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News for April 2008
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 29 April 2008 |
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| Nonprofit Blogging Strategies Seminar, June 18th & 25th, 2008 |
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As more and more organizations realize the power of "social media", at the center of their efforts is the exciting and challenging notion of blogging and similar forms of communication. I'm going to be teaching Nonprofit Blogging Strategies in a new time slot in June: Wednesdays, June 18th & 25th, 2008. How do you balance the free for all of blogging with the rigors of organizational messaging? How does blogging and its relatives (social bookmarking, social networking, etc) fit into the mix of content development, organizing, and outreach tactics? We'll address these questions and more in a two part seminar designed to help you work hands on with your organization's needs and opportunities.
Posted: 4/29/08; 4:00:55 PM # |
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28 April 2008 |
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| The Machinery of Hope: Inside the Grass-roots Field Operation of Barack Obama |
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I did a lot of traditional community organizing when I was younger and nowadays I do a lot of teaching about the promise of online communication for large scale revitalization of the practice. Tim Dickinson in the Rolling Stone has written a great article entitled The Machinery of Hope: Inside the Grass-roots Field Operation of Barack Obama. Although it definitely reflects their endorsement of Obama, it's nevertheless a very solid look at how that campaign is synthesizing the best face to face organizing techniques with the best online communication practices. I would have been interested in more numbers and fewer stories, but this is journalism, not research. Given the way the Howard Dean campaign got dissected after the last presidential race, we'll see the detailed numbers soon enough. Of course, if we're lucky, the staff responsible for these practices will be in government, not starting new civil society consulting firms.
Posted: 4/28/08; 12:33:08 PM # |
| Mission Over Membership in Online Advocacy |
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I recall, very early in my career, being shocked by the newsletter of another organization in which they claimed to have been working on a legislative issue on which I had been a lead consumer lobbyist. I had never once seen them in the legislature. As it turns out, they had been canvassing on the subject, which they considered to be a form of advocacy work. It didn't help that they had asked me for reprint permission on our own article about this campaign and then created the piece I was reading by substituting their organization's name for ours.
So, it's probably obvious why I was delighted to read Charles Lenchner's piece on Mission Over Membership in Online Advocacy in the NTEN blog. He offers a solid criticism of the lack of integrity of list building efforts masquerading as real advocacy work. It's a real problem online these days and I hope this encourages organizations to find a way to be more honest. If not, maybe we should consider some sort of Hall of Shame.
Posted: 4/28/08; 12:25:24 PM # |
| Six Signs of Nonprofit Decline |
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Many ailing nonprofits hang on for far too long, tying up passion and resources and generating burnout and resentment. Although there is no magic formula for how long to wait for a turnaround, the Fieldstone Alliance's list of the Six Signs of Nonprofit Decline is a good place to start: (1) Loss of all or a significant portion of support from a key funding source. (2) “Chasing dollars” syndrome. (3) Sudden and dramatic expansion of services. (4) Falling behind on financial obligations. (5) Consistently unable to meet service and financial projections. (6) Departure of key board and staff.
Posted: 4/28/08; 11:02:56 AM # |
| NTC 2008 Session Material |
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One of the best things about a good conference is the way in which participants return to their work as teachers of the material they just learned. Access to session materials can help with that. NTEN is hosting the materials from the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference and they are worth a good thirty minutes of browsing to see what may be of use to you. I find the fifteen tags they've used to flag different session topics to be the most useful interface: Advocacy, Analysis, Budget, Collaboration, Community, Email, Infrastructure, Integration/APIs, International, Open Source, Planning, Policy, Tools, Web2.0, and Webmasters.
Posted: 4/28/08; 10:57:29 AM # |
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23 April 2008 |
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| New Seminar on Delivering Online Seminars, June 4, 2008 |
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For a couple of years now, colleagues have approached me at conferences and suggested that I teach people how to do online seminars. Now that I have done a couple of hundred hours of them and helped The Gilbert Center's seminar program evolve into its fourth year, I feel like I have some valuable lessons to share. I'm therefore pleased to announce a ninety minute online workshop entitled Delivering Online Seminars: A Sustainable Model for Engagement of Staff, Volunteers, and Donors. The workshop will be delivered live online: June 4, 2008. My goal is to clear the way for you to develop and deliver your own seminars, by providing you with a low-risk strategic framework and takeaways you can apply immediately.
