I had the pleasure of presenting to the Israel Venture Network Fellows today about social media strategy, campaigns, and fundraising. I am really struck me how much of online fundraising comes down to a combination of social media basics plus community organizing principles. The slide show (below) captures why online campaigns are the social proof of these concepts.

Amy Sample Ward, Ivan Boothe, and myself created a slide show for the workshop that we’ll be giving at the Nonprofit Technology Conference. As part of the workshop Bringing Community Organizing Into Online Campaigns, we debated the essential elements of a good online campaign (fundraising or otherwise), the basic tenets of community organizing, and the nature of community organizing. We came up with five basic community organizing concepts. These concepts apply perfectly to any fundraising campaign. They are:

• movement-building
• power analysis
• community accountability (transparency)
• being where the stakeholders are
• leadership development

With any online fundraising campaign, your organization will be speaking about the project and asking others to influence their online ties to do the same. Take the basic principles of social media and continue to use them to raise funds: have shareable content and share utility, utilize the power of influence marketing and the power of weak ties, offer a great product/content, recognize people who give, and thank them profusely. Allow others to have the conversation about you publicly. (And use this opportunity to recruit new stakeholders to your social spaces.) Now mix that with community organizing and this is what you get:

• Link your fundraising project to the larger cause movement to give it emphasis and compelling context
• Power mapping: ID influencers, key donors, and how the donors will share and influence
  
• Develop online influencers and key online donors into organizational leaders
• Be where the people are: make sure that online activity within the campaign occurs where your stakeholders are
• Transparency means: broadcast as much about the campaign, on the campaign site and social media, as it happens

I think of this presentation as a starting point: what else would you consider the “fundamental principles” of social network fundraising? What have I missed? What have I mentioned that’s essential?

(Thanks to Amy Sample Ward for providing the screen shots of the Tweetsgiving campaign example in the slide show, below.)

Resources:

Epic Change (the folks who bring you Tweetsgiving)

How Social Media Can Engage New Donors – slideshare presentation by Steve Drake

Bringing Community Organizing Into Online Campaigns – presentation developed for the upcoming NTC workshop April 9, 2010

Why do people go to parties? They are invited, of course!

A simple question, and one that has implications for organizing your online community.

Parties are places where you expect

• to meet up with friends and acquaintances
• to meet new people with whom you might have something in common
• to enjoy yourself
• to have a new experience

If you’re invited to a party by a friend, and you’re free, you might go. Same with online communities. Your organization has friends, and they might want to be at the party!  Everytime you meet someone, whether online or in person, invite them to your online party.  Wouldn’t you like to hear form your friends “I’m going to be out tonight at this great party. Want to come? “  That’s how you get your party started. It’s basic community organizing, and it works.

In the US, the leading social networking sites are (in order): MySpace, Facebook, Classmates.com, and LinkedIn. Together, these four sites are the major social sites on the web, according to a 2008 survey by Rubicon Consulting, Inc.  What do these sites have in common? They are large online parties with primarily social functions.

A community organizer’s job is to encourage friends to join. People join because their friends do, and they want to share expereinces. In the “old days” we called this “relationship organizing.” This meant that we organized communities based on finding leaders and their friends, and their friends, and so on. It worked in the community, and the growth of social sites proves that it works online. Relationship organizing is social networking.

Further, according to the study:

“most adults will approve someone as a friend on a social site only if they already know them. Many teens will approve someone as a friend as long as they have even a vague idea of who they are. This means the two groups use the friends list in different ways. To adults, the friends list confirms relationships that they already have elsewhere. To teens, the friends list is an entry point for a relationship.”

As a non-profit manager, it is important to be aware of how your members will view invitations to your party. The online student coalition at a local college, for example, will grow dramatically because its adopters tend to accept invitations casually. However, the online professional networking community in a US suburb will grow slowly until enough connected networkers invite others to join them. You have to know the community you are organizing, and decide your strategies based on how willing they are to join social sites and networks.

Now, time to get your party started…and let me know all about it!

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What is community organizing, and how does it relate to social media?

When I first started as an organizer, I thought it was defined as “convincing others to join a cause.” I’d knock on doors and tell them about this cause or that. I’d get a few to join. But did they really join? A typical conversation might be driven by me, and commence as so:

me: hi, I’m from the SELF Organization. Do you have a moment?
you: yes, what’s this about?
me: I’m working with a group of fellow neighbors. We’re trying to do something about the high prices at the local stores. Would you sign a petition?
you: maybe, yes, no, get out of my face.

I was sure I was doing everything right: I met the prospect, told her about the cause, and asked her to act. In reality, the prospect does not actually commit to anything. On top of that, I know little to nothing about the person who just spoke to me.
So, what were my mistakes?

1. We versus You.
I made the very subtle distinction that I was not part of the target group. The message: “I’m working with them and you can join them.

2. Don’t let the other person talk.
I spoke to the prospect. I left.
I told her everything about the cause and quickly moved to “the ask.” Did the prospect didn’t tell me a thing about himself, herself? No! My organization is no richer for this interaction. I can’t qualify my contact in any way, and I still don’t know why s/he even bothered to listen for a minute.

3. Don’t ask a single question.
Does this person even shop at the overpriced neighborhood store? Does he care about food prices? I never bothered to ask, so how could I find out if this cause would be 0f interest to them?

4. Don’t ask the person to really commit!
I would typically ask a prospect to sign a petition, come to a meeting or take a phone number. But that doesn’t commit the person to the cause. I set up the dynamic for them to play along. Real commitment would be asking someone “what would you like to do to help?”

If you want to create a real online community, beware of the Basic Mistakes of the new community organizer. Your online community, just like the real one you talk with face-to-face, wants be valued and included. Many non-profit organizations don’t see the connection between organizing a real community, and their online community. They create a blog, a forum or a facebook page. But they still…

• don’t listen to you, but still ask something of you
• think of themselves as “outside of” or “apart from” their community
• don’t ask you what you want them to do for you
• don’t ask you to really commit

Just as in the real world, social media communities should not make the Basic Mistakes of Community Organizing. It can cost you members, commitment and valuable ideas about how you can best serve your community.

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