Three things I know about the nonprofit annual report: it takes a ton of time to put together beautifully, few people actually read it, but funders require it. The annual report is one of those pieces of communication and collateral that executive directors and development directors dread putting together because it is such a costly endeavor with relatively little return and short shelf life. It doesn’t have to be that way in the age of social. We’ve socialized constituent communication, websites, fundraising, and events…why not rethink the annual report into a social communication? Several nonprofit organizations have done just that, transforming the paper annual report into a video report, and reinvigorating it in the process.

Video is a natural medium for storytelling, and that’s what the annual report should be.

There are some significant benefits to a video report: lasting content on the web, video footage for re-use, and changing a report into a discussion. Four organizations have done just that. I was lucky enough to correspond with Nathan Hand of School on Wheels and Derek Weidl of THEMUSEUM, who offer editorial comments about their organizations’ video reports as well.

THE MUSEUM: THEMUSEUM’s Report to the Community

THEMUSEUM, a children’s “unmuseum” in Kitchener, Ontario, has a mission “to scan the globe for fresh cultural content and use it to stage experiences that stimulate transformative connections for our audiences.” As such, it isn’t surprising that they created a video annual report that expresses the creativity of what happened at the museum in 2011. It’s a lot of fun to watch, too.

Beth Kanter posted THEMUSEUM’s video annual report to her Google Plus stream, and quite a conversation ensued. Beth commented that the video seemed a bit long, with a lot of insider information. Derek Weidl, the video creator, agreed that “scope creep” played a role in length. One solution might be two versions of the report: a shorter video for external use and longer video for internal use with more insider jokes and  insider news.

Derek Weidl adds that the video has succeeded in a number of ways: “It inspired some donations that we weren’t expecting. It provided a great engagement point online (especially twitter) where people relived some of the great moments and events we’ve had over the past year. It’s been already used in some important meetings with potential sponsors/partners to great effect as it really captures what we’re all about. Also, an underrated part has been the reaction by staff members. Since it involves every staff member, it has reinforced their love of our organization. After we first screened it at our AGM, the staff insisted upon multiple viewings – we all watched it 5 times without a break (not kidding)!”

The Sunlight Foundation: Sunlight 2010: The Year in Review

A snappy mix of text, images from the year’s work, and video footage from the Sunlight Foundation’s political advocacy work. Conveys achievements and Foundation highlights in 2:24. Conveys a lot of information in a short amount of time, and keeps your attention.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository annual video report: It Starts With Food: 2010-2011 Annual Report

The Greater Chicago Food Depository’s executive director gives the voiceover highlighting the successes of the past year. The video is embedded within the website and accompanied by a fundraising appeal, short blog post, sample tweet, and a thank you.

I really like how they package the video within their own web page, and explain the report to donors. The web page announces, “This year, the Greater Chicago Food Depository has taken its Annual Report online, providing our donors, volunteers, partners and supporters a glimpse of the day-to-day work your support makes possible. The 2010-2011 Annual Report’s online format saves paper and the cost of printing the report, while offering visitors an opportunity to experience the Food Depository’s work in a new way. ”

School on Wheels: School on Wheels 2010 Annual Report

A combination of the traditional annual report (the Executive Director’s note, the CFO’s report), footage of programs, and stakeholder testimony. A bit long at six minutes, but certainly more engaging than a written report. A list of donors runs through the last three minutes of the video.

Nathan Hand, VP of Development and Marketing for School on Wheels, reports that the organization reverted back to a PDF report for 2011. When I asked why, he wrote: “The work was donated last year. We had a lot of supporters who didn’t/wouldn’t go online to see it but wanted to see their name in print. Orgs spend tons of time/$ on them and they have the shortest life ever – people skim the pretty pictures, look for their name and toss it. We designed (this year’s PDF report) internally, didn’t spend a ton of time pouring over details, mailed it out and then posted it online.”

Nathan adds “there are tons of other benefits to the video version but for us, the cost/time factor won out. Plus, we just had a great video done (donated again) for a big event which basically served the same purpose. We now have a ton of great digital b-roll of our kids that we’ve already used in videos we’ve created since then.”

Two takeaways from the School on Wheels experience: budget for the video report or find a talented videographer, and know how your donors want to be thanked.

