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.
- 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 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
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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- Andrew Finkle Andrew Finkle Aug 23, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
- 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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- kmartone kmartone Jul 12, 2008 @ 8:44 pm
- Very nice lens!
I might add Twitter to the list of Tools. For nonprofits, it is probably more of a listening tool currently - to help find out what its constituents are talking about and care about.
Along with blogger, it may be helpful to add some description of the use of RSS feeds (both to listen and to spread a nonprofit's message further).
Kevin
www.squidoo.com/gijptech
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Reply
- cflick cflick Jun 30, 2008 @ 3:10 pm
- You sure have lots of great tools and resources here. Gets 5 stars from me. Im favoriting and lensrolling! :-)
To Your Success,
Chad Flick
Facebook Traffic Secrets
by serviceresources
I'm the librarian for the Resource Center. Find us on Facebook, delicious, YouTube, Twitter, and friendfeed. (more)
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