Posted: 4/23/08; 6:47:56 PM # |
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22 April 2008 |
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| Be Good: Why Business Startups Succeed By Being More Like Nonprofits |
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There is something quite powerful about an outsider seeing one's strengths, just as there is something annoying about them pointing out weaknesses. Although I get frustrated when people in the nonprofit sector put themselves down and talk about how they need to be more like business, I do feel that they have the right to make such comparisons. However, when business people start telling nonprofits the same thing, even when I agree with the specifics, I find my hackles rising. Making millions doesn't mean you know anything about social change. Conversely, when someone like the insightful Paul Light, immersed as he is in civil society, explores the strengths of the nonprofit sector, I discount his ideas just a little, even though they are spot on. So imagine my utter delight when, finally, the tables turn and I read a smart, successful business entrepreneur point out the innate strengths of the nonprofit model, for any kind of enterprise.
Paul Graham runs Y-Combinator, a wonderful small-scale commercial incubator that I would love to replicate in the nonprofit world. He is also an excellent writer. In his most recent piece, entitled Be Good, he comes upon an insight that he sees as truly radical and likely to be radically true: The key to a successful business startup is to run it like a charity. He writes: "The thought of betting against benevolence is alarming in the same way as saying that something is technically impossible. You're just asking to be made a fool of, because these are such powerful forces."
He describes four basic sources of strengths of the nonprofit model, all of which derive from its innate authenticity: (1) Morale: If you feel like you are helping people and making a difference in the world, you will keep working under horrible odds and conditions. (2) Help: Being good makes other people want to help you. (3) Compass: If you are clear that you need to do what's best for your cause and the people you're helping, lots of very hard decisions will be a lot easier to make.
Posted: 4/22/08; 4:01:42 PM # |
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21 April 2008 |
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| Building a Collaborative Workplace |
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Anecdote is a "business narrative" consulting firm, meaning they specialize in the role of stories and story telling in organizational success. Their recent paper on Building a Collaborative Workplace (cover page for 11 page PDF), by Shawn Callahan, Mark Schenk and the wonderfully ubiquitous Nancy White helps put our obsession with tools into a larger context of four good practices: Foster collaboration leadership and support. Communicate the fruits of collaboration. Implement collaboration tools. Start communities of practice.
Posted: 4/21/08; 7:01:31 PM # |
| The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It |
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If you've been paying attention to the influence of civil society in the last decade, you would know that things would be much, much worse, were it not for the Internet. Whether it's grassroots response to globalization, or political mobilization in the U.S. and other countries, or new volunteer and fundraising frameworks, or rural empowerment in developing countries, more and more of us know that the level playing field of the Internet is playing a role in our success or at least, in preventing our causes from being utterly crushed. Any leader who is thinking farther ahead than the coming quarter, must read The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It. I also recommend that every leadership group that has the ability to encourage peer conversations get this on their agenda soon.
Posted: 4/21/08; 6:52:12 PM # |
| The Rockridge Institute Closes Due to the Very Challenges They Were Addressing |
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I have been a fan of the Rockridge Institute, in large part because of their strategic vision: to help mitigate the stranglehold that the Right has had on the frame of public political discourse in the United States. So I am sad to read that The Rockridge Era Ends on April 30, meaning they are folding as an organization, primarily due to funding challenges. I was particularly dismayed, but not surprised, that progressive foundations continue to underfund good thinking and long term infrastructure development. I recommend their reflections on how they succeeded and how they fell short to anyone who is concerned about American politics and citizenship.
Posted: 4/21/08; 6:44:36 PM # |
| Donation Dashboard 1.0: Collaborative Recommendations for Donors |
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The Berkeley Center for New Media Project has launched version 1.0 of their Donation Dashboard, a tool for collaborative filtering of donation recommendations. So far, it's definitely living up to the label of "experimental", since it basically recommended back to me the organizations I had rated highly myself. But I have high hopes for such things, if they are kept open and used through an API to help donation portal sites cooperate on building donor value.
