Note from Beth: This one of my favorite photos of a workshop I designed and facilitated at SXSW called “Peer Learning Session for Nonprofit Social Media Managers.”    The idea was to get folks who do social media for nonprofits sharing best practices about social media adoption and culture change by balancing brief content delivery with lots of interaction.   This was a face-to-face session, but the learning was extended online afterwards, albeit briefly,  in an organic way on twitter using a hashtag “npsmpeer.”

I’ve been interested in this sort of “self-ignited” peer learning or what has been called “Peeragogy” and that I experienced briefly last year as part of creating a handbook on the topic facilitated by Howard Rheingold and in many private and public Facebook or LinkedIn Groups where nonprofit professionals share best practices.

But both of the peer learning designs are for nonprofit practitioners who have fully embraced online networks and comfortable using them technology .  What if you want to look at ways to create an online professional learning community that was sustainable over time  to spread best practices in a nonprofit area?  That was a question that Mario Morino and Cheryl Collins asked in an email thread to a couple of folks with lots of great ideas and experience facilitating online communities.   That email exchange morphed into this guest post.

Is your nonprofit facilitating online professional learning?  What have you learned?  Please share in the comments.

Overview: Online Community Systems, Cultivators and Resources – Guest Post by Mario Morino and Cheryl Collins

The Leap of Reason team is exploring cultivating an online community to advanceawareness and increase expectations for continuous improvement and high performance for nonprofits as a pathway to increase social benefit and impact. To learn more about developing online communities the Leap team reached out to a select group of individuals who have extensive experience and expertise in online communities to ask 1) what community management services we should consider and 2) what sources/venues we should consider in cultivating/managing communities.   We hope the summary of what these individuals shared, while is not exhaustive, will be of value to others working with (or considering the establishment of) online communities.

Community Management Services and Platforms

There is a wide range of services/venues upon which online communities can be built, including more generic ones such as Facebook, LinkedIn, email distribution groups, and others.  The following ones were suggested as more specifically focused for online communities.

• Ning – Popular with nonprofits, reasonably priced, may require some customization
• BuddyPress – Works with WordPress but requires customization for some online groups
• Google+ Groups – Easy to use, most individuals have a Gmail address (or can get one easily), but limited feature set and potential for making some private conversations public
• YourMembership.com – Robust feature set, interface is easy for participants, ability to delegate responsibility to manage different sections, capacity to support collective resource center. Pricing may be barrier for some groups (Setup Charge + $595 monthly fee)

Community Cultivator Recruitment

Respondents unanimously agreed that the community manager, community cultivator (whatever the title) is the MOST important component of a successful online community.  One suggestion was to look within an existing community to see if there is a leader with the passion and experience to facilitate because it helps with trust, perceived value, and overall traction. Another person said, “It’s ideal to have a team rather than a single person. Besides the obvious advantage of being able to collaborate, it avoids creating a hub/spoke dynamic in the community where folks hang back ‘waiting’ for the central person to do something.” The concept of having a peer from the community is called a “technology steward” in the book Digital Habitats, co-authored by Nancy White, John Smith, and Etienne Wenger.

One of the respondents suggested that “the best way to get talent in this space is to identify someone who already has skill, someone who is a natural at working this way online and does it because they love it, in their personal time, if not their professional time. It could be an ‘unknown’ to your community, in fact that might give your host a more neutral starting place.

“One way to go about finding the talent you seek is to go lurk online in spaces and conversations, particularly those about social change issues – of any ilk – and pull them in.  Who’s running the parenting/running/makers community/community org, young donors, etc. e-newsletter, Facebook group, most active Twitter persona, podcast weekly discussion channel, YouTube show (has to be one that engages and interviews people, not showcases the host)? Go get that person.  Find someone who demonstrates the fluency, skill, passion, connecting instinct you want in a host and bring them in to your world! Perhaps many of these people are somewhat introverted IRL (in real life) so experiencing their tone and skill online is critical.”

Consultants/Advisors

This is a partial list of advisors and consultants who work with organizations interested in developing online communities:

• Mitch Arnowitz, Tuvel Communications
• Michelle Groff Burling
• Rachel Happe, Community Roundtable
• June Holley, NetworkWeaver
• Beth Kanter
• Lisa Kimball, Plexis Institute
• John D. Smith, Learning Alliances
• Estee Solomon Gray, Mminddlabs
• Nancy White, Full Circle Associates

Online Community Examples

There are literally thousands of online communities, focused on a span of topics such as parenting, medical issues, education, nonprofit management, technology applications, and platforms. We’re always looking for additional examples.

• Salesforce NPSP (Nonprofit Starter Pack) Users Forum – 1100+ members who use the nonprofit version of Salesforce.
• Breastcancer.org – Organized around topics and stages of disease. Provides advice, tips, tricks, questions, and support.
• BoardSource LinkedIn Group – Community with 18,000+ members dedicated to advancing the public good by building exceptional nonprofit boards and inspiring board service.
• Networking Opportunities with NTEN – Community of nonprofit and technology professionals that include options for online and off-line interaction.

Additional Resources

A brief list of some highly recommended books, articles, and website.

• Community Roundtable
• Digital Habitats by Nancy White, John Smith, and Etienne Wenger -
• Learning Alliances
• NetSmart by Howard Rheingold
• NetworkWeaver
• Trasi, an online community for conversations about social impact assessment
• “Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Quick Start-up Guide”
• “Communities of Practice and Purpose: #TChat Recap”
• Wenger-Trayer Resources

Conclusion

Like so many other examples, technology is not the most important part of a successful online community.  Yes, it’s important to find a system/platform that meets the criteria and is appropriate for the group’s technology skill level, but it’s the human element that makes the difference.

We’d welcome inputs and suggestions to improve on what we’ve shared.

Our thanks to Mitch Arnowitz, Don Britton, Beth Kanter, Lisa Kimball, Estee Solomon Gray, and Victoria Vrana for their assistance in compiling this post.

Mario Morino is the author of the primary essay and Cheryl Collins is the co-editor of Leap of Reason. Contact or follow the Leap team on Twitter.

Note from Beth: Two years ago on this blog,  Porter Gale published a guest post asking “Can Social Media Save Lives?” and described how Amit Gupta was leveraging his network and social media to find a bone marrow match.  This story became a case study in “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” to illustrate the value of crowdsourcing and how to measure the return.

