in my career in non-profit fund development and marketing came to me from a mentor and VP at the world’s most popular cola creator. In chairing my organization’s PR and marketing committee, he operated under the mantra, perception is reality.

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The new book People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities recently hit the bookshelves. It was around this time last year that I was sending the draft of my chapter in the book to the editors.

The book covers a variety of important topics related to how nonprofit organizations can leverage Web 2.0 and other social networking technologies.

The contributors to People to People Fundraising bring with them a lot of experience and this is an excellent way to either start or enhance your understanding of this important trend.

My task during the writing process was to put together the introductory chapter for the book. So the challenge was to paint a broad, but still vivid and engaging, picture of what people to people fundraising means in order to setup the rest of the book. Amazon.com has the “search inside” feature setup and the chapter appears as the excerpt. Click here to take a look at some of what made it into print, including this paragraph of prose:

“A fundamental reality of fundraising is that people give to people with causes, not to organizations. Buildings and brochures may in some ways influence people, but they cannot hold a conversation. People need to feel a personal connection to the causes and initiatives they choose to donate to. The power of personal content, communication, and collaboration all combine to create a sense of community.”

So where do we go from here? Lots of places, hopefully. Over the next year I will be spending a lot of time writing and talking about applying the notion of people to people fundraising in a variety of different ways. As always, this needs to be a two-way conversation so you feedback and ideas are very important. With that in mind there will be some upcoming ways to get engaged in the dialogue. Stay tuned…

At a recent conference for science editors I heard a lot of tech buzz words being thrown around—RSS, Wiki, blog, podcast. For that crowd, a lot of the concepts were new. After all, this group still focuses mostly on print journals and many of the editors remember vividly office systems sans computers.

Whatever your comfort zone, these technologies are here and as the public grows more Web savvy, they expect you to be up on the latest trends. One of my favorite parts of this new tech wave is that it’s relatively low impact on one’s budget. The Internet has in fact given Joe Public the keys to authorship through numerous free social networking and blogging sites. (They even let me on!) So, aside from the obvious commitment of time and creativity there’s no reason for you not to join the game.

Next question: What might a nonprofit use such tech for? (more…)

I was intrigued by this recent article about SAP and others incorporating collaboration features like wikis, forums, blogs and widgets into their products to help encourage communication among users. One of our main goals with products on the Infinity platform is to get beyond the idea of these apps being a ‘data storage’ tool and really focus on the ways in which the products facilitate and improve business processes. We’re already well on our way to meeting this goal through features like customizable, easy-to-use business transactions (such as sending receipts or posting to GL), and better integration of reporting data into these functions.

But a huge part of facilitating processes involves communication among people and departments. I’m wondering what we can do to better allow users to communicate with each other through our products? And where would this type of functionality be most useful? We’ve already taken steps in this direction in specific areas - Major Giving cultivation, for example, where we’re looking to improve the ability of fundraisers and their managers to communicate progress and status on their prospects. But I think this is an area we can explore further and really take advantage of some of the newer tools available to us.

It seems like there are some key characteristics of situations where in-product collaboration would be most useful:

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We talk a lot about nonprofits using the social web to attract and engage donors, but the concepts trend more towards awareness than action. Using MySpace or YouTube to deliver your message to a broad audience is one thing - getting them to act is another.

That’s where SixDegrees.org, AOL Instant Messenger, and Network for Good come in. Someone had the brilliant idea to put these three ingredients into a giant Web 2.0 blender in the hopes of producing a tasty, social fundraising smoothie – and it looks like they have succeeded.

With Kevin Bacon as the natural pitchman, 6Degrees.org is asking donors to choose a nonprofit, then get 6 friends to give to the same organization. Network for Good is covering the online donations, while AOL’s MySpace equivalent AIM Pages handles the social aspect. The idea is to use a social network to form impromptu giving circles…got it?

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I recently ran across a new video sharing site for nonprofits, DoGooder.tv. Very cool. The site is live right now, though in alpha, and allows nonprofits to post high-quality videos for a small fee free. They plan to include more community and online donation functionality down the road, so this is pretty exciting.

But will nonprofits flock to DoGooderTV instead of free alternatives like YouTube or Google Video? DoGooderTV will always have a captive audience looking for nonprofit content, but whether or not organizations will be willing to pay for that placement remains to be seen. Tracking…

Update: Michael says:

The site is 100% FREE! A new version is online now that allows nonprofits to create basic home pages and upload video.

That’s great news from the DoGooderTV camp - not only because the the service will be free, but social elements like creating pages are coming sooner rather than later.

Using the Social Web, also referred to as Web 2.0, is a great way for your nonprofit to reach donors and spread your message.

Social sites are built to encourage sharing, and few things are more effective and inexpensive than viral marketing. While maintaining your own Web site will always be a priority, there are other ways to spread your organization’s story via the Internet.

Here are ten social web resolutions that can give your nonprofit an edge in 2007:

• Create a page at MySpace.com
  Your donors are getting younger, or at least they are acting younger…so should you. Reach out to them via MySpace.com this year. Setup a page for your organization, gather friends, post bulletins, and point people back to your online donation page.
• Go in-world with Second Life
  Get an account started at Second Life, and take your nonprofit into the virtual world. This is cutting edge internet marketing, so getting started now may get you closer to tech-savvy donors who are looking for something different. Have a meet-up in Second Life to discuss your annual campaign or just chat about issues. If you do it right, Reuters might show up and cover the event in the real world.

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