Posted: 4/21/08; 4:29:50 PM # |
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17 April 2008 |
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| Doing Well by Doing Good?: A Report on Work Satisfaction in Civil Society |
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Last year we conducted a survey of 433 professionals in civil society and published a series of papers on some of the results. We are now embarking on a new form of presentation and announcing the full report on the results, entitled "Doing Well by Doing Good?: A Report on Work Satisfaction in Civil Society". We are dedicating a website to this report (rather than just presenting it as one large PDF, although we will be making this available soon as well), so that you can comment on or point to any particular section or conclusion that you like.
The conclusions are interesting. Many are intuitive, but deserve real world confirmation and some which may surprise you. For example, while overall satisfaction levels between civil society and the rest of the workforce are similar, only half as many people in our survey report that they are 'completely satisfied' compared to society at large. We invite you to peruse the report, consider our conclusions, and form your own.
This study was conducted as part of The Gilbert Center’s longstanding interest in quality of work life issues in civil society. We offer a mid-career seminar on the topic called Course Corrections. We do ongoing career coaching and counseling for individuals, in addition to our organizational level practice. And I'm slowly writing a related book called The Authentic Organization.
Posted: 4/17/08; 5:56:47 PM # |
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16 April 2008 |
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| Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups |
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The line between government and big business is already frightfully blurry and it appears that, as much as it has in the matter of war, this blurriness extends to the realm of domestic spying. James Ridgeway and others have written a great piece for Mother Jones on how Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups. And we're not talking about casual observation here, like the creepy videotaping of protestors of which government has grown so fond. No, we're talking about stealing donor lists, detailed financial statements, the Social Security numbers of staff members, and strategy memos, then selling these to corporations and PR firms.
Posted: 4/16/08; 7:21:09 PM # |
| Transparency in Government Act 2008 |
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The Sunlight Foundation is taking an interesting approach with the proposed Transparency in Government Act 2008: As an experiment in online collaboration, they have posted the bill in 37 sections and are soliciting written public commentary. They know this is not likely to be the "ultimate technical solution" to drafting legislation online. I for one would be curious as to what a wiki model (or better yet, a wiki in parallel with discussion) would produce. I'll be fascinated to see what the outcomes are. And of course, the bill itself (oh right, that) is a very good idea.
Posted: 4/16/08; 7:10:48 PM # |
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15 April 2008 |
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14 April 2008 |
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| Changes to Nonprofit Online Classifieds and Our Mailings |
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Most of you will have noticed by now that we have made a change to our mailing schedule so that you are no longer receiving a separate mailing with our classifieds. Along with that rather welcome change is a liberalization of our policies for purchasers of ads at Nonprofit Online Classifieds: Your ad can now be of any length. It will stay up indefinitely and provides you with a stable permalink. You pay for inclusion of the link and summary in our regular mailing. As before, announcements of RFPs by funders are hosted for free. Despite the plummet of the U.S. dollar, the price remains at $19.97.
Posted: 4/14/08; 6:14:59 PM # |
| Students Say: Don't Bullshit Us |
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In Keeping It Real, Ray Ulmer summarizes some research into college outreach communication practices and the reactions of students. The last of 21 questions asked, "What advice would you give to colleges specific to their admissions marketing efforts?" The dominant theme was authenticity. I'll bet your stakeholders would say much the same thing.
Posted: 4/14/08; 6:08:43 PM # |
| Taking Community Empowerment to Scale |
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USAID is a sadly compromised organization and has become profoundly more so under the Bush Administration. I nevertheless recommend their 2007 report on community health care initiatives called Taking Community Empowerment to Scale (44 page PDF). The report examines four dimensions of scaling up - quantitative, functional, political, and organizational - through three case studies from the Philippines, Madagascar, and across the Arab world.
Most of the fourteen lessons learned can be applied far beyond the field of health care: (1) Have a vision for scale from the beginning. (2) Choose pilot sites carefully. (3) Aim for high impact. (4) Develop solid partnerships with existing organizations at all levels. (5) Involve partners from other sectors. (6) Work with and foster the emergence and growth of dynamic community and political leaders. (7) Strengthen systems and organizational capacity. (8) Promote horizontal networking. (9) Test the approach. (10) Consolidate, define and refine. (11) Document with guides and tools. (12) Continuously monitor and evaluate. (13) Recognize achievement and publicize program results. (14) Diversify the funding base and encourage community ownership.
