I presented about the possibilities for social media and how it was changing the way we play – as well as the way we act as citizens and witnesses. Since my presentation consisted only of screen shots, I airily told everyone not to worry or take notes, that the links for everything I was talking about would go up on my blog. I made it sound like this would happen within about five minutes, might even be up by the time they got home.

And a geologic age later, here it is! So let’s talk about serious games, and how it could make us better citizens. Thanks to everyone at the conference who was kind enough to chat about this in person.

You see, Word Press offers you and me the option to categorize posts on the basis of either tags or categories.  The benefits of one versus the other are actually pretty complex – in fact, when we asked our technical support, his exact description of the debate ended: 
“I am not an expert.  And experts debate endlessly archival and retrieval techniques…occasionally come to blows at conferences, knocking off one another’s panama hats…duels are fought by candlelight in the returns rooms of tenured collections, the survivors winning the right to catalogue as they see fit…”

Well, you get the idea. Sometimes it’s easier to simplify the difference between tags and categories, and which one will work better for you. So here is the simplified version, panama hats not included.

You’ve seen tag clouds before – groups of key words that tell you what a website is about. If we add a tag cloud, you’ll be able to tap on “fundraising”, “tools” or “Youtube” and come up with all the posts we’ve tagged on the issue. In general, tags are great when you’re handling large amounts of information – so it makes sense that places where you’ve seen tags in use would be Youtube, Flickr and Technorati.

But tags aren’t the only way to organise a website’s topics. Categories allow you to file posts into different groups of topics, assigning parent categories and subcategories to your heart’s content. This hierarchical arrangement makes it easier to find related topics – although, tag fans might tell you this just means you’re not being broad enough with your tags. Ask yourself:  is hierarchy important to you? How do you like to search?

And then please write us, because we need to choose fast. Up till now, we’ve used both tags and categories, and it’s screwing up our search engine. Before we reset it, we want to hear from you.

Which one do you think works better and why? Tell us your tips, and your wish will be our demand.

You clearly need to enjoy the benefits of going analog. Here are 3 tips we use all the time to get our projects done.

Original Photo by flickr user Dave77459

Kitchen Timers:

We’re serious. We like to set the timer for half hour or hour long sprints to help us focus on a task. It ticks, it dings, you’re done.  The timer works well for three reasons – the ticking makes a white noise that keeps you on task,  estimating how much time a task will take you helps you to manage it, and timing yourself means that you’re allowed to take breaks. In fact, breaks are enforced, because you have to take your hands off the keyboard to reset the thing.

Task Breaks:

A friend told me recently about a study that showed that humans are evolving to aggregate information better, courtesy of using computers. Unfortunately, we’re the unevolved ones – this generation of humans aggregates poorly. The answer? Take breaks and let yourself process.

The only rules for a break are: you cannot input on a break (so, you can’t read your book, you can’t listen to music) and you cannot output on a break (don’t make notes, don’t go on Facebook, don’t answer your emails).  The best breaks, the ones that will bring you back to your desk with your work processed, are the ones that get you moving. (And this makes sense when you consider that our brains evolved partly from being able to walk.)

However you do it, banish yourself from input/output tasks for ten minutes, and you’ll find yourself sifting through information and coming back to your work with better focus.

Sticky Note Questions

Make your own content filter. Pick three (max) questions that help you define your goals, write them on a sticky note, and keep it where you can see it. This lets you check if you’re spending your time on the right priorities. For example, a funding developer might have this on her sticky note:

a) Will this bring in money?

b) Will this bring in new donor prospects?

This keeps her from going too far off onto websites that probably won’t support either goal.

If you’re interested in doing further reading about productivity (and you’re not on a task break right now) Merlin Mann’s 43folders.com is the site for you. Among other great posts, you’ll find this one on the benefits of using paper (yes, he invented The Hipster PDA). You’ll also find a great digital tool for keeping yourself from wandering off-task; if you’re not a kitchen timer kind of person, you might be a Brain Dad kind of person.  Kim Klein has also written a bit about analog efficiency – the sticky note idea is featured in her book Fundraising for Social Change (2001, Chardon Press) and it’s good advice.

If your non-profit is working on a social media plan, you’re going to need to think about how your non-profit tells stories. If you fundraise, you already know that the best collateral a non-profit produces are stories about their audience. Here’s an example – think about the last fundraiser you participated in. Chances are, it told you a story about what kind of person you are – you are someone who votes for change, or believes in the environment, or supports youth organizations. And the way they did it?  Good sequence, emotion, an unexpected turn of events, a telling detail or two: all bench marks of good storytelling.

