You are invited to a virtual book launch party! Join Allison Fine and me on June 21st at 1-2 PM PST/4-5 PM EST for the launch of The Networked Nonprofit published by Jossey-Bass. Today, Allison Fine and I, along with Marc Sirkin and Danielle Brigida did a free webinar for care2 about The Networked Nonprofit.
Watch for the link to the recording and slides – I’ll share it in a more detailed post I have for Friday, but I wanted to capture two ideas that struck me.
- Networked Nonprofits engage your volunteers who are passionate and have some skills your can use
I got a terrific question about whether or not smaller nonprofits can really become networked nonprofits. Beneath this question was one about the scarcity of resources. It relates to the one of the themes in the book, simplicity. The idea that once you open to connecting and leverage your networks, you will shift to abundance.
The best evidence of this that I hear comes from those nonprofits that now have volunteers helping them with their social media. Take for example the SFPCA – the blog and the humorous Lady Meow Meow video is done by volunteers. The East Bay Regional Parks uses social media to engage with members, donors, visitors, and other stakeholders. It used to require a lot of staff time, but for some areas social media savvy volunteers do a lot of the work. Their flickr group is an example.
- Don’t Treat Organizational Skepticism Like the Smoke Monster on LOST
I don’t know how many of you are LOST fans. The black smoke monster on LOST was a stream of black smoke that would appear with scary background music and people would run screaming away from it. That’s how some people in nonprofits treat organizational skepticism about social media when leaders raise it. They shrink, they run, or hide. We need to use skepticism as a conversation starter.
If you are not embracing social media because you think you don’t have the time or skepticism has scared around away, it’s time to change!