Taryn Degnan picks up on this them of using social media to save lives to share her observations about the use of social media to find organ donors and her own personal story.

Social Media is Saving Lives. How’s That for ROI? by Taryn Degnan

• Pasadena mom uses social media to find organ donor for daughter.
• Kwirti Dwivedi finds a kidney for ailing mom via social media.
• Facebook Organ Donor Initiative Prompts 100,000 Users To Select New Option.

Friends, those news headlines are real, and it means that something wild and crazy is happening online. Perfect strangers are connecting through social media to give and receive life every day.

Like many of you, I get paid to use social media to effect change – to create and engage an online community and mobilize people to take action around a cause.  But these days, I’m working overtime to use social media for much more than community engagement and content marketing.

My dad is in end stage renal failure and needs a kidney transplant. It’s been two years since he was placed on dialysis, and though this remarkable treatment is doing its job to remove excess toxins and water from his blood, the complications, surgeries and dozens of hospital visits that have accompanied it are becoming too much for him to handle. Dialysis is an imperfect treatment to replace kidney function, so we’re fighting vigilantly to find my dad a match online while he remains on the transplant list.

Most of you don’t know my dad. He’s an amazing man, father, husband, and doctor who has brought over 5,000 little babies into our world in his career thus far. He is adored by his patients, his friends, and his family.

I believe that the hours I pour into social media are going to mean something for my dad one day. So, will you be a part of it all?

Here’s how you can help:

My sisters and I have created a page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/findjeffakidney) to help spread the word. I’d be honored if you’d like it, share it, and stay informed.

Want to learn more about organ donation? Visit the National Kidney Foundation (http://www.kidney.org/transplantation/) online.

Ready to find out if you’re a match? Contact (corniel.virginia@scrippshealth.org) my dad’s donation coordinator. She can answer any questions you might have.

Still not convinced your efforts can help? Read this inspiring story (http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/03/25/north-reading-man-finds-kidney-transplant-match-online/). Thank you in advance for your help, and for being part of this community of big hearts! And let me know if you have any questions for me; I’ll answer them below!

Taryn Degnan is the Manager of Social Media and Online Community at Common Sense Media.  She lives in San Francisco with her husband who spends way less time with social media than she does.  Contact Taryn or follow her on Twitter.

Note from Beth: If I could wave a magic wand, and ask for a wish related to my work to come true, it would be this:  I’d like to spend a year to attend conferences where I don’t know a lot of the content or people and learn and network and blog about the experience.   One of those conferences would be the Personal Democracy Forum.   Well, a girl can dream, right?

The next best thing is to have colleagues who have attended amazing conferences like Personal Democracy Forum and share what they learned.    I’m grateful that Kate Wing has offered up this guest post about her experience at PDF 2013.

Reflections and Notes from Personal Democracy Forum 2013

The 50% conference rule

Last week, I went to the Personal Democracy Forum conference for the first time, and I came away brimming with new ideas for my work. I’d read about PdF in Steven Johnson’s book “Future Perfect” and heard about them from Rachel Weidinger of Upwell. But what was a grantmaker who works on ocean conservation doing at a conference of software engineers and open government advocates? No, really, people kept asking me this when I told them I work on fish. I told them the conference fit my 50% rule.

I doubt that I am alone in having to go to meetings and conferences where I know most of the presentations in advance. Where I expect to skip most of the sessions because the greatest benefit will come from catching up with colleagues in the hallways. You might get a nice surprise from a rich discussion session, or the release of a new study, but for the most part you can predict >80% of the content. You’re going to connect more than to learn.

A few years ago, I started looking for meetings where I felt I knew much less about the content. Enough that I could understand the language, but where the speakers were new and I was drawing parallels to my own work rather than knowing the script by heart. When I look at the program, I feel like I get about 50% of it and the rest is deliciously outside my area of expertise. I try to sprinkle these 50% events throughout the year – a lecture here, a webinar there – to make sure I’m broadening my perspective and getting a few sideways ideas. That’s how I ended up at PdF.

And because of that, I learned about communities crowdfunding their parks and recycling programs. I heard about tools for building campaigns and aggregating citizen science data I wouldn’t have discovered at an ocean-themed event because they’re not being applied to coastal problems just yet. But they could be. I have some fishermen to check with first.

Why is it so hard to make something new?

Two of the most common complaints in the non-profit world: why don’t funders collaborate with each other and why don’t non-profits work together better? Real collaboration takes time, and funding, and a shared vision and putting aside our desire to get all the credit, among other things. DoSomething’s Nancy Lublin puts a very real face on the cost of our failure to collaborate in her PdF talk. The whole speech is 12 minutes, and if you want some tips about reaching millenials I’d advise watching the whole thing [quick tip: animals and homelessness]. But if you only have time for the hard questions, start at 6:30. Also, there’s mild profanity.

DoSomething isn’t one of Beth’s case studies for learning from failure for nothing – Nancy stands on stage in front of 500+ people and asks if she’s the reason the project is failing. Or is it that the funders and nonprofits working on crisis response can’t all get behind one idea. It’s a reminder that if our real goal is to build something radically new – a new data system, a community center, a society – we may need to get out of our own way.

Embracing measurement & uncertainty

Look, if you’re reading Beth’s Blog you probably already think measuring progress is a good thing. But maybe you need a reminder that it’s worth doing, even when it’s hard. That taking the time to articulate big end goals and interim milestones is worth it, even when you might have to throw your first indicators out the window and track new ones as you zig and zag to hit your target. Buck yourself up with Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman’s talk about the importance of admitting what you don’t know. As she says, “it’s much better to fail in actual fact, accept it, and move on, than to believe you’ve succeeded when you don’t know.” Oh, and there are Game of Thrones references, for those of you who like some dragons with your skill building.

Kate Wing, Program Officer at the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. I’m a network-minded funder who works on oceans, because the oceans are connected to everything.

Note from Beth: I’m thrilled to participate in the LinkedIn Influencer Program where I get to write regular posts about leadership, failure, analytics, big data, presenting, and training from a nonprofit perspective.   But even better,  I’ve had a chance to connect with some of the other amazing folks who write regularly as part of this program.    You see, I really enjoy cross-disciplinary learning from other fields and other perspectives.

