Rob Goldfarb, Development Director at Camp Laurelwood

I presented at this year’s Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy’s annual conference November 13-14 in Springfield, MA, and walked away impressed with some of interesting things that camps are doing with technology. Kevin Martone, the Institute’s Technology Program Manger, wrote this guest post highlighting how three camps used technology creatively to meet their goals: online/offline relationship building through blogging and Facebook, engaging current families with an unique iPad/iPhone app, and social fundraising through livestreaming a phone-a-thon.

As Kevin writes, “These camps evoke incredibly strong emotions in their alumni, campers, and parents. They need to use the tools available to harness these emotions and connect them to the real world.” Kevin’s guest post follows.

The Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy’s annual conference brought together over 400 leaders from Jewish camps and schools to learn best practices in fundraising, strategic planning, governance, and technology. A program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation in Western Massachusetts, the Grinspoon Institute was created to help camps with deteriorating facilities embrace fundraising as a means to ensure their long-term sustainability. A team of Mentors consults year-round with the camps to help professional staff and board leadership in the areas of fundraising, strategic planning, and governance. In addition, two of us on the Technology Program team support this work by providing the camps with technology advice and assistance to support these efforts. This year’s conference provided a forum for the camps to share their own experiences with each other. As the Heath Brothers discuss in the book Switch, we searched for those camps providing “Bright Spots” of innovation and effectiveness that they could share with the other camps in attendance.

Building online to offline relationships through the blog and Facebook page

Camp Laurelwood in North Madison, CT has done a wonderful job trying to leverage their online community to build off-line relationships. On Mother’s Day this year, the camp asked their Facebook (and Blog) community about their favorite Camp Mother experience. The Camp Mother basically dispensed hugs and support to homesick kids and other children needing some non-medical care. The blog post was their most popular ever and both Facebook and the blog received numerous comments.

They utilized a holiday-related question to engage their audience, but they didn’t stop there. Their Development Director, Rob Goldfarb, noticed that one name came up frequently – Rita Levine. He found her phone number and called Rita at home, reading the stories that were written about her. She was touched and responded by sending Rob a picture of her at camp and some of her own memories from camp. Camp Laurelwood reposted this content both on Facebook and the blog. In the end, the camp utilized this personal engagement to help solicit two major gifts toward a new Infirmary and the return of the Camp Mother position.

iPad app deepens camp engagement

Other camps are trying new technologies to reach their goals. Camp Morasha in Lakewood, PA implemented an iPad/iPhone app this year with a focus on engaging their current campers and families. Most content is automatically updated from their other online spaces (blog, Facebook), so it doesn’t create much more day-to-day work for the staff. The app was an immediate hit. 300 people downloaded it within the first 24 hours, and this number has continued to grow. Camp Director Jeremy Joszef, who designed the app, has reported a large percentage of their emails and blog posts being read via the app. Camp Morasha will be adding new features and functionality to engage alumni and respond to feedback.

Check out the snappy 45-second promotional video for the iPad app, below!

Livestreaming the phone-a-thon to increase donations

URJ Camp Eisner in Great Barrington, MA put a new spin on the traditional phone-a-thon by streaming it live on their website using UStream and Twitter. They also made it easy for their donors to post that they gave to the campaign on Facebook, including a large DonateNow button that linked to the central phone-a-thon page on their website. Their Development Director, Corey Cutler, reported that website visits TRIPLED the day of the phone-a-thon. Livestream viewers watched an average of 24 minutes each. Ultimately, the livestream experiment was successful: the number of donors increased by 20% from the previous year.

Bright spots like these highlighted the key messages we provide throughout the year in helping our participating camps reach their goals:

•    Be strategic – Consider your audience and your goals to determine how best to leverage your limited resources to maximize outreach and connectedness.
•    Be effective – Use tools to make these efforts more effective: donor databases to track and support fundraising and outreach efforts; Hootsuite, CoTweet, or other tools to schedule social media updates in advance; Google Reader, Google Alerts, and other tools to filter the firehose of information and collect the most pertinent information; etc. URJ Camp Eisner leveraged free tools like UStream, Twitter, and Facebook to vastly increase the reach of their annual phone-a-thon campaign.
•    Be planful – Prepare an annual communications plan (including online and offline channels) to ensure communications are consistent across channels; different audience segments are being well taken care of; and that resources are available to carry out expected plans all year long.
•    Be measured – Review your social media (and other channel) efforts regularly against your goal to make sure you are having a measurable impact. Before putting more effort into their iPad app, Camp Morasha made sure it was being used regularly and was actually meeting their audience’s needs. Review and refine your tactics as needed.
•    Be real – Never forget to connect your online messaging to real-world relationship-building. As Camp Laurelwood realized, in the end these tools are simply a conduit to build real relationships with your constituents. These camps evoke incredibly strong emotions in their alumni, campers, and parents. They need to use the tools available to harness these emotions and connect them to the real world.