 Bonus: Ideas and opportunities for further socializing the annual video report

• Ask volunteers/members/constituents/stakeholders to submit video content for the annual report
• Crowdsourced ideas for what should be featured in the report
• Run a contest around sharing the report to the most people and places
• Include a question during the video report that you’d like viewers to respond to in the comments
• Ask for video responses to the report
• Run a contest for fans to create their own annual report of what they think the organization has done best over the past year

Infographics are multiplying like rabbits. I run across them everywhere, and about all types of subjects from the power of social fundraising to the what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Some are great, some not so great. The abundance of data we now have to process is fueling the trends towards content curation, data consolidation tools, and information visualization. As Beth Kanter remarked on a public Google Plus thread about creating useful infographics, “I think that information visualization is a necessity in this age of data overload and seeing the forest beyond the trees.” I agree with that statement, and personally jump to view the “shiny new storytelling toy” whenever I see an infographic. Infographics represent an exciting new storytelling avenue for nonprofit organizations, enabling them to share important data stories, visually.

Infographics as storytelling

Infographics represent a natural extension of storytelling: telling the story of data. It’s not a coincidence that storytelling is growing as we struggle to understand all the information coming at us and overcome cause fatigue. Karen Dietz, who uses storytelling to help business grow, says that “infographics are another form of visual storytelling and many of the same oral storytelling principles apply. We’ll be sorting out the issues of authenticity and key messaging and quality as infographics become more popular and easier to produce.” And therein lies the rub: quality. Just as all stories are not created equally, neither are all infographics.

Passing the infographics litmus test

What makes a great infographic? Urs Gattiker, Chief Technology Officer of ComMetrics, frames it perfectly: “The question is, can viewers see the overall shape of the data more easily and quickly with infographics than any other visual aid? Most infographics fail this acid test.” Urs Gattiker’s ComMetrics blog post describes in detail what makes an infographic dashboard or design useful. (It’s chock full of great resources and data.)

Dave, of Communication Nation, created a “manifesto” of what makes a good infographic:

1. It’s a visual explanation that helps you more easily understand, find or do something.
2. It’s visual, and when necessary, integrates words and pictures in a fluid, dynamic way.
3. It stands alone and is completely self-explanatory.
4. It reveals information that was formerly hidden or submerged.
5. It makes possible faster, more consistent understanding.
6. It’s universally understandable.

I would add to this list: The reader does not have to search for the key data points or key story elements.

As Urs points out in the comments below, it takes quite a bit of time and skill to create a good infographic. A non-profit needs either money to work with the right designer or have a designer on staff to create a good one. However, you can experiment with some of the DIY infographic tools listed in the infographic ideas and resources at the bottom of the post.

5 ways that nonprofits can utilize infographics

There are a lot of great ways that nonprofit organizations can utilize infographics. Below are five ideas for nonprofits who want to tell stories using infographics. Feel free to add to this with your examples and ideas.

1. Show the need for a program. This infographic illustrates the need for clean drinking water. This infographic from the World Wildlife Federation shows the impact of climate change in the coral triangle region of the world.

2. Visualize the data from a report, such as this infographic summarizing the eNonprofit Benchmarks study.

3. Move people to action. Voices for America’s Children created an infographic showing where children live in poverty in the USA, overlaid with where the important elected officials live. The infographic is located adjacent to its “take action” online letter to elected officials.

4. Donation impact. Charity:water created an infographic called How Your Birthday Can Change the World to show the impact of donations.

5. Impact of services. The American Red Cross’ infographic illustrates the many ways that they are helping victims of US natural disasters.

Infographics ideas and resources

Looking for ideas and inspiration? Visual.ly has a pool of community-created infographics that you can subscribe to by RSS. For storytelling inspiration, check out Wilton Blake’s scoop.it curated topic “Storytelling = Nonprofit Sustainability” and Jennifer King’s “Storytelling for Social Change” scoop.it curated topic. Jonha Revsencio curates the scoop.it topic “Awesome Infographics,” Also worth looking through is the Flickr infographics pool. Beth Kanter writes, “Can Stories be Data?,” postulating that storytelling is as much about the stories as it is about the data, while making sense of the data that comes from stories.

Looking for tools? Create and explore your own data visualizations with visual.ly (and this article about it). Check out Wild Apricot’s blog post on tools to make your own infographic. Get started with creating your own charts, diagrams, and more: 32 free tools to create different diagrams. Fast Company reviews the five best free tools for making slick infographics.

Organizations want to create a personal connection to its donors, but one organization has taken that idea out of the box and run with it. The North American Bear Center has enabled its supporters to craft a personal relationship with a bear family through Facebook. In fact, the NABC has carefully created a Facebook community around Lily the Black Bear that seamlessly furthers their mission of education and advancing the survival of black bears. But their fans care most about Lily and her bear family.

