studio 501c

swipe this: check out the sites and practices of these web-savvy nonprofits

Having been on hiatus, I thought I would jump back in with an easy post: This list of the 59 Smartest Orgs Online from Squidoo.com, Net2, and GetActive is a great one to explore.  See what nonprofit marketing expert Nancy Schwartz has to say about it.  She likes the list and reminds us that "whether any or all of these strategies are right for your organization depends on your marketing goals, and other communications strategies in play."

nonprofits, nota bene: If you're interested in using the web more effectively, ask different staffers or volunteers to each review a few sites and to report back to the group on their findings.  Make sure to examine the sites of those with missions that are close to yours as well as a few that aren't.  If you have a narrow goal, e.g., improving your online donation capacity, concentrate on what the different nonprofits are doing in that area.

P.S.  Very interesting that Barack Obama decided to announce his presidential exploratory committee via the web yesterday.  It was a great way to get a very personal message (as compared, say, to a press conference announcement) out to millions and millions of people.  That video, which features Obama speaking directly to the camera in a home setting, has been featured on major news sites and blogs around the world.

a new way for nonprofits to "show up" in Google: March of Dimes petitions for a "doodle"

Via Seth Godin : The March of Dimes is asking supporters to petition Google to create a "doodle," (a modification of its logo that changes daily and that commemorates different holidays and events)  to commemorate Prematurity Awareness Day on November 14. 

Good petitions, like this one, Godin says, "build emotional energy."  Even if Google does not create a doodle, the petition will have helped to raise awareness of the day, and of the cause.

3 posts = a great primer on blogging and web communications for nonprofits

Two of my favorite bloggers recently published posts that, together, provide a great overview of the importance and potential of web-based communications for 501c3s. These articles would be good to share with an executive director or team that is beginning to explore how to use the web to build relationships with donors, volunteers, clients, members, and other stakeholders.

Check out Nancy Schwartz's Everybody's Talking About You--Why Your Nonprofit Needs to Listen, and Listen Hard. (Be sure to click to read the whole article.)

And if you haven't seen it yet, go to Netsquared to read Using New Tools in Non-tech Orgs: An Interview with Seth Mazow of Interplast by Marshall Kirkpatrick. Seth shares practical advice that is within the reach of many nonprofits.

If Marshall and Nancy's posts inspire you to investigate blogging, don't miss Idealware.org's great report, Getting Started With Blogging Software.

Like Seth Mazow, I recommend Typepad, which I use to publish this blog. I also recommend ExpressionEngine, which I plan to use for another project.

Technorati tags: net2 nptech nonprofit_blogs nonprofit Typepad Idealware ExpressionEngine Web2.0

e-newsletters better than web site or RSS for building relationships, study suggests

Any nonprofit interested in effective online communication should check out the executive summary of a fascinating study -- by the highly regarded Nielsen Norman group -- on e-mail newsletters, how to make them user friendly, and their value compared to web sites and RSS (also known as web feeds or news feeds). A couple of excerpts:

On e-newsletters vs. web sites: "Users tend to glance at websites when they need to accomplish something or to find the answer to a specific question. In contrast, newsletters feel personal because they arrive in users’ inboxes, and users have an ongoing relationship with them. Newsletters also have a social aspect, as users often forward them to colleagues and friends."

On e-newsletters vs RSS (web feeds): "Feeds are a cold medium in comparison with email newsletters. Feeds don’t form the same relationship between company and customers that a good newsletter can build. We don’t have data to calculate the relative business value of a newsletter subscriber compared to a feeds subscriber, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that companies make ten times as much money from each newsletter subscriber. Given that newsletters are a warmer and much more powerful medium, it is probably best for most companies to encourage newsletter subscriptions and promote them over feeds on their website."

Hmmm, among other things, this suggests that a free service such as Zookoda, which allows bloggers to send a weekly branded newsletter with digests of blog posts, would be more effective than RSS at building relationships with readers. I'll have to check it out. If anyone has used Zookoda, I'd be grateful for your thoughts in the comments section.

Thanks to the ultrapopular Merlin Mann at 43 folders for the tip.

Technorati tags: net2 nonprofit nptech social sector NGO Jakob Nielsen JakobNielsen Norman NielsenNorman usability newsletters e-newsletters feeds web2.0 Zookoda site relationship building relationshipBuilding

don't jump on the cluetrain when it's goin' down the wrong track

When I blogged on March 26 about Seth Godin's paper Flipping the Funnel, I hadn't read this NetSquared interview by Marshall Kirkpatrick, in which Seth calls nonprofits "so so clueless" for not using his new Web service, Squidoo. This disparagement was unfair and, to my mind, ironic, given that one of Seth's ideas for using Squidoo could actually be damaging to a nonprofit's brand.

I responded to the interview in a NetSquared community blog post entitled, "We, the clueless," in which I advise nonprofits not to "jump on the cluetrain when it's goin' down the wrong track." The post was headlined on the Netsquared home page, and it elicited a comment from Seth as well as a few others.