As the Technology Program Manager for the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy, Kevin Martone focuses on how organizations can effectively use technology for fundraising and outreach. He has more than 15 years of experience helping organizations utilize technology solutions to meet their goals.

In early August, NP Tech launched Guidestar Israel. It took almost five years to make GuideStar Israel a reality, and it is an incredible resource for Israeli nonprofit organization. The GuideStar project was established as an unique cooperative venture by the Ministry of Justice, JDC-Israel, and Yad Hanadiv with the objective of developing civil society in Israel.

NP Tech (established by JDC-Israel and Yad Hanadiv) is the operating organization behind GuideStar Israel. It provides services and activities designed to help social organizations make information and communications technology (ICT) more accessible to social organizations to reach their goals. NP Tech wants to create a “socio-technological market” in which different providers offer their products for social activity advancement, internet sites encourage social action and social organizations use these products in accordance to their needs.

I had the opportunity to ask Royi Biller, CEO of NP Tech, about why it was so important to bring GuideStar to Israel, how it could change the Israeli third sector, and upcoming NP Tech initiatives.

The interview is below (my questions are in orange):

What services does NP Tech provide?
1.    GuideStar Israel
2.    Software Donation Program: NPTech collaborates with TechSoup Global and software vendors on establishing low cost distribution channels for nonprofit organizations to acquire state of the art ICT tools to enhance their capabilities.
3.    Way2Know: an online knowledge base including videos, articles and blog posts around utilizing ICT tools for social purposes.
4.    Consultation services: NPTech assists nonprofit organizations analyze their technological needs, acquire the appropriate solutions and integrate them into their activities.

What are the technology needs of Israeli nonprofit organizations?

Our analysis and market research indicates that nonprofit organizations (at large) make use of the relatively simple tools the IT industry offers, especially with regards to organizational information systems. However, most nonprofit managers reported that they lack knowledge about the opportunities available to them, as well as available funding sources for such purposes. The role of CIO or CTO usually does not exist in most nonprofits, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is commonly not budgeted or planned ahead routinely.

Another phenomenon identified is typical to the Israeli market – the language barrier; there are far less tools and applications available in Hebrew then there are in English, and when it comes to specific applications for nonprofit needs there may be zero solutions available in Hebrew. Nonprofit managers have expressed a need for support from a trusted partner to help decision making and adoption processes of ICT tools in their organizations.

How do these needs compare with worldwide trends?

Most of the findings are quite similar to the common challenges nonprofits face when trying to adopt technologies into their organizations. The only unique pattern was the language barrier and market size that are the main reasons for the shortage of Hebrew software tailored for nonprofit needs.

What is GuideStar Israel?

GuideStar Israel is intended to be the main information website resource about nonprofit organizations in Israel. The website currently features mostly official information regarding all NPOs in Israel from the Registrar of NPOs. It is gradually being updated with additional richer and more “colorful” information provided by the NPOs themselves. This combination creates the most comprehensive and qualitative database of civil social organizations in Israel.

Why is it important to have a GuideStar Israel and offer this database of nonprofits?

The goal in building this database is foremost to create public transparency regarding the conduct of nonprofit organizations in Israel. Anyone who has any interest in nonprofit organizations – donors, volunteers, suppliers and customers – may surf and find official information reported to the Registrar of NPOs regarding the conduct of each non-profit organization operating in Israel.

GuideStar itself operates from within and for the benefit of the third sector, out of the belief that public transparency is an important means for the development of this sector. We see great importance in providing “as is” information, without any judgment. We focus on providing surfers with maximum updated information, in a digital, accessible and convenient format for searching information about all active nonprofit organizations in Israel.

Just as important is the internet exposure offered to all nonprofit organizations operating in Israel, even to the smallest NPOs which have, thus far, not been able to exploit this medium. This exposure will encourage donors and volunteers, as well as cooperation between non-profit organizations with a view to reinforcing the third sector in Israel and making it more accessible for everyone.

How do you think GuideStar Israel will change nonprofit operations, organizations, or the way that Israelis (and others) perceive Israeli nonprofit organizations?

We expect that the readily available information provided by GuideStar will help nonprofit organizations become more effective by making data-driven decisions, comparative analysis and sharing knowledge. We believe the public perception of the Israeli third sector will become more positive once each and every user will be able to easily determine whether an organization is being run properly, and that the “rotten apples” would be easier to distinguish from the legitimate majority. We expect to see more fact-based discussions taking place regarding nonprofit activities.