Lily the Black Bear’s fans can be moved to action in great numbers when asked. There is no better measuring stick of online community engagement than a community’s willingness to engage and take action when asked. All told, Lily the Bear’s fans have helped to raise $159,597 from 23,502 fans just this year. In terms of social network fundraising, that’s huge. The real question is why and what could be replicated by others.

Lily the Black Bear has successfully put a face on an issue and developed an entire online community around the cause.

The North American Bear Center in Northern Minnesota has created an entire movement of people who care about the North American bear around Lily the Black Bear. Lily the Bear’s Facebook Page features daily blog posts about the lives of bears, as well as webcam and photo uploads from Lily’s den and the area. The Page has 119,457 fans, many of which care deeply about Lily the Black Bear and her family. (Facebook status updates receive, on average, 50 comments.)

The NABC has steadily built an incredibly engaged Facebook community and community of fans that watch their live bear webcams, pay attention to the Facebook updates, and want to know more about bears. This summer the organization mobilized 17,916 votes to help win $100,000 in the second Chase Community Giving challenge. It also came in second in Minnesota’s Give to the Max Day, motivating 1793 supporters to give $39,597. Lastly, it has leveraged its community’s goodwill to help a local school win $20,000.

Lily the Bear even participates in America’s School Spirit Challenge

In November, Care2, along with America’s Great Schools and Explore.org held the 2010 K-12 America’s School Spirit Challenge. The school with the most votes would receive $20,000. As Lily the Bear’s bear family (and her human research family) reside near the Ely Esy school, the NABC decided to ask Lily’s Facebook Page fans to help. Fans voted in large numbers. Voters wrote notes like “it’s the home of Lilly & Hope & all the other bears in the Research Team” and “I’m a Lily & Hope Fan. Love those bears.”

The Ely Esy school won easily, receiving 3,739 votes. Lily the Bear fans cast over 500 votes the day before voting closed to assure a victory of over 1,000 votes. Contributing to this success was that Lily the Bear Facebook fans are deeply connected to the Facebook Page, the mission of the organization, and clearly understood the connection to the local school. This specific challenge shows that if there is a connection to the cause, fans can be encouraged to support organizations other than their own.

What is the NABC doing so well?

1. They have brought us into the organization through a personal connection with Lily. Social media is personal, and Facebook is a great medium for sustaining friendships. Once you’ve met Lily, by the way, you’re hooked!

2. NABC supports the fan page with great content on the website. Supporting content includes two live webcams, photos, and bear facts.

3. Every moment is an educational moment. Lily the Black Bear’s Facebook wall is a mix of educational resources about bears and inside peeks into Lily and her family’s daily life. The NABC sees every activity of the bears as a potential educational moment.

4. Through this mix of education and personal involvement, the NABC motivates Lily’s fans to save black bears and continue to support the NABC. Fans are not only saving black bears, but they are saving bears just like Lily. When you put it that way, it’s easy to motivate fans to donate. This is why the organization has been able to motivate thousands to vote, donate and support efforts that save the black bears.

Lily the Bear IS incredible, but the NABC deserves all the credit for creating an incredibly engaged online community, and a movement, from the personal connection to one family of bears.

Many thanks to Sue Anne Reed for introducing me to Lily the Bear and the NABC on Facebook.

image courtesy of dsevilla

Last week, I received an absolutely incredible press release; a vivid, kinetic preview of an event, the ROI Summit, entitled “The Future is Here.” The ROI social media press release (SMPR) included photos, a twitter pitch, recent news, online resource links, featured Summit participants, videos, and of course…the pitch.  Toby Dershowitz, of The Dershowitz Group, was kind enough to talk about how the company crafted the SMPR, best practices, how to measure the success of a SMPR, and predictions about the future of the social media press release.

What did you want to feature in the ROI social media press release?

We wanted to highlight three things:

1.    The vision of Lynn Schusterman, who has made the ROI Community her signature philanthropic project.
2.    The members of the ROI network — their ideas, their energy and idealism, and their achievements.
3.    Links that give you access to various parts of ROI’s online network.

What are the best practices in creating a social media press release?

Social media press releases are a few years old, but I have yet to see anything I’d deem best practices. What works best — and what doesn’t work at all — is rather fuzzy. SMPRs are still a work in progress.

That said, the general rule of thumb is to serve up the information, stories, and resources in a variety of appetizing ways. The standard press release, filled with useful links, serves as the spine of the SMPR. (Or, if you think like a blogger, it’s the main post, with comments at the bottom.) Sidebar layouts vary as much as blogs do: embedded videos, factoids, a Twitter pitch, resource links, Facebook buttons, and more. Contact info should obviously be in there too — and PitchEngine does a nice job of tucking those details up top, where a click initiates an elegant reveal.

