Image courtesy of Sum_of_Marc, Creative Commons license

If you’ve taken a look at my blog lately, you probably noticed that the blog has been dark since January 1, 2014. Whenever I’ve taken a break from blogging in the past, I notified readers ahead of time. In January, I faced a quandary: I didn’t want to post to this blog while I was considering a staff position at a nonprofit organization. I felt it was most ethical for this blog to “stay dark” until I had made a final decision, and notified all of my current clients. I am thrilled to announce that beginning March 1st, I will be the full-time Director of Outreach at the National Brain Tumor Society.

I will be working for an organization that is constantly striving to do better, reach further, and think out of the box, the National Brain Tumor Society. They state that the organization is “fiercely committed to finding better treatments, and ultimately a cure, for people living with a brain tumor today and anyone who will be diagnosed tomorrow. This means effecting change in the system at all levels.” They are working day in, day out to change systems, which you can read all about here. The CEO constantly pushes me to think outside of the box, and supports innovative ideas. I’m so pleased to be part of this effort.

As Director of Outreach, my job is to think about how the organization can best utilize the social web to create relationships with stakeholders, deepen existing relationships, find opportunities to connect people to each other and the organization to other strategic partners, and support the work of the organization. The National Brain Tumor Society hosts fundraising walks, rides and races across the country, and my job will also include supporting the recruitment and retention of fundraisers and volunteers for those events.

It’s a fabulous opportunity to “dive deep” within an organization. The organization has not yet had a full-time staff person dedicated to thinking about social in this expanded way. This is an opportunity to develop new internal systems, social media strategy, campaigns, and test tactics. It was a tough decision to stop consulting, but this is the right opportunity. I am hopeful that I will still be able to speak at conferences about the work of the organization, and nonprofit technology.

I will continue to teach social media at the Graduate School of Marlboro College, about which I am over the moon. When I am teaching a class, I am sure that I learn at least as much from the students (if not more, at times) as they do from me. I am working with the head of the MDO degree program to develop new classes for the 2014-2015 year. Stay tuned as I continue to blog my learnings from developing and teaching new courses.

In 2014, I plan to continue blogging here, at Community Organizer 2.0. Ideally, more than ever before. I’ll continue to offer case studies and insights from other organizations, post slide decks from presentations, workshops, and teaching at Marlboro, and blog about the changing intersection between social media, technology, activism, and nonprofit organizations. Additionally, if you are interested in writing a guest blog post about your nonprofit’s social media efforts, let me know through the contact form on this site.