I know that NP Tech is a TechSoup Global partner. What does that mean for Israeli NPOs?

We are in final stages of preparations for the launch of the software donation program in collaboration with TechSoup Global, which will enable eligible nonprofits to acquire state of the art software for a fraction of the cost. We intend to launch the program during the last quarter of 2010.

Royi Biller is the CEO of NP Tech. Royi initiated the establishment of NPTech during his work as a Program Officer for Technology and Knowledge at Yad Hanadiv (the Rothschild Foundation). Royi is well versed in technology project management, relying on vast experience from his military service as an intelligence officer, his work as a Decision Support Systems engineer in Intel and his position in Yad Hanadiv.

I’m in the session at SXSW Interactive “Will Kiva Kill Your Nonprofit? Donations 2.0″ panel discussion, moderated by Michael Cervino of Beaconfire Consulting, capturing the discussion through live blogging.  In this discussion, each panelist offered his/her definition of “donation 2.0,” which I’ve highlighted in orange. The discussion centered around each nonprofit explaining how they have incorporated the “donations 2.0″ model into their platform, and the best type of design architecture. I’ve summarized my thoughts about the panel, and the backdoor twitter discussion at the end of this post.

Panelist Milo Sybrant (@milosybrant) is the online fundraising manager for Amnesty International. My definition of donations 2.0 =  the tactics and strategies NGOs are using in response to changing environment, especially these three trends: 1. Nonprofits don’t have the institutional monopoly on doing good. 2. Donors are more than ever shopping for impact. 3. Online donors have rising expectations about organizations’ transparency.

Amnesty International’s “America I Believe In” campaign highlighted our concerns about human rights to members of Congress. We put ads up in bus shelters around Capital Hill, and said we’d send the physical ads to all sponsors. Several people who sponsored the ads were actually student groups, who then sent us photos of them posing with the ads. What made it donations 2.0? Knowing that contributions would make a direct difference, the initial outcome was really tangible, we were really transparent, direct sponsors had a real relationship with it, and sending physical ads to sponsors incentivized the sponsors.

Panelist Katie Bisbee (@katiebisbee and @donorschoose) from DonorsChoose.org. DonorsChoose has about 15,000 classroom projects in schools that donors can choose from, and each project has a cost report and shows what actions that have been taken. The impact to date of donations, in total, is $49 million. My definition of donations 2.0 is from our model’s perspective: using the web as choice, accountability, and transparency. Why it’s donations 2.0: There is a direct connection between the donor and the individual or group that the are supporting. This is really “true philanthropy,” as there is a direct connection between the donor and the recipient (peer to peer) and there is a feedback loop that goes back to the donor.

Panelist Ruth-Anne Renaud, Vice President of Philanthropy at OptINnow.org (@rarenaud and @optinnow). Opportunity International has been in microfinance, internationally, for almost 40 years. We provide loans to entrepreneurs, but also savings, insurance and insurance programs. It is an end-to-end full-service microfinance provider.

OptINnow was launched over a year ago to help people contribute directly. Our definition of donations 2.0: Providing a connection for donors to beneficiaries through timely stories, photos and video in order to create a more relevant and tangible giving experience. Why it’s donations 2.0: OptINnow gives donors the ability to choose an individual (by country, by industry) to be be able to fuel their business’ growth. Through the website, you can see how the donation impacts the entrepreneur specifically. OptINnow platform also shows the entire range of impact on lives. OptINnow also allows donors to pass on a gift card to empower an entrepreneur. There is a new (as of this week) OptINnow feature: the individual platform for individual pages to track individual fundraising.

Panelist Skylar Woodward (@skylar and @kiva): in charge of launching Kiva’s API. (The API application programming interface allows two computers to talk.) The Kiva API allows Kiva to talk to other computers and apps. Our definition of donations 2.0: Decentralizing from a donor-charity system to a person-need model. It is facilitated by technology and a general cultural shift to interact in social communities (digital or physical) It prioritizes the needs of the community.

Why it’s donations 2.0: Kiva.org puts all of the donation needs out there and donors choose. It prioritizes the community needs, and is extremely transparent. You loan the money, the loan goes out into your profile, and you see the progress of the loans being paid back monthly. You can then relend the money again.

Michael: How do you manage the quality of the applicants to make sure the needs are valid?

Katie: We verify that the teacher is a public school teacher before they can post. Once a project has been posted, we screen it and verify it to make sure that what is in the shopping cart is what they are asking for. Our staff reads every classroom project to make sure it is compelling and gives feedback to the teachers as to how to make it more compelling.