But it’s hard to nail down best practices for a platform that hasn’t yet proven itself. As Mark Evans says: “In theory, I love the idea of the social media press release but in practice it hasn’t been a home run.”

Do you use a template of any kind? Do you modify it?

We used Pitchengine.com to build our SMPRs, mostly because they offered the best mix of functionality, design, and cost (free).  We didn’t modify the PitchEngine template because that’s not an option. Placement of the elements is also fixed.

My guess is two things will happen soon: Platforms like PitchEngine will offer more flexibility in layout and design; and lots of people will awaken to the fact that an SMPR is just a web page, and they’ll design a template for their own websites. That provides more control — and enables you to host it on your own domain.

Is there any rule of thumb as to which elements work the best to get the attention of writers and journalists to cover a story?

Our rule of thumb for an SMPR is the same as for any press release — or, for that matter, any form of communication: have something worth saying that your audience wants to hear. To that end, I’d argue that the title and the first few lines of the release are still key. Give people a reason to keep reading… and viewing… and clicking.

The media mix also matters. Diversifying your media allows for more diversity in your media coverage,  more quickly. A newspaper can lift text from the body of your SMPR, the evening news (or increasingly popular online TV) can grab and embed a video clip, a radio station can play a sound bite straight from the website, and a blogger can retweet whatever piece of information strikes her fancy.

What service do you recommend for the press release distribution? Any particular reason why you chose Pitchengine?

We chose PitchEngine for a few reasons. First, we liked the template. It was user-friendly both for us and for those to whom we’ve sent it. It was easy to upload video and photos. Essentially, It provides users access to more of the newsroom, not just the release. We’ve received great feedback so far, though I imagine some of that is the novelty (for most people). PitchEngine is also free.

Our goal is to encourage clients to host their own SMPRs as extensions of their own sites. Because that’s all they really are — web pages. Self-hosting has several benefits:

-    The SMPR will carry your own URL, which is better for SEO.
-    The template will be consistent with the rest of your site, which is better for branding.
-    You don’t make users go from (for example) an email with a traditional press release… to the PitchEngine site to view an enhanced, media-rich version (the SMPR)… to your site to access more resources. Every click you require is another hurdle which may prompt readers to go somewhere else.

Is there a way to calculate click-throughs or views of the social media elements?

PitchEngine has a page view counter. Unfortunately, it does not have individual analytics for all the various elements. Of course, if you send out the SMPR, and the videos which you host elsewhere suddenly see a spike in traffic, then it’s a safe bet that the SMPR had something to do with it.

To measure click-throughs — you could use a URL shortener such as bit.ly to measure which links are most popular (although that adds extra steps to setting up the page). As for the Twitter pitch, you can always search to see who Tweeted it. And by substituting your own URL shortener for the one PitchEngine automatically inserts, you can also track how many people found your SMPR through the Twitter pitch.

How could one measure the success of a SMPR?

I’d measure the success of an SMPR in these ways:
1.    How many people read it (or at least loaded the page)?
2.    How many click-throughs?
3.    How many retweets?
4.    But most importantly: Did the SMPR help you reach whatever strategic goal you (hopefully) established at the outset? Did you recruit more members? Raise more money? Get more exposure for our advertisers? Did you engage more people in your project?
In the end, the point is not simply to play all the SMPR’s bells & whistles. The point is to communicate more effectively, and achieve your long-term goals.

Anything else you want to add?

I’d reiterate the point I made earlier: SMPRs are very much a work in progress. And since most media on line is already “social,”  they may not be called SMPRs for much longer. Companies like PitchEngine will have to evolve from their current form, mostly because their value-added — a nicely designed template hosted on their servers— will soon be easy for people to configure and host on their own.

Remember the movie called Spellbound? Not the Hitchcock film, but the 2002 documentary about the National Spelling Bee. What was impressive was the filmmaker, who used relatively inexpensive video equipment (a few cameras and a Mac workstation) to produce a feature film that went into theatrical release. And he financed it (mostly) by maxing out his credit cards.

What’s the connection to SMPRs? The tools at his — and our — disposal seem to be multiplying every day. Countless new ways to communicate… new platforms… new formats… it’s dizzying, really. But pretty cool, too.

It’s as if we’re all painters, and we’ve suddenly been given a whole new spectrum of colors. But the challenge remains the same: What are we trying to communicate? What’s worth sharing? What’s your story?