Technorati tags: cluetrain net2 nonprofit NGO nptech blogging nonprofit blogging tools web2.0 Godin squidoo

flip the funnel, but flip it feasibly

Thanks to Michael Gilbert's Nonprofit Online News, I learned about the latest publication of prolific marketing writer Seth Godin: his nonprofit edition of Flipping the Funnel (free PDF download) shows how nonprofits can gain new supporters by asking current supporters to use free Web tools such as blogs, Flickr, del.icio.us, and his own Squidoo. (As Seth says, "A Squidoo page contains links—links to products for sale, to reviews, to pictures, to videos, to RSS feeds, and to blogs. A Squidoo page, which is called a lens, is one person’s take on one topic.")

As much as I respect Seth's marketing expertise, I disagree with a couple of points in this paper.  It's silly to claim that, because it gets more traffic, Squidoo.com will attract more attention to a nonprofit than will a traditional nonprofit Web site such as diabetes.org. (Seth refers to a chart showing their comparative stats, but it wasn't in the version that I downloaded today.)  Squidoo as a whole has a very different purpose and audience from diabetes.org.  A more apt comparison would be diabetes.org vs. a Squidoo page on diabetes.

And while I agree that nonprofits could use Squidoo pages to promote themselves and engage supporters, the idea, on page 14, of the New York Philharmonic asking 3,000 of its supporters to each create a Squidoo page about dressing kids for winter (and for the 3,000 to raise money for the orchestra by getting friends to buy clothing featured on their pages) is so odd that I can't help but wonder if something wasn't lost in the editing.

Can you imagine being the one at the Philharmonic to tell the CEO (or board chair, or development director) that one of your fundraising strategies is to get 3,000 donors each to create a Web page about kids' winter clothing and for them to get their friends to buy clothing from their pages, with a small percentage of the profits going to the orchestra? Not only would that convey a very confusing message about the Philharmonic brand to supporters, it's unrealistic to expect 30 donors, much less 3,000, to want to publish a Web page on that particular topic.  (And how many people will actually be motivated to support the orchestra by purchasing clothing through the Squidoo pages?  Though I am loyal to my son's school, I've never bought anything through the Web sites that give a percentage to the school -- it's just one too many things for me to think about during my busy day.)

Much better are the ideas found on page 15 of the paper, for example, for a nonprofit to create a Squidoo page to supplement its Web site or for a nonprofit to ask supporters to create pages about topics that naturally interest them, with proceeds from sales on the pages going to the nonprofit.  Even so, the second strategy would probably not work unless the supporters were savvy about the Web (if not already publishing on the Web) and unless they had a strong bond with the organization or with each other.

If you know of any nonprofits currently using Squidoo to build relationships, I'd be grateful if you'd let me know via the comments below.  I do think it could be effective given the right conditions, and I'm eager to see how it pans out.

Technorati tags: net2 nonprofit NGO nptech nonprofit blogging del.icio.us flickr blogger tools web2.0 Godin

cluetrain squidoo

welcome to studio 501c

This is a resource for ordinary people doing extraordinary things -- social entrepreneurs and nonprofit staff and volunteers, i.e., those who work hard every day to make positive change.  I'm a nonprofit professional, too, and I'm interested in the ways that the Internet, personal technology, and other tools can help advance the goals of those in the social sector (which, by my definition, encompasses the nonprofit sector, but also goes beyond it to include those in the private and public sectors who are pursuing social innovation). 

As a result of my interests in personal tech and communications, I often find myself telling friends and colleagues about a Web site for tracking down the address of a prospective donor, or an easy way they can keep up with the issues their nonprofit addresses or a free Web-based calendar, task, and contact management application that can help individuals and teams be more productive.   I hope to do the same thing with this blog -- to share information and tips from time to time that will help people accomplish their social-change goals more effectively.

I won't pretend to be definitive or even authoritative.  In fact, much of the advice here will be pretty basic, as I find that even many brilliant leaders in the social sector know little about RSS, blogs as communications tools for nonprofits, or all that Google can do for them!  (Watch for more info on these tools in future posts.)

I'll just share what has worked for me, as well as what others with far more knowledge and experience are recommending.  I plan to review what experts in personal tech, life hacks, productivity, cool tools, and nonprofit tech are publishing, and then share the best of it here, adding ideas for how nontechies in in the social sector can apply the tips to their particular concerns. In that sense, I hope studio 501c will be a time-saving filter blog.

I also hope that it will offer a practical perspective to current discussions on how nonprofits can use the Internet and technology to further their missions.  These discussions, though well intended, sometimes become unrealistic, especially when they involve nonprofit techies talking with other nonprofit techies.  With studio 501c, I'll aim to address the everyday concerns of nontechies in nonprofits and other social-sector organizations.

I hope that you can help with this effort.  Please post your ideas, advice, and experience in the comments section of this blog so that we can all learn from each other.

Cheers,
Celeste W

Technorati tags: net2 blogging nonprofit NGO nonprofit blogging marketing nptech fundraising social sector social entrepreneur AirSet ZabaSearch small business studio 501c nontechie nontechie