Skylar: Kiva works with a microfinance institution and we spend a lot of time vetting our microfinance institutional partners to make sure we can trust them. This includes a 2-month evaluation pilot period, and then we look at how they respond to posts, etc. There is a growing phase of trust. we work with 110 partners right now. After the partners have gained our trust, we are more hands-off.

Ruth-Anne: We are a fundraising organization and we deliver funds to our partners in-country. We are end-to-end. We have staff in other countries as well. Our loan officers are responsible for building relationships, gathering reports, and feeding that back into the banking system and reporting. Kiva is an aggregator, and we are end-to-end and within our own organization. Complimentary models are a good thing.

Michael: User experience – tell me about it and how you built the system.

Ruth-Anne: Our system is completely custom-built. We were the first to use Facebook Connect to make it as easy as possible for people to use the platform. Katie: Our system was entirely custom-built, also. And for improvements, we have an email distribution list on donorschoose.org called “new feature list” and ask people to just send a new feature idea to us. Skylar: We built our system entirely from scratch. We are very tech-centric. The CEO wanted to built a new social network within two weeks and made it happen within 48 hours and created “Kiva social networking.” Now, this defines us, and loans are public and people are social. With the Kiva API, we have a whole other codeland that is exterior to us for anyone to play with.

Michael: Is it possible to build a donation system with a classic donation system that can be modified?

DonorsChoose (answered by the systems architect): I don’t think you can do this without building a custom system. We put a lot of effort into thinking about the donation relationship and the whole life cycle first and then build the technology to support that. Skylar: By using a framework with an existing code, you’re locked into the code that is already out there. I don’t advise choosing an existing content management system and building a product off of it because it’s not the experience that you want – you want to really include the user experience and customize. Ruth Ann: There is a lot of value in having coding expertise in-house to gain efficiency as you scale, become more responsive to user-feedback, etc.

Michael: Whatever you do needs to be transparent, authentic, and focused on the culture of your stakeholders with messaging. You have to be authentic so you won’t lose numbers.

Editorial summary:

There seems to be general agreement that “Donations 2.0″ means direct connection between the donor (and donor’s needs) and the funder. Each platform enables choice, transparency, efficacy, and authenticity, and prioritizes the needs of the community. System architecture of the donation platform has to be unique and custom-built to meet the needs of the donors, the recipients, and the organization and pre-fab platforms won’t serve these needs.

The back-channel hashtag on twitter, #donate2, generated a secondary discussion about whether these platforms are controlling the clients’ stories for the organizations’ benefits (asked by @aspenbaker) and how do we allow clients to have more voice (credit to @skylar for asking that last part). Myself and @nolandhoshino think donations 2.0 is more about mobile-based fundrasing and widgets as secondary platforms. @skylar says “disagree! ’2.0′ model will evolve to mobile. One day, Bump-a-Loan via @kiva to an entrep in your ‘hood.”

I think Kiva’s API is the future and really embraces donations 2.0 in philosophy: it gives donors more control and choice (you don’t like something about the platform, add to it!) and crowdsources the best innovations for the platforms that will provide the best services to funders and recipients (you want a new feature, then create it and see which add-ons the stakeholders most utilize). The API also gives a feedback loop to Kiva – pointing out where the stakeholders want added features. I also give kudos to Kiva for relinquishing control over the platform and allowing users to own more of it through the API.

Further resources and discussion:

Skylar Woodward’s blog post: Panel-Picking Killer Tweet of Your Fundraising Can Haz Non-Profit Electrodance

Twitter hashtage: #donate2

I do work with businesses to develop social media strategies, just as I work with nonprofit corporations. Yesterday, I gave a presentation at Nefesh B’Nefesh on the topic of Integrating Social Media Into Essential Business Functions. It was a lot of fun to think about using social media to support other business functions besides marketing.

Guess what? Social media is not just a platform for marketing and sales.

In fact, the idea for this presentation was formed when I began to investigate collaborative internal communication technologies for working on team projects. Then I started to wonder: what other business functions are supported by social media? Do social technologies actually increase efficiency in business functions? What would be the ROI of using them?

In a previous life, I was a small business consultant – thus, this presentation was created to answer these questions.

I looked at human resources, training, internal communication, product development, customer service, and sales/marketing. I purposely omitted a few areas (accounting, IT), but please chime in with your ideas for integrating social media platforms and technologies into all areas of business. At the end of the presentation, I offer the examples of Best Buy and The American Red Cross, two companies that have embraced social media.