Toby Dershowitz is President of The Dershowitz Group. She is the author of two “how to” manuals dealing with the press entitled “Communicating with the Media” and “Making Your Mark on the Media” and has worked for more than 25 years in Washington on domestic and foreign policy issues.  The Dershowitz Group specializes in high-end strategic communications, imaginative media and public affairs consulting, legislative strategy, crisis preparedness, policy initiatives and diplomatic event management. They are located in Washington, D.C.

I had the lovely experience of presenting the keynote overview of social media at the Kishor Social Media Conference in Jerusalem, along with my colleague Talia Klein of Sparkeo.com. For the address, we were asked to create a presentation that would be appropriate for an audience unfamiliar with social media. However, we were told that half of the attendees would have a moderate level of familiarity with social media. In other words, make it for everyone. That’s pretty daunting. When you work in social media day in, day out, it’s hard to remember what you know that others don’t know. It’s even harder to figure out how to convey all that information through a graphically compelling presentation.

To prepare for the presentation, I asked friends and social media practitioners what they would want to know about social media. I also wanted to know what would help them to understand social media. Talia and I reviewed a few of the best social media presentations on slideshare.net, and considered what they hold in common. In the end, the presentation that Talia and I crafted embodied these basic principles of presenting social media to the public:

Presenting Social Media Publicly: A Few Ideas

1. Put it in historical perspective

It’s crazy to think about, but five years ago, how many of us had social media profiles? Or more than one profile? And how often did we use social media? How much time did we spend? Graphs or charts about the explosion of social media and current demographics relevant to the topic of the presentation convey powerful messages.  Final word on this from a colleague: “people love graphs and charts. You have to have those in any presentation. It’s a pretty picture.”

2. Talk about the future, too

Historical trends help your audience understand the big picture, sure, but what’s coming up in social media is even more important. Extend your graphs with informed thoughts about forthcoming trends and changes in your sector.

3.  ROI

You talk about social media without talking about the return nowadays. Whether it’s Return on Influence, Interest, or Engagement, people want to know “why.” Look at other campaigns, ROI case studies, and your own data. ROI depends on goals, and picking the right goals and the right metrics is critical to understanding ROI.

4. Tell it like a story

This isn’t unique to presentations about social media. Presentations should tell stories – and answer the question: why should I care? The very best presentations decks on slide share pull you in with great storytelling, and keep you interested until the end. Social media is a complex subject. Storytelling breaks it down and makes it accessible.

5. Offer case studies

Case studies make it real and bring it all together. If you’re talking about social network fundraising, walk your audience through a case study. If you’re talking about creating online communities, then look at a few niche online communities and what makes them successful. If you’re talking about engagement ROI, look at actions fans have taken for an organization.

Are there any other principles of presenting social media to the public that you think are critical to include in the list above?

Here’s the Kishor Social Media Overview – enjoy!

For reference, some great social media slide decks:

Social Media for Nonprofits

What the —- Is Social Media

Yes, I DO Mind the Gap

How To Think Like a Nonprofit Social Media Genius

Olivier Blanchard Basics of Social Media ROI

50 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

Image courtesy of Jill Clardy

Nonprofit organizations can tell the best stories. Stories about the impact that a nonprofit has on people’s lives can engage, recruit and solidify donors and members. As ImpactMax writes so beautifully, tying individual stories to overall contextual problems and societal issues can really change policies. Anecdotely, I see a lot of blogs and Flickr photo streams, some YouTube and Vimeo use. Why limit yourself? There are so many other tools and platforms that are exciting, innovative, incredibly engaging, and beautiful. Here are my top digital storytelling platforms and tools for your nonprofit to try out in 2010:

POSTEROUS

Posterous is a publishing platform whereby you email your posts to your Posterous account, attach video/audio/photos and voila! Published.  Use it to quickly and easily upload a thought, photo, tweet, or idea. It’s wicked simple to use, and much less time consuming than a blog. It IS a blog, but more along the lines of a daily journal.

Why It’s Great: Less time commitment than blogging, easy publishing by email. More fun than traditional blogging. All the comment and social features of blogs.

WHRRL

Whrrl has been my favorite “under the radar” platform for at least six months. It is a combination slideshare-photo sharing-storytelling platform. If your organization wants to tell a story via photos, slides, and brief text, this is one of the most visually arresting platforms. Whrrl has recently added an entirely new “geotagging” feature that encourages checkins at different locales and belonging to social groups. Nonprofits could take advantage of this by hosting an event at a locale and asking folks to check in. However, just use it to tell stories. No check-in required!