If you’re not sure how to get started storytelling, stop by We Are Media (a social media starter kit curated by Beth Kanter for NTEN) where you will find a terrific module on storytelling, including interviews with NPR and essential essays.

If you’d like to see hilarious story telling: better stop by An Excellent Boring Presentation.

1) Why did NWF decide to start using Twitter?  Was it championed by an individual, or did it “bubble up”?

Two years ago, I was tasked by my boss to “join social networks.” I had started out managing the National Wildlife Federation’s Facebook and MySpace profiles and more, and discovered Twitter while attending the 2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference. I didn’t fully understand it, but I did see potential for NWF because I knew we had interesting and meaningful information to share. I signed NWF up and started tweeting random wildlife facts and links to NWF action alerts and more. I didn’t really know how to start the conversations yet–but I knew that NWF could be a reliable resource for anyone who wanted to follow us.

NWF’s Twitter account was always fun and useful, but I soon wanted a more personal voice, so I created my own account @starfocus and encouraged other people at NWF interested in tweeting to do the same. I knew it would give a personal voice to our programs and I hoped it would open up conversation more and encourage people to feel connected to the organization.

Things did bubble from there! We have two programs on Twitter, @campusecology and @greenhour, along with numerous staff members. @NWF still serves as our main touch point. I think it is great to have people and programs also serve as Twitter accounts because conversations can be more personal and targeted.

2) Do you have a Twitter strategy?  How do you ensure there’s a steady stream of meaningful information, as opposed to lots of “noise”?

Initially no, there wasn’t much of a strategy. As Twitter has grown within the organization, we just fell into a groove that generic, NWF, wildlife-related content would be tweeted through the NWF page. Our Campus Ecology and Green Hour programs get a bit more specific. As for the staff’s personal accounts, I encourage anyone who is interested to tweet as much as they want to about what they do at NWF or what they’re interested in. We develop our own networks of like-minded followers and those followers get connected to the people of NWF on Twitter and throughout other social networks.

On my personal account, and when tweeting for @NWF, I simply try to listen and answer questions–while also asking questions! This has proven incredibly valuable to me and I believe to the organization. When it comes down to it, NWF does fantastic work, but we can do even greater work if we are serving what people need and also connecting with them in the most effective ways.

3) How do you use other online sites/social media in conjunction with Twitter?

I am active on Digg, Mixx and Reddit and will occasionally tweet stories to encourage support. NWF also has a Ping account so we can update Plurk and identi.ca as well. I also make sure to post National Wildlife magazine articles on a number of social networks and will point to them through twitter. I use twitter to push people to our social media hubpage– which right now lives at http://online.nwf.org/socialsites and will hopefully encourage them to at least follow us for a while and see if there is potential to grow the relationship.

4) What benefits has Twitter brought to NWF?

NWF has gotten a lot of value from Twitter. We use it as one of our top listening tools because we get to join in the conversation and also get a glimpse of how we are doing our jobs. We have mended relationships because of Twitter, we have made new friends because of Twitter, and we have helped spread important messages and increased our online activism all because of the way this social media tool leads people to things that interest them. We hope to be very available to anyone who wants to follow us in the future.

5) What piece of golden advice would you offer to a non-profit considering using Twitter?

Start slow, listen and understand the space before you jump in. Don’t follow too many people initially–but follow people who share your interests or who are local to your area. Grow organically and be authentic. Talk to people like they are your friends, not like you are trying to advertise. I think the most important thing you can do is be real and ask for help when you need it.

The Pew Research Center published a report this week on the changing demographic profile of social networks.  I would, ahem, modestly point out that Social Ch@nge was one day ahead of the curve on this one.

Among the responses of the blogosphere, the Agitator has run two interesting posts on the theme.  The first talks about the recent Pew study, and points out that your donor base might not fit the demographics of Facebook.  Fair enough.

The second post looks at the buying habits of users of social networks.  The key point being: people don’t like being sold stuff through the medium of a social network.

This isn’t earth-shattering, nor rocket science – and fundamentally it’s a good point.  You shouldn’t have to worry about product placement during a dinner party for your friends.  Neither should banner ads intrude on your little Facebook flock.

But I think that this aspect is, in fact, what makes social networks such an interesting and powerful fundraising tool for non-profits in particular.  A social network, by its very nature, commands a certain level of trust.  You can screw up a good relationship with your donors/customers by trying to purchase their trust in this fickle medium.  Don’t advertise – keep it honest and earn their trust.  Political causes have certainly figured out how to make this work, for the very same reasons.  It’s not mass media, it’s personal media – keep it personal.  A smart non-profit will take this and run with it.

ps. Put the Agitator on your RSS feed – always great food for thought.