I’m now beginning to to think about a similar presentation for nonprofit organizations. What are the essential organizational function areas that would benefit from social media integration? I’m thinking (out loud here) about member/client/organizational recruitment, program development, membership engagement, internal communication, human resources, and of course…fundraising. Do you already integrate social media into certain function areas at your nonprofit? Are you exploring this now? What are the ROI metrics? I’d love to hear your thoughts, and experiences.

Update: For some reason, I cannot embed this presentation into my blog, I’m linking to it instead. If you see a “tv” icon next to the link, hover over it and the presentation will pop up. (Some days, technology doesn’t work like you want it to.)

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?

Online Giving. What will it look like a year from now? I jotted down an abbreviated timeline that captures some of the major developments in online giving, below:

Based on this graphic, I’ve put together my thoughts about online giving trends and technology for 2010. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, as well:

1. Project-based donation solutions.

Organizational online donations will continue, but project-specific donations will be where organizations will see the interest and growth. Nonprofits know that fundraising is personal, specific, and identifiable.  Even Causes has recently added the Donor Choices option which allows organizations to preselect donation levels that fund specific projects.  Generalized donation portals (Razoo, JustGive, Firstgiving) now highlight specific organizational projects, such as  “donate to a women’s self-defense project,” or “build an ice skating rink.” In the coming year, I see the rise of project-specific soliciting, and donation solutions to meet these needs.

2. The rise of niche donation networks.

In recent years, niche networks are also rising and thriving. JGooders (donations to Israeli and Jewish causes) and IsraelGives (donation to an Israeli charity) both launched in 2009. DonorsChoose launched in 2000 to connect donors with classrooms in need. I also view Jokona as a niche network as well – small projects, worldwide. Just as organizations are beginning to solicit donors for specific projects, niche networks will solicit specific types of donors and match them to their ideal projects. In 2010, I think that we will continue to see the rise of new niche donation portals and networks, and the eventual merging of others in the years thereafter.

3. The emergence of cross-platform donation and donation portability.

In the future I see the ability to be able to donate to a specific project or nonprofit organization across many platforms. Giving Impact is a great example of this. Giving Impact is an online website donation tool designed for specific project campaigns. It is similar to the “donate here” button, but with custom dashboard analysis, and integration allowing individuals to “share” donation impact to their Facebook profiles. Giving Impact just announced that they will be offering a Facebook application allowing integration of the Giving Impact tool with Facebook. It is also built with an API so developers can further design/extend this tool.

One other example of this, though not seamless, is the YouTube Nonprofit Program. Participants can create a “call to action” within the video, or a video overlay, to donate off of YouTube. This isn’t a seamless integration, but it allows portability of donations.

Nonprofits want one donation solution that they can port to wherever their stakeholders hang out online. They don’t want to create a zillion donation profiles and projects in order to get to everyone. I’m hoping that the technology and will develops to meet this need, and that we see the rise of cross-platform donation tools, and donation portability such as the tool developed by Giving Impact.

4. The rise of mobile giving.

Mobile charitable fundraising has been growing since 2008. Today, approximately 400 nonprofits are running mobile donation campaigns, the average donation is rising from $5 to $10, and US charities expect to receive a total of $2 million from mobile fundraising in 2009, according to Mobile Marketer. (Two examples of providers of mobile-based giving in the US are Mobile Commons and Mobile Giving.) Mobile giving is growing in acceptance in countries around the world as well. The rising adoption of smartphones, coupled with the mobile familiarity of the millennial generation, makes this is a trend worth watching. The challenge for nonprofits is to creatively think about integrating mobile giving and social media.

5. Cultural acceptance of social network-based giving.

One of the things that I’ve argued is that users on social network sites aren’t culturally used to donating while on a the network. That’s where they discuss life’s issues. However, that’s finally changing. Online donations via Causes on Facebook and twitter rallies have become more popular. In the coming year, I’m predicting the rise of more fundraising options that integrate with social networks. Along these lines, there’s an interesting post by Joe Solomon that considers what a Twitter fundraising tool would look like.

NOTE: I’m updating this blog post (as of December 9) to include a link to the wonderful slide presentation entitled: The Future of Online Revenue Generation for Charities, by Amy Sample Ward. She places it in a slightly different context than I do, focusing on future demand for better processes, relationships (and empowering supporters), leveraging social media, the gift economy, and authenticity. She also includes some great data about online giving trends.

What do you think? Do you agree with me, or disagree? Can you add to this list, or edit it? I’d also love feedback on the graphic above!