Why It’s Great: It’s simple to create Whrrl stories, a great platform for storytelling, and has a social features. New geotagging feature (“check-ins”) and tagging with hashtags can potentially be used for fundraising, awareness, etc.

I first read about how a reporter used Whrrl to document homelessness in a tent city, and the story pulled me right in. The reporter is @hardlynormal. Here it is:

ANIMOTO

If you want to turn the photos into a video, adding words and text, along with a call to action, try Animoto. Incredibly simple to use, Animoto automatically integrates images, video clips, and music into videos. Nonprofit organizations can apply for a free professional account here. View sample videos from causes to see how other nonprofits are using it. I am personally mesmerized by the animoto videos.

Why It’s Great: Simple to create a fabulous video for a blog or website, or produce a DVD for donors using photos or short video clips. Videos are easy to share socially, and embed. I created a short 30-second animoto video for a nonprofit client of mine in about 20 minutes!

BLIP.TV

Blip.tv is gaining in exposure and use. It bills itself  as “the next generation TV network,” and that’s a real possibility. Forget cable access and YouTube; if you want to create a steady stream of stories using video, open a blip.tv channel and start broadcasting. It is designed for developing original web tv shows, and supports Creative Commons licensing.

Why It’s Great: Blip.tv will distribute your videos to all the major video platforms for you. Blip also enables RSS feeds for subscriptions. The video quality is spectacular, and they are building a loyal base of followers who want to see original programming. It’s also incredibly easy to share and embed.

One of my favorite blip.fm videos? How Alon Nir created and developed @thekotel, as presented at the 140 Conference, Tel Aviv. (Click on the icon for a pop-up video.)

Alon Nir of @thekotel at the 140 Conference TLV

If you want to see other great examples of digital storytelling, check out the entries at Tech Soup’s 2009 Digital Storytelling Challenge.

Do you use any of these storytelling platforms or tools? How? What are the other great tools that I missed?

Inspired to create a free resource for women who want to change the world through the web, Jasmin Tragas has just published the free eBook Worldshapers.

This is a story about the power of weak ties and one woman determined to make a difference. I met Jasmin Tragas online, and we have never met in person. She began to follow me on Twitter, we naturally shared ideas. I soon discovered her real passion is the crossroads of social media, women’s economic opportunities, and nonprofits – all of which interest me.  After a few months, Jasmin asked if she could profile me in an eBook that she was creating about the power of women to change the world through the social web. From a weak tie to an eBook…that’s the power of social media.

Jasmin believes in the power of social media to change the world. Her dream is to create a Trust Bank in the Philippines for a group of 15-30 women, where they will be given micro loans and training to grow their businesses in order to work their way out of poverty. In her role as a volunteer Opportunity Ambassador, she has pledged to raise $10,000 for Opportunity International Australia towards the Trust Bank in the Philippines. The obvious step for her was to utilize social media to raise those funds.

Inspired by the power of social media, she created WorldShapers, Extraordinary Women Making a Difference, a free eBook featuring the stories of 16 women using the web to make a difference. Jasmin writes, ” I created the eBook was to provide a free resource about women using the web for positive change. At the same time, I wanted to see if I could use this as an opportunity to raise funds for the microloan fund.” At the end of the book, she suggests that the readers can also change the world;  donate to Opportunity International, or any other worthy organization.

I am honored to be among the 16 women selected for the book. I asked Jasmin why she initiated the Worldshapers project, if it has raised her target amount, and the “lessons learned” from producing and distributing an eBook.

Why did you decide to create Worldshapers?

“There are some amazing women around the world who use the web as part of their work with nonprofits and communities. I thought it would be wonderful for their stories to be shared in a free eBook so that people could be encouraged by their example. Social media gives us the ability to create inspiring projects like this – so why not? I also wanted to promote and raise funds for a microfinance project.”

Why did you choose Opportunity International?

“Their microfinance program provides jobs for people living in poverty, mostly women. Their program also provides training, develops relationships in the community and helps women to work their way out of poverty – a long term, sustainable approach to poverty – not just charity.”

What is your experience of raising funds through this eBook?

“Sometimes you receive a donation from someone who lives on the other side of the world, someone you have never met, or a work colleague you have only ever chatted with online and you think ‘wow! How awesome that this person just contributed $20.’ You feel a real sense of us making a difference TOGETHER.”

It seems counter-intuitive to produce a free book to raise money. Has it worked?

“Although I could have asked for a small donation for each download, I decided I wanted to keep it free so these stories could be shared around the world. My instincts told me that people wouldn’t donate after downloading the book, about $200 was donated during this ‘semi-campaign’. I also put a link to my Chipin account in the eBook. I’m happy with the outcome – 1600 copies of the eBook downloaded raising $1300 – over 10% of my goal – but I’m still learning about fundraising using social media and wonder how much I could have raised if I charged for downloads.”