What’s a budget for?

Your organization functions on at least two kinds, a budget that covers your organization as a whole, and smaller program or project budgets. If you’re writing a grant, the most convincing part of it is likely to be the budget because it shows your donor who’s in there with them, and exactly what you plan to do with the money.

Our last post talked about taking on doing a quarterly budget as your non-profit New Year’s resolution – but we discovered there’s a bit of a dearth of resources on the internet on how to actually go about making a budget in the first place. So here’s the best advice we can offer, heavily influenced by Kim Klein and npguides.org, and years of staring moodily down into our coffee in the gentle glow of an Excel spreadsheet.

Don’t Panic About Numbers

The first step is: don’t panic about numbers.  Just start by making a list of everything you need for your non-profit or program to function. Seriously: lights, heat, telephones, internet, rent, water, office supplies, printing costs – the basics. You need, obviously, people in there. Put down their job title. If you need special supplies (for example, a health program needs condoms) or travel expenses, put those down on the list. Show the list to a trusted co-worker (preferably the office coordinator/secretary, who has arcane knowledge about the reality of your non-profit’s operating needs) and ask if you missed anything.

…But Find Out What Things Actually Cost

Ok, you have a list. Title it “Expenses”. Here is the tricky part – and it is the most important. Do not guess what these things cost. Find out what they actually cost, and write the price next to them. If you are estimating electricity costs for your whole non-profit, call the electric company. If you are doing estimating for a program, take a percent of your non-profits last electricity bill and put that in. If you are looking at printing costs, call the printer and ask them. If you put in someone’s pay, put in tax and vacation costs – check your government website or ask your non-profit’s accountant for help). Add all of these together. That’s how much money you’re going to spend. Take a sip of coffee.

For income, make a second list – on this one you put down all your sources of income – foundations, sponsors, grants, donors. An easy way to do this is to look at your last financial statement or annual report. Just remember – do not guess here, either. Find out what money you can count on, and which you can’t. If you are doing a budget for your whole non-profit, make sure you know what date your grants end, and whether they’re renewable. If you are doing a project budget and you have no idea about how to make this bit work because the truth is you have no income yet, and no idea where it’s coming from – take a lesson on grantwriting and what a grant budget looks like from npguides.org. Add up the numbers. If you have a team of volunteers involved in fundraising, you can put your fundraising goal in here (hint: your fundraising goal likely resembles the amount you need to make your income match up with your expenses).

Preliminary budget, you are finished.  If you did this as part of a team, start slapping each other on the back. If you did this on your own, start shipping it around to co-workers to see if they can spot problems.  You will probably find the income part of your budget shows you need to attract new donors or grants. This is how funding developers set up their goals for the year – by starting with a budget.

You’re on your way to surviving 2009!

One last thing. Budgets are fluid – this is why we talked in our last post about checking them on a monthly or quarterly basis to avoid nasty surprises. The budget you’ve just done is a first step to getting on top of your finances, but expect it to change fast as you plan fundraising, discover new costs and get feedback from the rest of your non-profit. In this spirit, Kim Klein teaches a really useful exercise on budget making in Fundraising for Social Change that involves making three budgets: a dream budget (super ambitious), a worst case scenario budget (where only the bare essentials needed to keep your non-profit open are included) and an average budget, which merges these two. This exercise lets you practice predicting income, and lets you get comfortable with the kinds and amounts of money your non-profit is dealing with. You can access some of her work online here, in our last post.

]]> http://www.netfornonprofits.org/2009/01/01/how-to-make-a-budget-non-profit-survival-skills-for-2009/feed/ 4 http://www.netfornonprofits.org/2008/12/30/5-new-years-resolutions-for-your-non-profit/ http://www.netfornonprofits.org/2008/12/30/5-new-years-resolutions-for-your-non-profit/#comments Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:51:01 +0000 admin http://www.netfornonprofits.org/?p=298 This year’s going to be different! Tackle 2009 head on by putting these five basic resolutions into practice and kiss your non-profit office headaches of 2008 goodbye.

“New Year’s Resolutions” Original Photo by Flickr user Ian Turton, CC Licensed

1) I will back up my computer every two weeks.

Computers crash, even in the new year. Back them up.

2) I will label my grant drafts systematically.