One of the participants is Jonah Berger, Best Selling author of the book, Contagious.   We have had a few exchanges about “going viral” and whether it is just plain luck or if there was a science behind it.    He offered to share this guest post.  Enjoy.

hViral’s Secret Formula a guest post by Jonah Berger

Want to know why things go viral?  Why some social causes or programs get more word of mouth? Let me tell you a secret.  It’s not luck.

Viral has been seen as marketing’s Holy Grail.  From the Harlem Shake to the Rutgers basketball coach abusing his players, hardly a week goes by without some video or news story going viral.  And word of mouth and virality have a huge impact on businesses, large and small.  Blender company Blendtec’s sales shot up more than 700% a few years ago after videos of the CEO blending things like iPhones spread like wildfire.  But what makes something go viral?

If you ask most social media “gurus,” they’ll tell you it’s all about getting lucky.  Viral isn’t a strategy, it’s like buying a lottery ticket.  Or they’ll talk about cats. Lots of people share videos of funny kitties, so cats must be the reason things go viral.

All these theories are great, except, well, they’re not really backed up by anything.  No data.  No analytics.  Just old fashioned guesses based on looking at a couple particularly noteworthy successes.  It’s like the idea that the Earth was flat.  It seemed right until someone actually looked deeper and showed, well…it wasn’t.

Virality isn’t luck.  It’s not magic. And it’s not random.  There’s a science behind why people talk and share.  A recipe.  A formula, even.

My colleagues and I have analyzed thousands of news articles and hundreds of brands, all to understand why some make the most emailed list or get more word of mouth. Again and again we found the same principles at work.  Six key drivers that shape what people talk about and share.  Those six principles are the basis of my new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, and the first principle is Social Currency.

New York City is a tough place to open a bar.  Competition is fierce and it’s hard to cut through the clutter.  There are dozens of options around every corner.

But a few years ago Brian Shebairo launched a place that’s been packed since the day it opened. In fact, it’s one of the most sought after drink reservations in the city. Bookings are only available day-of and people frantically hit redial again and again hoping to snag a spot. Yet he’s never advertised the bar.  Never spent a dollar on marketing.

How did Shebairo do it?

He hid his bar inside a hot dog restaurant.

Walk into Crif Dogs in the East Village, and you’ll find the most amazing hot dog menu you’ve ever seen.  A Tsunami dog with pineapple and green onions, a Chihuahua dog with avocado and sour cream, and a Good Morning dog wrapped in bacon, smothered with cheese, and topped with a fried egg.

In one corner off to the side is an old-school phone booth.  One of those rectangular numbers that Clark Kent used to morph into Superman. Walk inside and you’ll see a rotary dial phone on the wall.  Pick up the phone, and just for fun, dial the number 1. Someone will pick-up the other line and ask you if you have a reservation.  And if you do, the back of the phone booth will open and you’ll be let into a secret bar called, of all things, Please Don’t Tell.

Has Please Don’t Tell violated traditional “laws of marketing?”  Sure.  There is no sign on the street and no mention of it in the hot dog place.  In fact, they’ve worked hard to make themselves a secret.

But there’s a funny thing about secrets.  Think about the last time someone told you a secret.  Told you not to tell another soul.  What’s the first thing you did with that information?

You probably told someone else.

And the reason is something called Social Currency.  People talk about things that make them look good.  Sharp and in-the-know.  Smart and funny rather than behind the times.  If people go to a place like Please Don’t Tell, or even if they just hear about it, they tell others because it gives them status.

Social Currency isn’t just about hidden bars.  It’s why people brag about their thousands of Twitter followers or their kids’ SAT scores.  Why golfers boast about their handicaps and frequent fliers tell others when they get upgraded.  McDonald’s used social currency to help the McRib sandwich take-off and RueLaLa used it to turn a struggling website into a $500M business.

Want to generate word of mouth?  Get people talking about you?  One way is to give them a way to look good.  Make people feel special, or like insiders, and they’ll tell others—and spread word of mouth about you along the way.

Along with five other key principles (or STEPPS: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories) Social Currency is a sure fire way to generate buzz. Will following these six principles guarantee that 10 million people spread your message?  No.  But it will increase the number of people who pass it on.  Encourage people to tell two friends instead of just one.  It’s like a batting average in baseball.  No one hits a home run every time, but by understanding the science of hitting you can boost your average.

The next time someone tells you that going viral is about luck, politely tell them that there is a better way.  Science.  Word of mouth isn’t random and it’s not magic. By understanding why people talk and share, we can craft contagious content. And use it to get our own products and ideas to catch on.

Jonah Berger is a Marketing professor at the Wharton School and author of the New York Times bestseller Contagious: Why Things Catch On.  Want to make your product or idea contagious?  Check out the free Crafting Contagious Workbook.

Stanford University lecturer Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen teaches students at Stanford about how to master philanthropy.   The author of the book, Giving 2.0, has just released all her teaching notes and syllabi, along with philanthropy library.  The idea is simple – by open sourcing her materials, she hopes to inspire more colleges to incorporate courses on philanthropy in their curriculum.

I first heard Laura speak when she launched her book, Giving 2.0, at Stanford two years ago.   Her ideas resonated and connected really well with the a lot of my work.  At the time, I was working on “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” with co-author KD Paine.  After the book launch, I asked her if she would consider writing the foreword to our book and she said yes!

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal,  Laura shared why she is releasing the curriculum and the basic frameworks.   The goals for the Giving 2.0 ProjectU are:

1. To provide any college or university educator with everything they need to teach a strategic philanthropy course.
2. To pave the way for philanthropy to become a required course for college students and to make it as easy as possible for colleges and universities to integrate it into their curricula.
3. To provide any giver—donating any amount of time, money, experience, skills or networks—with free access to research, learning and experience I’ve developed over the last two decades as a strategic philanthropist.

The materials she has released include case studies, course outlines, resources, assignments for four courses:

1) Strategic Philanthropy: This course, taught at the Stanford GSB, is based on applying core business practices to social change.

2) Philanthropy and Social Innovation: This course is designed to educate young, aspiring social entrepreneurs in how to create new models, programs and organizations.

3) Giving 2.0: Philanthropy by Design: This course teaches students to use design thinking principles to create their own social impact plans and engage in real-world grantmaking (sponsored in the past by the Arrillaga Foundation and now by the Learning by Giving Foundation).