Which promotional efforts for the eBook have been successful? What has not worked?

“I try to keep things interesting, interactive and even a little challenging. In trying to raise money previously for Opportunity, I thought that a competition would be great, but it didn’t work as well as I hoped. It really helps when an influential blogger tweets about your project – a great way to create publicity and I’m grateful when it happens.”

What are the fundraising goals and how much have you raised?

“My goal is to raise AUD$10,000  by the end of this month, for a two year microfinance program. Currently $4,000 has been generously donated. Two companies made donations towards the eBook project (Incentive House and Seek Volunteer) so I was able to raise $1100 that way.  If I can raise half of my goal I can still partner with another Opportunity ambassador to create the Trust Group. But ultimately, I would love to see people around the world coming together to help raise the funds online. ” (To date, she has reached 50% of her goal.)

What would you do differently?

“I’m not sure I would do anything differently, even the events that didn’t work so well were wonderful experiences to be part of. I’ve met some lovely people along the way too. The most successful project was a blogging project – 13 bloggers wrote a blog post and Incentive House Donated $100 for each post. $1300 was raised in a matter of days!”

“Creating an eBook was a really rewarding experience and I would consider doing it again. Next time, perhaps I would ask for donations, in which case I think perhaps the content really needs to be more than just informative and inspirational. I think I would also need people with social media influence to help promote and endorse the book.”

Anything else you want to mention?

“Raising funds and creating awareness for Opportunity International Australia about microfinance has been such a great journey. I’m also very thankful for people like Gavin Heaton, Des Walsh and Matt Moore who provided social media advice at times.”

June 22 Update: Servant of Chaos has just created and uploaded a great slide show about Jasmin’s efforts to raise funds for her cause. The slide show details the many (and there are MANY) different social media platforms she has used and highlights her efforts on each.

Jasmin Tragas is a mother of three who works as a creative marketing and communications consultant for IBM in Melbourne, Australia. She writes a weblog about her experiences using social media for good, and another weblog about her role as a volunteer Ambassador with Opportunity International.

If you want to donate to this great cause, donate here.  Just a $4 donation (one cup of coffee) will make a huge difference.  Together, we can leverage social media to create economic opportunity.

I’m live blogging the “Donate Now. Or Later. Or Whenever” session at the NTEN 2009 Conference.

The presenter is Madeline Stanionis from Watershed Company. I placed this artsy image of sangria because Madeline offered FREE CUPS OF SANGRIA to every person sitting in the session. So, I’m actually live blogging with sangria. Who knows – maybe I’ll blog better this time? You be the judge!

Big mistakes:

-we don’t ask because “we’re so nice”

-we only associate with people similar to ourselves. We forget that most people don’t care about what we care about.

What’s working now?

IT IS NOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY!

IT’S ABOUT THE PEOPLE! We need to reach PEOPLE on the other side of our email lists.

YOU are usually NOT THEM. Don’t make that mistake. We are almost never…them.

So, be yourself. Use “I” statements like “I feel, I think, I hope, I dream, I fear…” That makes us human. When you write an email you could add a note about how it makes you feel!

Let your PASSION show. Stop sending boring tweets all the time- people connect to passion.

So…. “Say The Thing That Must Be Said.”

Example: Planned Parenthood Action Center sent out a note about Sarah Palin when Sarah Palin was the VP nominee.
They created a campaign around The Thing That Must Be Said called, “You are NOT our Candidate.” The eletters talked about why she was not “our” candidate.

Example 2: Planned Parenthood created a “Let’s Talk About Sex” campaign. So they sent an open letter to the President to “Talk About Sex.”

Example 3: another group set up a special website just to thank Obama for passing a law.

Next: Go to the fish

Example: a friend on Facebook raised almost $2000 for her birthday through the Birthday Cause.

Example2: www.morebirthdays.com. You can make the American Cancer Society the sponsor for your birthday cause. Can do it through Facebook.

Creative Campaigns Examples

PETA renamed fish “sea kittens” and a Save the Sea Kitten campaigns.

AlterNet – Didn’t have money to publish books. Asked people to donate $10 and name will be listed as a publisher of their book.

People don’t stop giving, but just in smaller amounts, so make gifts meaningful.

The Nation- creative campaign to build a list. They gave away an all-expense paid “day at the Nation” magazine to the person who told the most friends about The Nation.

Raffle off meaningful memorabilia that would be meaningful to your stakeholders.