I want to thank my twitter friends who helped me identify some key timelines for the graphic above: John Carnell, Katrin Verclas, Mobile Commons, and Chris Dougherty. Thanks for listening, y’all!

Image by luc legay

I’m live blogging the Affilicon Israel 2009 session entitled “Social Media Strategies.”

The first speaker is Sam Goldfarb of TradiMax. His company specializes in Facebook marketing.

Facebook Facts: users upload 850 mil. photos/mo, over 200 million users, and FB spends $25 mil yearly on server space, 50% of users are over 30 years of age, big companies are using FB. The number one brand? Barack Obama. An older brand, Coca Cola, is #6.

Mentions that there will soon be a payment system on Facebook – it’s social, and not yet public. When you buy something on FB, your friends will be notified. He tentatively is calling is “social PayPal.” (My note: Can you turn off the social sharing part?)

Second speaker: Miriam Schwab, Illuminea, speaking about Five Things Social Media is NOT.

1. It is not a ticket to millions of leads. Example: Twitter has 32.1 million users now (up from 1 million a year ago). If you are on Twitter you do NOT have a “direct line” to everyone. Ashton Kutcher, the most popular user, has only 1.9 million users. You have to compete for interest on Twitter and you have to connect, and compete for attention.

2. It is not for everyone. For example, if you are trying to market to other Middle Eastern countries besides Israel, Internet penetration is very low. You have to know where people are online, and if they are online at all.

3. It is not free. Not really. Time is money and it takes a lot of time to create, promote and respond to content.

4. It is not the “end of the road.” Geocities used to the hottest thing. (Lycos used to be the hottest search engines!) Facebook just surpassed MySpace. The web is fleeting and changing.

5. It is not enough on its own. Example – Skittles has a website that is only embedded social media sites. Skittles video goes to YouTube. Skittles chatter goes directly to twitter comments. Does it help them achieve their goal.

Third speaker: Oren Todoros, HYPick. Video blogger. Speaking about the Social Marketing Arsenal.

Can a brand be social? Yes. Example: WD40 brand has its own Ning community at we40uses.com where people upload lots of photos and discuss the brand.

You should do what you love – anyone can use social media well talking about what they love.  Gary Vaynerchuck (wine review blog) speaks about wine on video daily. iJustine a.k.a. Justine Ezarik is a freelance graphic/web designer and video editor, who became the AT&T spokesperson. Locals that leverage new media: Kfir Pravda (Pravdam.com), Hillel Fuld (technmarketing.com), Ayelet Noff (blonde2dot0.com) and Ezra Butler (1938 media.com) – they all do what they love and do it on social media.

New Media Methods:

1. Guy Kawasaki Approach: accumulate as many followers as possible while being nice enough not to be a spammer.

2. Targeted Approach: follow who you want, targeted approach, become an industry leader.

If on Twitter:

Use Ping.com to simultaneously post to many site, use wefollow.com to find followers, tweetlater.com to time tweets later, or tubemogul.com to upload a video once and it broadcasts to all video tube sites.

How to track the conversation?

1. Use Friendfeed.com to build a customized content feed based on your friends

2. Google Blog Search/Google Alerts – search Blogosphere

3. Boardtracker.com – what people are talking about on message boards.

Social media is SOCIAL and NOT Sales. Learn from others, socialize with your base, get involved in other blogs and sites with comments, and don’t forget You Tube is a very large search engine.

Predicted (by Oren Todoros) Up and Coming Social Networks:

1. Multiply.com: focus on sharing media

2. Blip.fm – music sharing

3. Qik.com – life casting/video streaming

4. Seesmic.com – video based discussion

5. HYPick.com (Oren’s network)

Own your Brand- search on namechk and take it on all the sites.

Other panelist: Arik Czerniak, Entrepreneur, former CEO of Metacafe, who added value to the panel discussion.

The Future of Social Media Predictions: next stage is aggregating activity into one place.Google Wave is also considered to be the next stage – it is an email updating/embedding and conversation tool for sending/receiving email in real time. Google Wave is still in demo.

image by paul young

I’m at the podcasting seminar of the We Are Media learning sessions for NTEN’s 2009 Conference. I’ll be updating this page every 10-20 minutes.

Speakers: Kate Stahnke and Brandon Buck from CauseCast.org

More info will be available on the wiki at: wearemedia.org/NTC+PODCAST

Agenda:

motivations for podcasts

creating

editing

posting

US basic stats about podcasting: Edison research study: overall podcast consumption up 22% over last year. Demographics: under 30 is largest consumer of podcasts, age 30 to 60 is growing, and household incomes over $70,000 (20% growth). Study from 2006-2008. Indication: older, more affluent users are consumer, probably donors.