4) Disruption for Good: Philanthropy, Technology and Innovation: This course empowers students to use technology to solve social problems.

As a trainer who designs and delivers trainings on topics related to these courses, releasing these materials to all to use and adapt is a gift.   Many times as a trainer, I get too much into my own head, and it is difficult to get inspired by other educators/trainers because many are proprietary about their techniques and content.    But Laura is sharing her research, resources, and instructional plans.    This is a goldmine!

Carve out some time and explore the many useful resources and materials.

Mentors: Bobby Deleon and Michel Daniel and students from ECHS - Speed Networking

Note from Beth: My friend Porter Gale has just launched a new book called “Your Network is Net Worth.”  Porter’s definition about networking is about charting your own course, following your passions, and making meaningful connections, which in turn increase your happiness and productivity.   Her  book shares the secrets of how to do this.

Porter  has been a guest poster to this blog in the past and she offered to write up this guest post about mentoring. As one who has always considered their work in the sector a “calling” versus a job, I’ve been lucky to have some amazing mentors.  Therefore, giving back to others in this space  is something I’ve have always felt was very important and one reason that as much as I could tried to connect with younger people or new comers to the nonprofit online space.    Porter has great wisdom about this topic which is why I feel her book is a must read.

5 Reasons Why Should Make Mentoring A Priority by Porter Gale

It’s true; small actions can have a large impact. But did you know if you put giving back and helping others at the center of your networking and relationship building, you are likely to have more impactful and stronger relationships, among other benefits? One way to give back is by mentoring or sharing your experience with others.  In my book, Your Network Is Your Net Worth, I share several stories that demonstrate the potential impact of mentoring. If you’re worried that you don’t have the time or bandwidth to mentor others, consider that even an hour or two of your time, can make a difference.

Last week, I was an invited guest at an entrepreneurial program for underprivileged youth called In True Fashion that runs out of Environmental Charter High School (ECHS) in Los Angeles. I was one of twenty mentors that visited the school for two hours of conversation and speed networking.
After gifting a copy of Your Network Is Your Net Worth to every 11th grader, students rotated table-to-table, in fifteen minute intervals, meeting a variety of mentors; including filmmakers, the CEO of Surf Air, the man behind Movember (a mustache growing charity campaign), a jeweler, an advertising executive and more. Some of the mentors and the mentees shared their experiences and five reasons why you should make mentoring a part of your life follow:

1. You Can Fit Mentoring Into Your Schedule. Mentoring others is an attitude and lifestyle choice. You don’t have to have a weekly coffee with a mentee to make an impact. For example, having coffee with a new graduate or even exchanging an email or two can make a difference in a person’s life. Kate F. Spence, an 11th grader at ECHS wrote, “I am one of the Environmental Charter students you presented to on Friday. I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am that you came to our school and offered us the opportunity to meet all of those amazing people and listen to your words of wisdom! I can’t begin to explain how inspired I am! Being able to talk, and get advice from Linda, Star, Wade, & Brian was an amazing experience. I feel like I have already learned so much, and I haven’t even started your book yet!”
2. Your Efforts Could Change Lives Immediately. Jade Barcley, a therapist and consultant was also at the ECHS event. She shared, “The experience with the teens was amazing. As they connected with each new mentor during the speed networking, the shift was visceral. You could see it change the way they were thinking – about themselves, their creativity, possibilities, and about their place in the world. They got visibly more comfortable in their own skin, stood taller, spoke more confidently, and connected more strongly with their passions and peers in each round.”  Bobby Deleon a Development Executive at Infinitum Nihil, Johnny Depp’s production company in Hollywood, agreed, “There was one girl who was quite shy. Her head was down and she was quiet, but I felt her drawing me near.  I made it a point to go up to her and asked, ‘what is it you want to do?’ She peeked at me and said, ‘petroleum engineer.’ I was blown away. I asked her to repeat it and I looked into her eyes and said don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t do it.”

3. You might find great future interns or teammates. Even with his airline launching less than a week later, Wade Early, the CEO of Surf Air made time to mentor and shared, “I just loved being with the kids. It’s so great to see all these kids focused on education and with well-articulated goals for where they want to be someday. Since the visit to the school I’ve already had students follow up with me.”

4. You’ll Experience Growth And Learning Too. Fran Ellsworth, a Junior Account Planner at Deutsch, shared, “It reminded me how far I have come since high school. I was depressed, shy and lonely at times, but always felt I was meant to do great things and inspire people. Being able to talk with the students reminds me to be true to myself and my values.” Mr. Deleon added, “I was one of these kids. I still am. I was born in a very tough neighborhood that many would consider a dead end path. For me, I wasn’t ready to die or be pushed aside. I’m definitely not a man with all the answers but the advice and time I give comes from my heart, my experience, and it is genuine.  I don’t want anything in return, not a thing.  Yet, every-time after one of these mentoring sessions, as I drive home; it is I who feels that I have just received something special.  Another experience that is as genuine as the one I gave.”

5.  Your advice can be very action-oriented. Some mentors encouraged the students to make eye contact, to sit up straight, to look interested and to have a firm handshake. Mr. Deleon encouraged students interested in filmmaking to “get out there and grab a camera.” He suggested, “We live in a world where advanced technologies can transform any business. Use technology to spread your message and ideas. In the end you will have a finished product, a digital resume, and more important a calling card that can help you move one step closer to a new chapter life.”

By seeing networking and mentoring as an opportunity to help people, I’ve discovered that these actions change me for the better. Remember mentoring doesn’t have to be an overwhelming time commitment.  Mentoring is a choice to share your experience and knowledge with others.  What you will find is that mentoring and giving will come back to you tenfold. It will transform your emotional state, improve your relationships, build your happiness quotient, and teach you the importance of gratitude and will help you make Your Network Your Net Worth.

If you have mentoring tips or networking stories to share, please send me at Tweet @portergale or an email at info@portergale.com.

Last summer, I met a young man in Arizona named Kyle. He had spent his AmeriCorps term as a liaison between a mayor’s office and the homeless community, building relationships and creating resources. But even with all that valuable experience, Kyle was stuck working double shifts at a local pizza joint.

Countless organizations could benefit from Kyle’s skills, yet there is no system connecting national service alumni with nonprofits and public sector agencies most in need of young talent.