Humane Society of the US- vote for best pet but had to pay $5 to vote 5 times. People understood why.

Stop with the Silos.

We let ourselves get into these “silos” where departments don’t talk to each other: We need to diversity.

We can learn from each other and other departments’ work.

Or integrate marketing efforts by combining different types of mediums – text plus email, or email plus phone calls, etc.

Special Guest and Case Study: Ceciie Surasky from Jewish Voice for Peace. They energized and changed their organization through one campaign.

JVP is a national grassroots organization to end Israel’s “occupation” and promote a US foreign policy of coexistance. They exist purely at the pleasure of individual donations across the country. It’s a “donor-activist” model. Six months ago – had a 22,000 person supporter list. Couldn’t figure out how to grow it.  Needed to change the org. Only had 4 staff  people.

Created the Shmenista Campaign.
Shmenista means 12th-grader in Hebrew.  12th-graders were writing letters saying that they didn’t want to serve in the army because of Israel’s policies in the territories and be “conscientious objectors.” The young girls writing these letters were being put in jail. These girls wrote letters and put out an open call to help them. The JVP decided to take up this call: young people being brave.
Easy and cheap to create this campaign. Created an online petition campaign – www. December18th.org, using a WordPress template for the online petition and Israeli supporters created a video for the campaign free of charge. (December 18th was a planned peace/resister protest in Israel.) The online petition was sent to Israeli ministers in government.

(Play video during conference – black and white, very emotional. Anyone can view it on the December18th website.)

What were the other assets?  Ed Asner and Howard Zinn sit on their Advisory Board. Published guest blog post by Ed Asner. It was then picked up by the Huffington Post.   Then JVP was covered and placed in magazines around the world. Why?

The media is still covering this issue and crediting JVP. Now JVP has organized a speaking tour with Code Pink using the five young people featured in the video. All from the website, emails and the video. To date over 100,000 people have viewed the video. Most of it viral. Collected over 55,000 letters for the campaign.

What has changed?
It has made JVP rethink campaigns and how they are created, and the way the organization has cut down its “silos”. Have since created new campaigns, and the media now covers them without publishing press releases. Fundraising impact: over 3X what we have expected in prior years. Brought in a lot of new donors.

Lessons learned by Jewish Voice for Peace

• Jewish Voice for Peace has moved away from a policy- and data-focused approach. They need their hard-core activists (and they need that data and policy language) so they can’t ignore that aspect. But, by moving away from that approach, they have actually inspired the hard-core activists. Speak the truth, passionately, from the heart, and that inspires. With these campaigns – no one asked for data.

• Needed an external consultant to kick them into gear. (They hired Watershed Company to give them ideas and kick them into gear.) Don’t ask permission to move forward. Just move forward.

• We had all the resources that we needed in-house. We had the stories, passion and know-how. It’s not about technology, but about the people.

My Takeaways:

Rethink the way that the organization is structured to include all staff in developing creative campaigns.

Speak honestly and passionately about your cause and campaign. Include media- very powerful medium.

A good media-worthy story is very viral.

Say The Thing That Must Be Said.

Sometimes a really cool application comes along that can help an organization tell its story, and you just have to write about it. This one is a multimedia application for your website and blog called Apture. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I think it has enormous possibilities for engaging stakeholders, telling your organization’s story, conveying information visually, and keeping visitors on your site. I want to know how your organization will use Apture to its benefit.

What is it? I’ll begin by integrating Apture’s application right now:

It is an application that you install on your website or blog. Using Apture, hyperlinks pop up inside the website story or blog post. You may have already experienced Apture while reading one of the New York Times’ blogs. Besides visitors staying on-site, they will experience – right at the moment of clicking – what you are trying to convey. Apture integrates text, slideshows, maps, video, audio, photos, and the like into your story. Flightblogger conveys stories using Apture, and I think the application adds levels of understanding to each blog post.

The possibilities of using this application are limited only by one’s imagination, and I’d love to hear your ideas.

Here’s one example:

You are a community arts center. Your students are about to put on a show, so you post a news story on the website about the upcoming show and also write a blog post about the show. You link to photos of student artwork, audio and video of the teacher in action, a student’s video story about taking the class, and the news story about the show that was featured in the local paper. At the end of the story, you give the address of the show which pops up the location on Google maps. You’ve told a story, powerfully, about the impact your organization has had on the teacher, students and community, and asked them to act on it by attending the opening. And you’ve done it in one paragraph.

There is an art to storytelling, but I’m not here to write about that. What I want to know is – how will you tell your story differently using Apture?