Podcasts are tied directly to a program/initiative, and report on its progress are beneficial to donors. Donors want updates as to how money is spent and this helps donors convert to become repeat donors. Plus, podcast audience is growing.

A podcast is a blog that attaches rich media. Unlimited possibilties.
What you need:

good microphone: more you pay is the better your voice will sound

video: from about $170 for a flip phone, or HD for about $230.

Most popular podcasts today, however, are people in front of webcams with inexpensive mic. CONTENT IS KING.

Free programs:

AUDACITY - record audio, open source, free

LEVELATOR – stabilizes audio once you drag audio into it

QUCKTIME (comes with iTunes) but Pro version allows direct recording to computer. Can record straight to video using Quicktime.

(live demo)

A lot of audio formats:

MOST IMPORTANT AUDIO: MP3 – universal, everyone can play it

VIDEO: MOV and MP4 – universal formats

First step: actual recording (video or webcam for video image) if just audio – use audio recording (like Audacity) to record, then apply Levelator to smoothe out the voice. Levelator is free, and a good step, but optional. There are no free video editors.

EDITORS: imovie for Apple, Final Cut Pro, and another (will update lator). There are low end and high end options. Can get high end through Tech Soup as well.

Point is that podcasts are, by nature, more mobile and video is mostly used for when connected to internet. However, increasingly video formats are going to become more mobile.

Best practices in podcasting:

News, updates and interviews.

Recommend: go to iTunes’ “Top Podcasts” and see what lessons you can learn from them. Top one is “This American Life,” which indicates that content is king.

Frequency is important. Consistency is important, e.g. “Wednesday night at 9pm is new podcast update time.” Users will look forward to this.

Incorporate constituents in podcasts. People like to be referred to, talked about, and included. Show is only as good as audience so they will propel the show forward with their own ideas, if they are already engaged and included.

Now we are learning how to record something:

1. Download Audacity program (check! did it!)

2. press green button. Talk.

3. Press stop (yellow button)

4. Press play (green button) to hear the recording.

Note: at top of audacity there are two bars (left and right) then don’t let the audio exceed the level 0.

You can combine the clips, change the order. You can combine them and it will play left to right. You can create a “staircase” to play them left to right, but if you want to have voice over music, for example, you put them on top of each other to play at the same time. See “staircase” example below.  To do that, select double-sided arrow at top left, then drag a recording.

Audacity recording "staircase" image

This is what a voice over recording will look like:

To change volume:

1. select track

2. choose effect

3. find an effect – select “amplify” – don’t exceed (-0.2)

4. drag option. It will prevent audio from causing distortion by default.

One other note: very cool effects to choose from, such as “fade in” etc.

Next Topic: Publication

You want your podcast to be on iTunes as well as other places (individual websites, etc.) One idea is to add links on site for downloading in different formats (MOV, MP3, MP4) and of iTunes.

If using Audacity, we export to MP3 and save on computer with a name.

iTunes:

If you go diirectly to iTunes, then tell iTunes where to locate the file is on the web, and describe the podcast. iTunes creates a directory for it.

If your org has a server or website, create the MP3 file and put it on that server. If you don’t have a server, or not understand how to get to it, there are free tools that let you put it onto a webserver, which is Blip.tv for both video and audio. If stick file on website, people have to download it and it could crash the site. Blip.tv will prevent that from happening by dealing with bandwith for you.

Recommend using Blip.tv.

1. Create Blip.tv account -free. Pro account converts to other formats.

2. Choose “Upload” at top of page.

3. Create Title

4. Create description

5. Take file you’ve created and give them the link.

6. Upload tags in the Categorize section.

7. Distribute/Publish section – will inform you of option.

8. It will take about an hour to upload.

Then click the upper right corner, which is your user name, and you’ll be taken to this screen.

showing your list of podcasts

The arrow is pointing to the RSS feed. If you click on the RSS feed, you see how poeple can add it as a feed.

Now, COPY THE URL WITH THE RSS FEED and paste it into Feedburner. com. So my RSS feed looks like this: http://communityorganzer20.blip.tv/rss

Paste it into Feedburner. Now you have a Feedburner link.

If you go back to Feedburner and look at “My Feeds” you can choose a feed and look at the stats. If you click the RSS icon next to your feed at Feedburner, then THAT is the link that you want to submit to iTunes. By default, the Feedburner URL will always link to iTunes and iTunes will automatically find and upload your podcasts.

More information on the wiki: http://wearemedia.org/NTC+podcast including tools, “how to” and other notes.

Listing in iTunes: (for when podcast listeners are looking for a new podcast) – the Yellow Pages of podcasts.