We at AmeriCorps Alums are working toward a solution by launching Employers of Service, a program exploring how we can link national service experience and a career pipeline. We’re kick-starting this initiative and conversation on June 20 in Washington, D.C., at Points of Light’s Conference on Volunteering and Service << LINK www.volunteeringandservice.org >>, which runs from June 19 – 22.

During the conference, I’m hosting a session, AmeriCorps Alumni as Leaders: How to Grow as a Leader After Your Term of Service – showcasing Echoing Green’s Work on Purpose platform, which applies lessons from social entrepreneurs to professional development strategies for young people looking to make a difference. The session will also feature a roundtable conversation and Q & A with three nonprofit leaders (all AmeriCorps alumni­): Linda Kay Klein, director of Work on Purpose; Michael Omenazu, recruitment manager at Commongood Careers and Nakeisha Neal, executive director of Public Allies Washington, D.C.

The discussion is just part of a larger conversation about innovation and uniting communities woven throughout this year’s Conference, the largest gathering of its kind, assembling roughly 5,000 nonprofit, corporate and government leaders. It will feature such big names as Grammy award-winning singer John Legend, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Will you join us? Click here to register.

We often hear of an impending leadership shortage in the nonprofit sector. Meanwhile, more than 800,000 AmeriCorps alums are uniquely positioned to be the sector’s 21st century leadership pipeline. Together let’s figure out how to leverage this tremendous resource to benefit smart, young people with fresh ideas, while better serving our communities.

We’d love to hear about your experiences and ideas. Comment below or share them at ben@americorpsalums.org.

Ben Duda is executive director of AmeriCorps Alums, a Points of Light enterprise.

How Nonprofits Measure Success of Video

See3, YouTube and Edelman have released a new report and guide for nonprofits about using video.  The report, “Into Focus:  Benchmarks for Video and A Guide for Creators,”  is based on a survey of 500 nonprofits and interviews with experts (including me).   The report describes current nonprofit use, adoption challenges, and best practices.  Free webinars are being offered to share the report.  You can download the report here (with email registration) or sign up for one of the free webinars here.

The big takeaway:

Nonprofits overwhelmingly agree that video is crucial to their communications, but many feel they do not know how to use it effectively or measure its impact – yet.

Some more detailed findings from the survey:

1.    Video is important, and getting more important

·         80% of respondents said video is important to their origination today

·         91% believe video will become more important in the next 3 years

·         92% value the investment they have made in video

2.    Orgs want to make more video, but aren’t allocating the funds to do so

There is a massive disconnect between the belief that video is really important, working and wanting more of it, and allocating the funds to make more videos.

Nearly 2/3 of organizations say their video budgets will stay the same or decline!

3.    Metrics with video are hard and is probably one thing holding back investment.

The survey reveals that organizations are counting what is easy to count: views, likes, and clickthroughs. These numbers only have real meaning and value if you understand their connection to the underlying organizational goals that the video was meant to achieve. If, for example, your goal is email sign-ups, how do views translate into constituent engagement?However, when it comes to analyzing the impact of their videos, 76% of the respondents either don’t know how it’s measured or they only track it anecdotally.

When I was interviewed for this report several months,  a post I wrote called “Social Media Is Engagement With Purpose” was fresh in my mind and I think the same advice applies to video.    To measure success of your video, you need to articulate a goal.  But that’s only half of it as KD Paine and I write in our book, “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit.”    You have to measure conversions from the video – from views to whatever action you want people to take.

Is your organization using video and getting results?  How are you measuring those results?

I’ve been facilitating a peer learning group with Packard Foundation grantees during the past year with a goal of improving measurement practice for social media and based on my book, “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit.”    Each organization is working on an action learning project that is a small, doable measurement project that applies the frameworks and steps in the book.   Each month, we go deep into a practice step – both on the individual practitioner level as well as the organizational practice level.    As the facilitator and SME,  I provide some content, but participants do a lot of sharing and presenting as well.  This helps spread good practices.

This group started the process with doing the hard work of identifying success and key performance indicators, but applying a organizational process to get everyone on the same page and reporting back.    Once settled, we took deep dives into understanding how to collect, analyze, and visualize data to apply to better decision-making.       The spreadsheet above is from the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County for an action learning project that focused on measuring the results of the recently launched blog.

On a call last month,  participants shared examples of their measurement tools and spreadsheets.   Another participant, Compass,also working on measuring their blog, shared their spreadsheet for tracking similar indicators.    This inspired the team over at the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County – even though their organizations are vastly different.   They adapted Liz Neeley from Compass’s spreadsheet!    They collected the data and now were ready to set up their dashboard.

On this month’s call, we focused on the sense-making process, which I’ll describe more below.    But, the Luis Chabolla and Kim East were ready now to customized an Excel Spreadsheet to serve as their reporting dashboard.  (See above).   They worked with their web site designer/developer, Embolden, to identify what data they needed from Google Analytics and created the above simple dashboard.     One of the topics the peer learning group took a deep dive into was selecting the right chart and techniques offered by nonprofit data nerds Stephanie Evergreen (who write a guest post on how to create great graphs) and Anne Emery’s tips on how to avoid boring bar charts.

What I always love about peer learning approaches is that we slow down, take it in small steps, and begin to build good practices.  These small steps add up to good, hopefully sustainable organizational habits over time.

The second thing that I really enjoy about facilitating peer learning is that I learn along with the group. As you’ll see in the deck above, I shared my own little action learning project on how to improve my own data using Excel and Ann and Stephanie’s advice. The session was devoted to sense-making.

Sense-Making:  Organizational Indicators

My Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly assessment has an indicator for the sense-making part of the measurement process.  This is an organizational level of practice.      But we also looked at sense-making from a practitioner level because most people in the peer group are either doing this work themselves or managing someone who is.     You need both the skills and organizational level of practice to see a transformational change in the organization as a result of the capacity building program.

I enjoyed breaking down each step of the sense-making process because for some this is the mysterious part of the measurement process.     The participants has a selection of resources to draw from for each step or just an overview – so they could go as deep as they wanted.

We then has a very thoughtful discussion about what part of the process was a challenge and where they feel they are doing a terrific job.  One theme that popped up was that good sense-making happens at the organizational level when you have your team or others in your organization look at results.