Posted: 4/14/08; 6:02:15 PM # |
| Planning, Implementing and Managing Online Repositories |
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Saurabh Kudesia has published lessons from the KnowGenesis Online Library for Technical Communication in a First Monday paper entitled Planning, Implementing and Managing Online Repositories, which I think will be of value to a great many organizations sitting on underground rivers of information. The lessons, which sound a little generic in summary form, but which are definitely worth reading about, are: (1) Working with a content management system. (2) Initial planning. (3) Keep administrative requirements to a minimum. (4) Balancing usability. (5) Ensuring social facilitation. (6) Securing content distribution.
Posted: 4/14/08; 5:45:48 PM # |
| Study Shows Targeted Ads Make Users Uneasy |
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A while back I developed a little analytical tool called the HIMS Matrix, named after the four different experiences a stakeholder can have in regard to whether an organization is really listening to them: They can feel Heard, Ignored, Misunderstood, or Spied Upon. Targeted advertising (and I imagine similar nonprofit practices) can definitely lead to that last reaction, a conclusion backed up by a recent Harris Interactive survey. Results include the fact that 59 percent of Americans take exception to Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo tracking their online activities for marketing purposes and that the key to winning people (especially younger people) is transparency. How are you applying this to your stakeholder communication?
Posted: 4/14/08; 5:36:11 PM # |
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9 April 2008 |
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| Online Marketing Reinvention & Improvement Seminar on May 23rd & 30th, 2008 |
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I'm very excited to be able to announce a brand new two-part seminar designed for hands-on analysis of your organization's online marketing programs. Online Marketing Reinvention & Improvement will be held online: May 23rd & 30th, 2008. Given the successive waves of hype about one online communication mode after another, it's no surprise that most organizations have a mix of strong and weak programs and a meager planning and evaluation framework. This seminar is meant to address these issues directly, helping put websites, email, blogs, community, and social networks into clear language, demystify online marketing planning, and set you on the path to short and long term improvement.
Posted: 4/9/08; 4:22:36 PM # |
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8 April 2008 |
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| Global Information Society Watch 2007 Report |
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The Global Information Society Watch 2007 Report (cover page for 206p PDF) is available for download. Launched at last year's SANGONeT Conference, the report looks individually and collectively at 22 countries and includes critical overviews of the roles of five major institutions affecting the digital divide. There is some great thinking in this report and I believe it, and it's successors in coming years, have the potential to bring about a coherent international strategy on these issues.
Posted: 4/8/08; 11:53:50 AM # |
| Nonprofit Journalism on the Rise |
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Randy Dotinga of the Christian Science Monitor believes that Nonprofit Journalism is on the Rise. At a time when public broadcasting feels like it's being invaded by the commercial cronyism of the Bush Administration, I can only hope that he's right. It's certainly true that there are some heavy hitting funders focusing on the opportunities for nonprofit journalism presented by the ease of the Internet and increasing disgust with mainstream media.
Posted: 4/8/08; 11:45:07 AM # |
| The Contribution of Online News Attributes to its Diffusion |
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An Nguyen has written a dense research paper for First Monday entitled The Contribution of Online News Attributes to its Diffusion. In ordinary language, what that means is that the researcher identified nine characteristics of online news and then did an empirical analysis of which of these contributed to its success. Those nice characteristics are: no cost ("because I don't pay for it"); more news choices ("because I have more news choices on the Internet"); multitasking ("because I can combine getting news with other purposes online"); in-depth/background information ("because I can look for in-depth and background information whenever I want"); 24/7 updates ("because I can check for updated news whenever I want"); customised news ("because I can get news tailored to my interest only"); have my say ("because I can have my say to the news media"); discussing news with peers ("because I can discuss news and current affairs with my peers"); and different viewpoints ("because I can find different viewpoints on the Internet").
Posted: 4/8/08; 11:29:51 AM # |
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