Can’t find the latest version of your grant? Try looking under “Important Grant Final”. Sorry, make that ”SuperExtraFinal2″…

Alternatively, promise yourself that this year, you’re setting up your file system so that anyone can understand it, including you. Label your drafts by name and date (Rockefeller 12.12.2008) or by number (Rockefeller 1). Save the final draft to a file marked “Final”  and save your future you the hassle of hours plowing through superextrafantasticfinal…

3) While I’m at it, I will give the computers on our non-profit server names that make sense.

Quick, is your foundations database on “Bob”, “Hotty” or “F102″? Consider renaming all the computers in your non-profit’s network for the purpose they serve or the files they hold – it’s a lot easier to go looking for information when you can see what you’re looking at. To do this, go into your network and right-click for renaming options and assign your computer its new easy-to-understand name. (You’ll be glad to know the foundations database is now on Fundraiser, formerly known as Bob)

4) I will have a funding folder.

In it, you will put photocopies or copies of the items grants commonly request from non-profits. That is; a copy of your most recent Annual Report, an audited financial statement, a list of your board members, proof that you are indeed a non profit (for example, your charter and registration number),  a program summary and budget that illustrates clearly who your project’s partners are, and one or two well chosen examples of press attention. Staple an envelope to this file containing a cd of all of these items.  This way, you can print or photocopy them when you need them, as opposed to discovering at the last, panicky second that there are no more annual reports…

5) I will do a quarterly review of our non-profit’s/my program’s financial situation

If you are the executive director, funding director or you’re on the board you should know exactly how much money your non profit has and how much it needs. A quarterly budget for 2009 will help you stay on track and avoid nasty surprises. (I have worked at two non-profits where the nasty surprise after the first quarterly budget was that we were over ten thousand dollars in debt. Surprise!) Program directors are responsible for smaller sums, but you still should strive for a quarterly budget – for one thing, it allows you to illustrate clearly to donors, volunteers or board members exactly where the money is going. For another, it lets you know how much funding your program needs for the end of the year.

If you aren’t doing budgeting because you don’t know how to, the best guide I have ever seen to making a budget (and checking it on a quarterly basis) is in “Fundraising For Social Change” by Kim Klein – page 99 in the above book link gives you a taste of how to make an event budget, but the real budget advice isn’t available on Google Books’ version. So pony up and turn to p 349 when your copy arrives, and enjoy knocking this resolution off your list.

Happy New Year from Social Ch@nge!

A nice story, but according to a study of his campaign finances, not exactly true. And the truth is more interesting.

The reality is that an estimated 2.5 million donors gave contributions with an average amount of about $62 each. This is significant – no denying. But these small donors were active in the last campaign as well. Part of what made Obama different was the scale of the operation – he managed to reach about the same number of small donors as all of the 2004 candidates combined (2.0 to 2.8 million.)

But what’s really interesting to us is the way that a particular group of donors behaved, called “mid-range repeaters.” These donors were part of the online community created by the Obama campaign – they were engaged, plugged in. They started off with small contributions, but then kept giving repeatedly over the course of the campaign. Obama’s team was able to use the internet to reach out to this same group of about 200,000 supporters again and again, both for volunteer help and financial contributions. These “repeaters” made a difference – about 27% of Obama’s funds came from donors in a middle range ($201-$999), and more than half of these started out small and kept giving.

Mind you, very few of this group ended up in the top group of givers – only about 13,000 of them gave more than $1,000 in their cumulative contributions to become “large donors.” And large donors were critical. About 47% of Obama’s money came from large donors. McCain, on the other hand, relied on large donors for 60% of his money. But because Obama’s 47% was based on a larger total, he raised more money in absolute terms. Size does matter.

What’s the lesson for non-profit fundraisers? EVen if you have a base of small donors, you should consider how to turn them into mid-range repeaters. How? Clearly, engagement using some form of internet strategy is a key. It helps if you have a clear campaign, and an urgent call to action. For one approach, check out the rapid donor cultivation strategy from Common Knowledge.

And now we promise – no more Obama posts. At least for a little while.

Well, plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose.

We are very excited over the much-more-clear-cut Marnie Webb’s Social Actions command that lets you find ways to take actions on any issue you happen to find on the web. Social Actions is a website that tries to make it easier for people to make a difference on the web by taking 30+ North American non-profits and collecting ways to get involved with them – then, they put the opportunities into a search engine so that you can find them easily. They also encourage third-party development of platforms encouraging social change – and this is where your Mozilla web browser comes in.

Marnie Webb has developed a tool that works with Ubiquity (a Mozilla add-on that lets you control your browsing) to take terms you highlight on any website, and then return a search of actions you can take on this term. Obviously, it’s limited right now to the organisations working with Social Actions.  But we’re betting it won’t be that way for long.