I think sense-making is my favorite part of the measurement process, even though it can be difficult.  And I love facilitating, designing, and delivering workshops on this topic!

What do you find easy in terms of sense-making of your data?  What do you find to be a challenge?

A few days ago, I noticed that my long-time nonprofit technology colleague, Ruby Sinreich, had her digital life hacked and stolen from her.   The hacker accessed many of her accounts and locked her out, and took over her Twitter, deleting her followers and changing the profile.    Chronicled on her tumblr blog,  it took her days to reach humans at different platforms to get help, faced many challenges, and all the while the hacker teased her and tried to sell her Twitter account on a hackers forum.   She was able to finally take back control of her accounts after a very stressful ordeal.

This could happen to any of us.   So, how can you make your social media and other account more secure?

Twitter and other social media services offer verification logins.    That means if try to log on from an unfamiliar IP address, the service will send a code via SMS to your mobile phone and you enter that code.  That way only you can log into your account.    Here’s more on Twitter’s verification logins and here.   You can enable this for both Google and Facebook.   For Google, it’s under Account -> Security -> 2-step verification.  For Facebook, it’s Account Settings -> Security -> Login Approval.  Twitter, it’s under Account -> Account Security -> Require a verification code when I sign in.   As soon as I read about Ruby’s ordeal,  I enabled this on my accounts.

It was minor inconvenience at first having to reset these accounts on my desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile phones, but better to be safe than face an ordeal like Ruby’s.   There are also some issues if you want protect both your personal and organizational accounts, as the verification is one account per mobile phone number.

Every so often, it is a good idea to do security and privacy assessment of your Internet presence.  Tactical Technology as a terrific resource, Security in A Box, that helps you do a security tune-up for personal or organizational accounts. Privacy is also important.  Here are some best practices based on this infographic and the Me and My Shadow site from Tactical Technology.  The shadow site has a terrific tool box that helps you understand what pieces of your identity are being left online if you are using the Internet.

Have you done a security and privacy audit for your personal and nonprofit’s accounts?

Source: Juice Lab Chart Chooser

Last month, Stephanie Evergreen wrote an awesome guest post called “Six Steps to Great Charts” with lots of practical tips for using the Excel chart feature to visualize your social media measurement data.  The six steps:

Step 1:  Which Chart is Best?
Step 2:  Use Color To Emphasize
Step 3:  Delete Data You Don’t Need
Step 4:  Directly Label
Step 5:  Save As A Template
Step 6:  Annotate

For step 1, she suggested using Juice Analytics chart chooser tool.     I wanted to learn more about what particular chart format is better suited to visualize a particular comparison or insight from social media data.   And, can the process of selecting the right chart format help you better understand your data?   To help answer those questions, I consulted a classic,  ”Say It With Charts”  written by Gene Zelazny, Director of Visual Communications at McKinsey which is a sort of Strunk and White for graphs and charts and used it to guide creating charts in Excel.   Here’s what I learned:

When it comes to charts to display quantitative data,  there are only a few basic chart forms to select from.   Here’s the different formats and some pointers on when and how to use them for reporting on your social media metrics and data.

Pie chart

Pie Chart: Use a pie chart when you are making a point about the size or percentage of each component compared to a whole.   The example of above is the percentage of gender for total audience.      Your eye is used to measuring in a clock-wise motion, so you should position the most important segment against the 12 o’clock line.   To make the most of pie charts, do not have more than 6 slices.  Select the five most important components and make the rest into other.     Pie charts are the least practical of the chart forms and most often misused.

Here’s more on how to use pie charts in excel.

As soon as you need to need to compare the components of more than one total, avoid using a pie chart and switch to a bar chart or column graph.

Bar chart

Bar Chart: When you compare different items, use a bar chart.  The vertical is used to label and measure different items.  In the example above, the bars are measuring the unique number of monthly web visitors from source.   You have some choices in how you arrange the bars or items. You could arrange them in alphabetical order, or low to high or high to low (best to worst) as I did above.    Think about what order best stresses the point you want to make and make sure you sort your data in excel the right way.

Use can also use color to reinforce the what the data is telling you or the title of the chart.  In this example,  I made the item with the best traffic referral a different color from the rest, using Facebook blue.     I had to use  format options in Excel and change the colors of the bars manual.   Zelazny also suggests that the space between the bars be smaller than the size of the bars.  The default in Excel is to have thin bars with a lot f space.  I had to use the editing series option and reduce the “gap width.”   Here’s how to do it.

You can add a scale at the top or numbers at the end of the bars, but not both because it adds clutter.   Use the scale if all you want is a quick study of relationships, but use the numbers if they are important to your message. Sometimes, you might want to use the scale and the one number that needs emphasis.  There are variations on the bar chart that you use in Excel, but these are used for complex data sets.    Keep it simple!

More in bar charts in excel.

Time Series Comparisons

The pie chart and bar chart are used to compare different components with another at one point in time, but you have data that is showing changes over time, you can use a column chart or line chart.  Zelazny says that picking between the two forms depends on how many data points you are plotting – fewer use the column chart, more (many years) use the line chart.  Also,  column chart is best for representing data  that “reset” every month and line charts best for cumulative data.

I’ve created two different examples below with some notes about how to maximize each.

Column chart

Column Chart: The chart illustrates click thrus on Twitter to links by month and each month starts over again.   The suggestions for making the most of column charts are similar to bar charts.

Line chart

Line Chart: The line chart is one of the most often used of the five charts.   It is easiest to understand your data – whether the trend is increasing, decreasing, fluctuating, or remaining the same.     It is best used when there is cumulative data, like growth in subscribers, followers, or fans.

Make sure your trend line is bolder or thicker than the horizontal grids, again requires changing the style of the lines in the chart format menu.   Grids are there for reference, not dominate visual attention.

The line chart has a variation – the grouped line chart which compares the performance over time of two or more items.   The challenge is figuring out how many trend lines you can show before your chart looks like a bowl of pasta.  One technique to de-clutter is pair your trend lines, although this requires using more charts.

Column charts and line charts can also be used to comparison of frequency distribution these are called histograms (column) and histographs (line).    This shows how many items fall into a series of progressive numerical ranges (distribution).   Column charts are used for fewer ranges and line charts more ranges.

