Social Ch@nge

A fortune telling robot in Bangalore, India. Original photo by Phil Keller, CC A2.0 Generic

Looking to get your non-profit discovered on the internet? You could do worse than surfing Google Trends, which tells you the most searched terms on the web for any particular day. Of course, while it sort of increases the likelihood that you’ll be found on a search, it also leaves you trying to work terms like ‘Ping Pong Robot’ into your posts.

Ok, perhaps you’re committed to taking more than five minutes to improving the number of visitors to your site.  Go directly to 43 Folders, where Merlin Mann has the answers: all you need is a really good blog. Simple! We read this list when he posted it in August and thought: ok, be obsessed, be unique, find your voice. Got it! Easy! Ping pong robot!

But the other day Mr Mann rephrased these ways of identifying your audience in a way that really made us think - he suggested identifying 10 human beings whose names you know that you wish read your blog. Then imagine if only one person in the entire world read your blog. Who would that be?

Well. Thank goodness for our own personal fortunetelling robot.

Clay Shirky, Malcolm Gladwell,  Beth Kanter, Jane McGonigal, Lynda Barry and, we don’t care who knows it, Merlin Mann - we’re really glad you read this blog every week. Because it’s aimed at smart, efficient people like you, who are interested in the ways and means that the internet crossed with creativity can make for social change.  Like you, we want to talk about society, playfulness, problem-solving and dialogue - but we’re combining it with the hard skills and digital tools non-profit workers (and the rest of us) need to change the world.  We believe this kind of mix is how effective social change gets sparked.

Our how-to’s are aimed at you too. Sure, first-time fundraisers are more likely to google us, and we’re ok with being a ping pong robot kind of solution when it’s needed. But we think everybody can benefit from learning how to concretely act on an problem they’ve identified.

Here’s a example: there’s a small town on the west coast of Canada where a group of townsfolk gets together for Video Awareness Night every month.  The organizer rents the community hall, finds a documentary and puts up posters - and they get a big turn-out! Do they write letters afterwards? Or raise money? Or organize a protest? Actually, they don’t - right now they’re aware of a lot of problems, but not acting on them so much. Maybe they think they have to be you to do something.  But they could, and this blog will show them how.

Original Photo: fortune telling robot in Bangalore India. Credit: Phil Keller, CC A2.0 Generic