1. Go to iTunes store.

2. See “Submit a Podcast” in the middle.

3. Paste the Feedburner URL: feeds2.feedburner.com/title

4. Sign in the publish your podcast.

Other Directories

Search for “podcasts” on Google and find other directories for listing your podasts. Others are Podcast Alley and Odio, among others.

Complementary content

Direct people to complementary content (e.g. “if you enjoy this content, go to…” or “if you’d like more information, go to…” or “if you’d like to see the series continue, donate now at…” So, think about calls to action – comment, donate, take action.

Best practice to post complementary content at the beginning and end. Think about what’s in it for the audience and direct complementary content in that direction. What will they find useful?

Link to new podcasts on other social media such as a status update with link on Facebook, etc.

Sponsorship and Donations

Duke study on Cause marketing: for profit entities associated with nonprofits had tremendous results with lift, recognition and purchases. Thus, corporations might be interested in partnering with nonprofits to sponsor the podcast. Sponsors want to be at the beginning of the show. Best practice to also say a few words about the sponsor and urge listeners to visit sponsor’s site.

At CauseCast they are creating a white label donation portal for video also.

View the new donation button at documentary.causecast.org.

If you go to documentary.causecast.org/node/5 you can see all the different video formats.

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?

image by frankh

Six years ago, I was  still a die-hard user of the Yellow Pages. If I wanted a local telephone number, I walked over to that book and “let my fingers do the walking.” I bragged that I could look up a phone number faster in the yellow pages than on the internet. That was true, in fact. Most local businesses had terrible websites.

Six years ago, most of the non-profit organizations that I knew had static websites, thought blogs were for the MySpace crowd, and frankly hadn’t updated their websites in months. Six years ago, most of those same nonprofits were wishing for grants to update their 1999 PCs.

In 2003, in the nonprofit world, no one could figure out how to use the social web to motivate people in the way that Moveon.org had inspired people to act, but every nonprofit listed job openings with Idealist.org.  Websites were purely functional and informational: people registered for classes, looked up email addresses, and read organizational news.  We knew the web had potential, but we didn’t know how to harness it to help our organizations soar. On the other hand, many nonprofits served clientele that were on the other side of the technological divide.

We were interested in using the social web to reconnect (remember when Friendster was the rage?), to Meetup, and to sell things through Craig’s List. Howard Dean pushed us to realize potential of the social web; his meetups catapulted his 2004 Presidential campaign forward. Facebook was for “the college crowd,” MySpace was for the “teenage crowd” and Linkedin was for “the professionals.” Which space was “for us?” We weren’t wondering where our stakeholders were online; we had their email addresses.

Nonprofit organizations today are embracing technology for social good. They are on the social web, blogging like crazy, creating dynamic websites, and selling out nonprofit technology conferences like the upcoming NTEN conference. Nonprofits now realize that the web is social, connected and global. We know that stakeholders are talking about us, and we are listening, responding and connecting via the social web.

What lessons should nonprofits should learn from the past, in order to prepare for the technological future?

1. Embrace technology fully. There must be at least one in-house staff person who understands technology, loves it, and is willing to experiment with new applications, tools and trends. Many nonprofits were left on the wrong side of the digital divide because no one in the organization understood the importance of embracing technology.  For those looking, NTEN is a great resource.  The Nonprofit Technology Network connect members who want to learn about technology trends and tools. Another great resource is Tech Soup, which offers technology services, discussion, discounted software, and donated software to nonprofits.

2. Stay on top of technological trends. Don’t we all wish we had understood social media earlier? Don’t we all wish we had seen the potential of blogs as soon as LiveJournal (open source blogging software) caught on in 2003? Don’t miss out again! Someone in your organization must stay on top of the trends. Subscribe to a few technology-based blogs, like Mashable, Net Squared, Beth’s Blog, Web Strategy by Jeremiah, ReadWriteWeb, and any others related to technology and your organization. Discuss them in staff meetings. Make sure that the entire staff is updated, so that everyone can take advantage of this information when working.

3. How can you further your mission through technology? This is the crucial question. When your organization develops new programs or systems, consider how you can utilize technology to engage more deeply, reach more people, or improve your programs.  As technology changes, client use of technology evolves, and nonprofits become interconnected, how can you harness this information to further your organization’s mission?  When you are constantly looking at technology in light of organizational mission, I’m willing to bet new and exciting programs, systems and ideas will arise.

Did your organization embrace technology in 2003, and if so, how was it utilized? What else would you advise organizations to consider, in order to be as fully prepared as possible for the future? I’d love to hear your thoughts!