One thing I discovered:   If approached representing data on a chart as a design process focusing on my key point and using the customization options (color, size, grids, order, title), my charts were vastly improved over the default Excel options.  In other words,  I used Excel to as a sense-making tool, not just a chart creation tool.

Want to go deeper in charts and graphs in Excel?   Here’s a terrific resource from one of my favorite data nerds, Ann Emery. (Hat tip to Susan Chavez)

What are your tips for making sense out of your data?

How do you visualize your social media data in excel?

I’ve been curating resources on nonprofit measurement over on Scoop.It, with eye towards collecting useful material related to social media and social impact measurement.

Last week, I came across this excellent deck and blog post from the Knight Foundation’s VP of Strategy and Assessment, Mayur H. Patel.   The presentation was prepared for the Miami Philanthropy Conference and addresses a familiar issue:   Many nonprofits feel that demonstrating impact through performance measurement is a top priority for their programs and communications efforts including social media.  Despite this, when it is times to do measurement, many  feel that it is a daunting task.    How can we improve our measurement practice?

The deck and blog summarizes some key points and methods from three resources:

A lot of what we shared was drawn from three resources that we’ve found valuable in our work. Each comes at the topic of measurement from a different angle. Together they offer a great starting point on various approaches, techniques and tools for using data to make progress towards your goals.

• Measuring the Networked Nonprofit (Beth Kanter and Katie Delahaye Paine) – Provides strategies and step-by-step guides for measuring relationships, social connectivity and engagement in nonprofits.
• Lean Analytics (Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz) – Offers a guide on how to use data to build a better startup, by tracking indicators that help you iterate and understand market needs and user engagement.
• Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity (Mario Morino) – Provides a call to action and a set of case studies that highlight the importance of outcomes-based management in the nonprofit sector.

The resource also includes some case studies.

Are you measuring what matters to your organization’s mission?   What methods are you using?  What have you learned?

Two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be in New Zealand, leading a workshop on social media and I facilitated a module on mindful social media.   It seemed very appropriate given that my host, Stephen Blyth, collaborated with Peter Sykes, CEO & Founder at Mangere East Family Service Centre and we held the workshop on a Marae.   Peter greeted me at the airport and as I got into the car I noticed a copy of Rheingold’s book NetSmart in the back seat.

Yesterday, this tweet from Howard Rheingold, author of NetSmart got my attention!  It is a simple, elegant way to train your attention while working online to keep mindful how you are spending your time.   As he says in his book, your attention is one of your most available assets.   Yet, we often squander it by not being mindful.   Mindful online is defined as not just going into auto pilot to update your FB status or scan your Twitter stream but to consciously think about all aspects of your digital actions.

Rheingold’s low-tech technique, a post-it note on your computer monitor, is a simple and elegant way to help train your attention.    During the workshop in New Zealand, we discussed different methods for being mindful and what might apply to our practice.   Stephen Blyth wrote up this reflection from the workshop about mindfulness and points a recent Guardian post where Oliver Burkeman delves into ‘conscious computing’.    The article showcases “Calming” technology – which is to use technology to help you focus or what he calls the “slow web movement.”

The article profiles the work of  Alex Pang, a Stanford University technologist and author of the forthcoming book, “Distraction Addiction.” His work is focused on this question:   What if there were a way to use the internet – and all our web-connected phones and tablets and laptops and games consoles – to foster rather than erode our attention spans, and to replace that sense of edgy distractedness with calm? According to the article, this question is motivating the embryonic movement known variously as “calming technology”, “the slow web”, “conscious computing” or (Pang’s preferred term) “contemplative computing”

Some points from the article that caught my attention:

• Rethinking that technology can only distract“Using some jujitsu to turn the agents of distraction into agents of serenity.”   Describes some inventions like wearable sensors that deliver rewards (“calm points”) for breathing well while you work, developed by Stanford University’s calming technology laboratory; iPad apps to help you meditate yourself into a state of super-focused concentration; software that lets friends decide collectively to disable their smartphones for the duration of a restaurant meal; and scores of pieces of “zenware” designed to block distractions.”   (Note:  I created a list.ly with some useful Zen Apps)
  
• Points to Linda Stone’s pioneering work in the mindfulness online movement: Linda Stone was the first to write about about distraction and the need to breath while being online.   Her work was the inspiration for Rheingold’s book (the mindfulness chapter).  She coined a phrase “continuous partial attention,” to describe why we multi-task in an age of social media –  not to get more done, but not to miss out. Here’s a recent interview with her in the Atlantic (by way of Rheingold)
• Some humorous, but real conditions that can occur from online distraction or addiction: “Paper Tweeting,” or scribbling supposedly witty wisecracks in a notebook as a substitute for the urge to share them online;  sleep texting; and ”ringxiety.”
• Distraction by shiny objects is not new. Social media and mobile phones aren’t the first ever examples of “cognitive entanglement”, Pang’s term for the way we use technology as extensions of our own minds. Writing things in a notebook is entanglement!  The problem is not the dependency on the technology but it is designed to make money for the creators than a focus on the user-experience.   Distraction is still a problem and we need to need to find coping methods.   These can wetware (training our minds) or software/hardware as the Pang advocates.

Bottom Line: What we need are techniques for exercising the muscle that lets you maintain control of your own attention, so that you can more frequently win the battle for your attention while trying to get work done on the biggest and best invention to date for distraction – the Internet.    Glad that I have been researching, practicing, and doing training on this topic for nonprofits for a few years now because it is going to be a very important professional development skill set – and not just for social media managers.

Do you us mindfulness techniques like meditation, taking walks, or other ‘low tech” methods to help you focus or do you rely on “calming” technology tools?  Or a combination?

Source: Zazzle

How do you learn?  When you want to acquire a new skill or apply some new knowledge, do you learn by passively sitting and listening to an expert lecture for 90 minutes without a break and 150 PPT slides?   What do you actually retain?   And, what do you actually apply?   Or do you learn better when you get a chance to process the content every 15 minutes by thinking about it quietly or talking with a peer?   Do you concentrate better when you move around versus sitting for too long?

I know for myself that I don’t learn, retain, or apply when content is endlessly shared – even from expert – without a break.   If I can’t process what I hear by asking questions of the expert or checking in with another participate or sitting quietly and just thinking about what was shared, there is a point that I reach after about 15 minutes – it’s call “My Brain Is Full Up.”       I wondered whether or not I was just weird, so I have been looking to some of the literature that looks at learning design from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience.

