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Leveraging Web 2.0 and Social Networking for Nonprofits

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An Idea Whose Time Has Come

I'm starting this lens to collect real, concrete examples of how social networking and other web 2.0 tools can contribute to the growth and/or effectiveness of groups that do good (e.g. community service groups, national service programs, volunteer networks, charities, activist groups, nonprofits, or anyone with a worthy cause).

What You'll Find Here

What is 2.0, Social Networking, Social Media?
Why Should Our Nonprofit Engage in Social Networking?
Basic Tools
Blogging and Community Tools
Microblogging and Lifestreaming Tools
Resources to assist you in 2.0 marketing and fundraising
Learn More about Social Networking and Nonprofits
Issues in Social Networking
Some Books of Interest
Learn By Watching: Relevant YouTube Videos
Tell me what you think

What is 2.0, Social Networking, Social Media?

Videos and articles that describe the phenomenon.

Social Networking in Plain English: For those completely new to the concept of social networking.
Social Media in Plain English: Cute, entertaining video about how social media works and what the benefits are.
Social Bookmarking in Plain English: Explains the basic usage and benefits of delicious.
Blogs in Plain English: Another great video from Lee Lefever of Common Craft.
Podcasting in Plain English: Learn why podcasting has taken off.
Vincent Cerf's 2.0 Wisdom: Google's Advice On How Brands Can Leverage Social Media
Everything is Miscellaneous: This is a great Google talk by the author of Everything is Miscellaneous which explains some of the conceptual underpinnings of tagging and its appeal as an information management tool.

Why Should Our Nonprofit Engage in Social Networking?

Is your nonprofit ready for Gen Y?: This blog post links to two other blog posts that explain how critical social networking is for nonprofits that want to reach "generation Y".

Basic Tools

The Big Three

These tools have been widely adopted.

Facebook: The first social networking site to achieve mass appeal to a broad demographic. Can be used to create a presence for a nonprofit or a social cause, promote events, and raise money.
Delicious: Delicious is a social bookmarking website -- you use it to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On delicious, you can use "tags" to organize and remember your bookmarks.

Delicious allows for great serendipitous discovery of useful links, either through browsing tags, searching, or seeing what people with similar interests to you have bookmarked.
YouTube: Allows people to easily upload and share video clips, as well as comment on them and share favorites. Includes a nonprofit channel.

Blogging and Community Tools

Ning: Create your own social network for anything. Read about why you might want to do this, or check out the nonprofit networks on Ning.
Blogger: Site where you can instantly create your own blog. Easy and free way to create a blog. Some people prefer Wordpress, which offers you more control over your blog's look and feel, but also has a steeper learning curve and requires a download.
Drupal, Open Source, and Nonprofits: Slides from a talk given at NetSquared in May, 2008. Briefly covers 2.0 and how Drupal is an effective content management system for creating community websites.
Drupal: An open source content management platform. Makes it very easy to create a site where people can have profiles, make comments, post resources, and discuss things in forums. A big step up from simply hosting a blog, you may want to consider Drupal when your organization is ready to overhaul their website. Otherwise, you can create a very nice multi-user blog with one of the free blogging services.
Social Actions Blog: The meeting place for people interested in peer-to-peer social change.

Microblogging and Lifestreaming Tools

Twitter: Twitter started out with the mission of allowing people to "stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?." Although many people use it that way, it has become more than that for power users, professionals, and organizations. Often known as "microblogging", it is one more way to get the word out about your work/cause/organization and build a strong presence on the web.
FriendFeed: Friendfeed is a brand new service that is taking off like wildfire. It combines elements of microblogging and lifestreaming and offers an easy way to add conversations and comments on the items posted.

The FriendFeed website notes that, "FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing." In my line of work I see it being used as more of a professional networking and information sharing tool - it's a great way to keep up on developments in whatever field you are in.
Social Networking and Nonprofits News Channel: socialmedian is a brand new service, still very beta, but it is a cool idea. Come join the conversation, suggest a news source, or contribute some links.

Resources to assist you in 2.0 marketing and fundraising

Unleashing the Ideavirus: Provides examples of successful ideavirus marketing, and explains how you can concoct your own ideaviruses. Click on the "get it" tab to download a free copy.
eBary Giving Works: There are over 13,000 nonprofits raising funds on eBay. See which ones and how brisk their sales are by exploring eBay Giving Works.

Learn More about Social Networking and Nonprofits

Blogs to read and places to go to share ideas on this topic.

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Beth is a prolific and thoughtful writer who knows her stuff. Don't miss this blog!
Non profits and web 2.0 on FriendFeed: If you are familiar with FriendFeed (or if you're not but want to get started), check out this room. It is still young but I predict it will grow soon!

Issues in Social Networking

Discussions for those already immersed in the phenomenon.

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: What are your tips for using your social networking profile for professional work?: There are some great comments on this blog post about how to juggle your personal and professional personae.

Some Books of Interest

Learn By Watching: Relevant YouTube Videos

Tell me what you think

Was this information useful to you? How are YOU using social networking to boost your nonprofit?

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gonzi Feb 1, 2011 @ 8:10 am | delete

This post is very informative for me. Thank you! :)
realty world

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WiserEarth Jan 7, 2011 @ 9:58 pm | delete

Great stuff. My organization, WiserEarth is always looking for ways to help nonprofits and individuals network online. We love Beth Kanter too. Thanks for posting this! Lensrolled!

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Felix Young Jun 22, 2010 @ 7:05 am | delete

Social Network is a plate farm where you can have all the people related to various field. Her we can have answers of our almost all questions ......

Theboyzone.com
Fastest Growing Gay Social Network

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Andrew Finkle Aug 23, 2008 @ 3:00 pm | delete

don't forget LinkedIn :-)

Web 2.0 Philanthropy = VERY rewarding & fun!
Crowdaroo is a LinkedIn group that utilizes the *power of the crowd*.The first endeavor of Crowdaroo is to have a meaningful & direct contribution to your charitable activities.

Historically when one gives to charity, there are huge sums of your money that never actually help the cause, with money instead going to fund raising and bureaucratic activities. Additionally most charities go to a "general" cause, and not a specific one.

Using Web 2.0 methodology,Crowdaroo.org will focus on three initial goals;

1) Congregate (via LinkedIn groups) people whose individual $1 might not go far, but whose collective $100,000 might be critical to someone else's well being.

2) Jointly identify a person/project in need via discussion and vote.

3) Prove that 99% of funds collectively raised can directly benefit a cause.

Link

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Denise May 5, 2010 @ 1:53 am | delete

Social networking sites are how I have built my business. I seem to do better at marketing my business via the internet, I am a member of all of the major sites like linkedin, peoplestring, etc. I have also joined Social Media Moguls Group, Inc. it doesn't matter what company you are with, you can go to this site to advertise your product or business FREE! Also, network and find out marketing secrets that most people pay good more for... I love this site!

http://www.socialmoguls.ning.com
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