Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants - November 26th, 2007

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants - a weekly blog carnival comprising posts on a particular nonprofit theme. It’s the first time I’ve hosted the Carnival here on Giving in a digital world, and my theme for the week was ‘Engaging with supporters through online social networks’. In accordance with the ’seven posts only’ rule - here are the top seven posts…

With Facebook still the hottest online social network in terms of discussion about new advertising approaches, here’s Wild Apricot’s Ten innovative ways nonprofits can use Facebook.

The rise of Facebook over the last year has tended to obscure the fact that MySpace, with some 200 million members, remains the world’s biggest online social network. In the light of this, the folks at Frogloop have conducted an interesting analysis of how 150 nonprofits are using MySpace and what others can learn from this when considering their own MySpace presence.

Taking a different tack, Kivi Leroux Miller’s post ‘Forget MySpace and Facebook and try sites for Boomers?’ is a great reminder to think first about just who you’re looking to engage with and only then then to consider which social networks might be right to help you achieve this - rather than simply following the MySpace and Facebook crowds.

Here in the UK, discussion about such Boomer sites has been fueled recently by the launch of SAGA Zone. However, as reported on NMK’s blog, UK-based charity Help the Aged has criticised the site for segregating older users.

Alternately, how about building your own social network site? In her post social networks, walled gardens, and decision trees, Elizabeth Dunn discusses the pros and cons of an organisation-specific social network vs a ‘big box’ site.

And finally, with the launch of Google’s OpenSocial perhaps it’s going to get a whole lot easier to develop online engagement programmes through a range of different social networks (or perhaps not?).

At Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology, Michelle Murrain gives a very handy intro to what Open Social means and what it might mean for nonprofits.

While John Bell encourages nonprofits to take advantage of OpenSocial to engage with supporters through the development of multi-platform widgets in his post on Nonprofit widgets in the age of OpenSocial.

That’s all for this week, but you can keep track of the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants, whoever is hosting, by subscribing to the Carnival feed.

Never mind YouTube contests - equip your supporters as citizen journalists

On Wednesday the UN’s food agency, The World Food Programme, launched what it described as a “unique international competition” called Hunger Bytes – calling for budding film-makers to “put their creativity towards raising awareness about hunger”, through the creation of 30 to 60 second videos. The top five selected by WFP will be posted on YouTube and whichever receives the most views will win its creator a chance to visit and film one of WFP’s relief operations.

While I’m not sure how “unique” using YouTube to encourage the creation of promo videos for causes is these days, their competition is a good reminder of the potential of YouTube as a platform from which individuals can help promote a cause.

However, if you really want to maximise on the potential of online video it’s worth thinking beyond straightforward competitions for online promos.

We live in a world where citizen journalism is becoming increasingly common – as shown by all the requests for photos or video footage on TV news shows. At the same time, research into what donors want in return for their support increasingly highlights the importance of helping them to understand just how their money delivers the goods - especially donors in the ‘Baby Boomer’ demographic.

So, how about putting the two together? Capitalising on the ease with which good quality video content can be filmed, edited and posted online to enable groups of supporters - from all age groups - to become citizen journalists, reporting-back on your work to their peers.

For example, if you’re an animal welfare charity, could a small group of volunteers film the work of your veterinary team for a day to offer a ’supporter’s eye view’ on how their donations are being used? They might need some help to produce a quality product, but it could make for an interesting and engaging alternative to the day-to-day newsletters and updates that people are used to receiving (and all too often ignoring)?

Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants coming here next week!

The Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants is a weekly blog carnival hosted by a wide range of bloggers from all around the world, drawing together some of the best nonprofit advice and resources on offer across the blogosphere.

Each week a different host blogger sets a topic for the carnival and other bloggers submit posts on that theme - with the best seven being highlighted on the host’s blog. We can’t promise that fame and fortune will follow selection for the carnival - but sharing your thoughts on a topic in this way will certainly bring a lot of new people to your blog!

Next week, I’ll be hosting the carnival here on Giving in a digital world - and the theme for the week will be “Engaging with supporters through online social networks”.

So, if you’re a blogger with something to say about how nonprofits are using online social networks of any shape or size, be it Facebook, Myspace, Second Life, or whatever… then please do submit a post here before next Monday (26th Nov).

Facebook Pages offers new ways to engage with supporters

You might remember my post a month or so ago about Facebook cancelling the account of the US National Wildlife Federation’s ‘Ranger Rick’ because he wasn’t a real person and organisations aren’t allowed to have Facebook profiles.

Well, with the launch of Facebook Pages last week, any organisation or brand (commercial or nonprofit) can now promote themselves through a page - complete with a wall, photos, discussion groups, the works.

In traditional Facebook style, when supporters interact with your page their actions generate news feed items which, in turn, help spread the word of how they’ve been engaging with your cause to all of their friends.

Already a range of nonprofits have set-up pages, including UNICEF, Defenders of Wildlife, The American Cancer Society - and, of course, the National Wildlife Federation.

Anyone out there doing anything interesting to engage supporters through their Facebook Page - do let me know.

If you’re not already looking into it, and you have supporters you believe are likely to be interacting through Facebook - then do go and take a look at what new opportunities Facebook Pages offers you to engage with them.