Now that could be hard reading, but Sharon Bowman’s “Using Brain Science To Make Science Stick” has been a terrific resource.  If you are a trainer, you are working with the human brain every day and you need to know as much as possible about how humans learn and how to teach a topic well.   Understanding what holds people’s attention or breaks it can make the difference between delivering a session that is valuable or a waste of time.   The book offers several simple principles to incorporate:

• Movement is better than sitting
• Having participants talk is better than listening
• Images are better than words for instructional aids
• Writing is better than reading
• Shorter is better than longer
• Different delivery options are better than the same

Incorporating Movement

The book goes into depth about each of these principles and how to incorporate into a training session.   I’ve really taken to heart the movement principle.   Despite what people may say in an evaluation, brain science suggests that the longer people sit the less they learn.     The book offers some techniques to incorporate movement with the goal of improved retention and learning:

1.   Body Breaks: The book suggests incorporating some sort of movement or body activity every ten minutes.   One technique described that I use often is “share pairs,”  it makes people get it up, take that body break, and check in with someone.

2.   Walk and Talk: I do this a lot in half-day or full-day trainings.   Participants might do an exercise, but the results are on the wall for a debrief.   It is a more structured body break and incorporates more in-depth debrief on content.

3.  Wall Writing: This an exercise where participants will write specific responses on labeled charts on the wall at designated times.    It can be an answer to a question, a question learners still have, a summary statement, an opinion about the content, facts they want to remember, or how they plan to use the content.

What I’m struggling with how to incorporate body breaks with having participants being able to debrief in more depth, especially in the context of a 90 minute conference session.     During a recent conference session where I used share pairs to keep people moving, one of the comments on the evaluation was, “The share pairs were too short/frequent to get deep enough.”     Now that’s a design challenge – how to deliver an interactive session that can go in-depth with 80-100 participants in 90 minutes!

Talking VS Listening

The brain science literature suggests that learners understand and remember more when they talk about what they are learning.  However, there are some people who attend conference sessions or training to have information wash over them and are uncomfortable with talking or moving.    One comment in the evaluation from a recent NTC session, while in the minority, said it this way:  ”While the presenters were engaging and had good information, there was too much time having attendees talk to one-on-one about their own experiences and situations.  I want to learn from the experts and the time I spent talking to peers did not give me any meat and minimized the time that the experts talked.”

The book offers some great reminders about how to make your presentations more interactive.   The best one, “Stop Talking:  The longer you talk, the less they learn.”    Even if you are just pausing for 60 seconds to give people a chance to summarize what they learned.   If you are going to incorporate group discussion, it is important to remember that there is low-risk and high-risk.  Low risk allows participants to collaborate on an answer to question and high risk asks one person to respond.   It is good to begin with low-risk.   The same goes for small group and large group discussions.     Give participants an opportunity to answer the questions as well as ask open-ended questions.   All these techniques incorporate interaction and better processing of your content.

In some instances, you might have extreme introverts – those who are highly uncomfortable interacting with other people to learn.  According to research, they represent 2-12% of the population in the US.   This was true for the NTC session, one person commented, “I’m an introvert, so partnering up with another person didn’t work for me.”     Another principle will work for them – “Writing vs Reading.”    You get people to quietly debrief in writing what they learned.  I like to use as a closer, but perhaps it could be offered as an alternative for the introverted in the room.

How do you learn best at conferences or workshops?  Do you want endless content or do you need some ways to process what you have learned?  As a presenter or trainer, do you allow the audience to process your content?  How?

I’m getting a jump on my summer reading!    Colleagues Kari Dunn Saratovsky and Derrick Feldmann have published a new book called Cause for Change:  The Why and How of Nonprofit Millennial Engagement.  The book is based on their many years of research, convening, and consulting with nonprofits on how to engage with this younger generation.     The book is a must-read and their annual conference, MCON, is a must attend – if you want the latest thinking about strategy to engage younger people in the sector – both inside and outside of your nonprofit’s walls.

The book is a great read for nonprofit leaders of all generations.  It takes us through why it is important for nonprofits to connect with Millennials based on a good synthesis of recent research and follows through with informative chapters that will help your nonprofit build a solid strategy for connecting with the connected generation in your organization’s communication’s strategy.  It also offers examples, inspiration, and best practices for developing the leadership potential of these leaders in your nonprofit’s organization.

I found the chapter about motivations and tips for encouraging Millennnials to volunteer very valuable.   It begins with a story about Team Rubicon,  a new model for  disaster relief organization and veteran-focused enterprise founded by Jake Wood shortly after the Haiti Earthquake.   Wood, like many Millennials, are trying to find meaning in their work and delaying entry into the traditional workforce.    The book gives the example of enrollment numbers in AmeriCorps which are at record numbers, but more importantly talks about how their alumni represent a paradigm shift, an opportunity to harness on-the-ground experience into a new leadership generation – either in the US or abroad.

Millennials are a new breed of doers and as a result nonprofits need to better understand how to engage them in volunteer work.    As the book points out, it goes beyond providing good volunteer opportunities to offering a relational experience between the volunteer and the organization.   The book suggests that nonprofits need to solicit feedback, provide follow up, and ask what they could do better.    While there are fantastic platforms for nonprofits to recruit volunteers, they have make the experience an engaging one for this generation in order to transform them into champions and supporters.    The book offers some advice:

• Provide experiences based on skills
• Focus on the 3 R’s  (Recruitment, Retention, and Recognition)
• Build a continuum of engagement from micro-volunteering to deep engagement of serving on a board of trustees
• Key to retaining Millennial volunteers is providing: flexible opportunities, leverage their social/personal networks, provide career building opportunities, engage for their skills
• Be open, transparent and solicit feedback
• Create an advisory group of Millennials to help guide your volunteer program

As the book points out,  Millennials want to serve and many are willing to combine service with giving – if nonprofits can incorporate these practices in their volunteer programs.     How is your nonprofit adapting its volunteer program to attract younger people to serve and as future donors?

If you want to learn more about how to work with Millennials from both inside and outside your nonprofit,  head to MCON Conference in Indianapolis in July.  More information here.