Heather:

I agree with you! But what I am saying is that it isn’t a black or white thing. Given that we’re dealing with organizational cultures, if we’re going to have true adoption by nonprofits, the approach is going to be having one foot in the old ways while experimenting with the new. As much as we’d all like to see rapid transformative change – I don’t think it happens that frequently.

Most of my work in nonprofit technology has been on training, evaluation, and research related to adoption/change of technology issues … that’s my interest in web2.0 … I’ve been working in nonprofits for abou 25 years, with the last 15 on technology issues. I’ve been on the web since 1993, starting with bbs/fidonet before that. Like Allan, my personal media habits have also changed — and I’m noticing that they are very different from my age cohorts.

I believe that it is going to be able incremental adoption and action learning over time that will make true adoption for nonprofits possible over time.

BTW, the myspace page you are pointing to is not the “sharing foundation” – it is for the “share foundation” – the organization I work with is the sharing foundation.

I set up a profile a profile the other day
http://www.myspace.com/sharingfoundation

after doing a bit of a roundup about myspace/nonprofits and discovering your site
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2007/03/solidariti_peop_2.html

And very much I’m in that place that Allan describes — “now what?”

So, with that said, if you’d like to participate in an action learning experiment with me – give me some advice on how to proceed
http://nonprofitsmyspace.wikispaces.com/

I’d be happy to give you a wiki account or communicate via what ever channel you are most comfortable using.

I have worked in the nonprofit field for 15 years… then completely burnt out because social change was so elusive and apathy was getting me down (not to mention the religious right)… so I retreated for two years… then went on MySpace 11 months ago and now more energized and hopeful than ever! I am just getting into Change.org and hadn’t heard of GlowFish… Razoo.com is coming too.

You are completely right about individuals resistance to change… especially in technology… it can be intimidating. That’s why this convesation is so important! I also run:

http://www.myspace.com/collegesanduniversities

College adminstrators are more frightened of Web 2.0 than any group on the planet, but slowly they are coming around too.

This is great and so true:

Frankly, that’s part of the deep subtext behind the conversation about widgets.

Unfortunately, Web 2.0 is just as hard as Web 1.0 was for many nonprofits. They are unwilling or don’t see the necessity to add a person to pull the levers behind a campaign just like they do for special events or direct mail. It’s silly I know and it takes an extreme amount of internal prodding to get people to change. In the IT Director business, it’s called change management and not many nonprofit techies are good at it (including myself).

The main nonprofit social networks I’ve seen is change.org and glowfish.org. There were people who were in startup phase but they seem to have stalled in their efforts, rethos.com. I think, Heather, that once you’ve worked in the nonprofit sector long enough you’ll see how and why the reluctance to join social networks is created. You’ll find various parts of the sector extremely reluctant to join. I wish someone would do a good study on technology adoption in different sectors of the 501c3 world. My guess is that my particular sector, social services, is perhaps the slowest to adopt new technology.

So I’m very glad you joined the conversation, it’s extremely important that we get that perspective in the nonprofit world but have patience with nonprofit management — very few of them have plastic outlooks that can accept changes in technology or workflow. Frankly, that’s part of the deep subtext behind the conversation about widgets.

http://www.myspace.com/nonprofitorganizations

There is a new generation that doesn’t even check their e-mail more than once a month and barely watches TV and doesn’t read newspapers. They are online. They are social networking. The hand-written note is great for the older generations who are used to that and appreciate it, that’s how they have been cultivated, but the younger generation (35-40 and under) is communicating and getting their information in radical new ways. They want you to post a comment on their MySpace or Facebook wall that says “Thanks for the donation!” so everyone else can see they donated (and hey they want to donate too because they want to see their picture on Change’s giving network). They don’t care about the handwritten note (and don’t you dare spam them with direct mail funding appeals… two a year tops)… they’d prefer you save the paper and resources. And this generation has cash and is passionate and just needs a little help learning about nonprofits… because the communications most nonprofits are using now don’t reach them. They are very happy to find a cool new nonprofit on MySpace.

Rather than just the old school read-a-website-or-newsletter experience with a nonprofit, social networkers are intetacting daily with nonprofits and their supporters. This is realtionship-building. And now they get to fundraise for them! OMG… this is so cutting edge, so grassroots, so democratic, so full of possibility for social change… I just feel so grateful to be running the nonprofit organizations myspace… to be a part of this.

Beth… the Share Foundation has MySpace, but it looks like they need some help (and the Change widget):

http://www.myspace.com/sharefoundation

That’s what I am trying to do… nonprofits jump on MySpace and then don’t know how to use it. I am a resources for them. Have them send me a friend request.

OMG, and the widget yesterday… the flurry of excitement!! This is what they have been waiting for. Especially the small grassroots nonprofits that have very small marketing budgets. Traditonally, they have been shut out of the web because they can’t afford a fancy website or the staff time to created a dynamic online/e-mail/fundraising campaign… Web 2.0 has changed everything for them. They have all of the that now for free. This is my favorite part… all these small, struggling motivated nonprofits with great missions standing out on MySpace and Change.org… building a brand for themselves… reaching a huge new audience… while the big one’s… Amnesty, WWF, People for the American Way, etc. sit back and think about going into social networking… contemplating every worse case scenario… fearing for their image… and all that… sorry to lose my patience, but jeez… just get with it already I say!!

With the exception of Ben who created his own social network (the donation aspect of that is brillant… makes you want to donate!!), who else in this debate is social networking?

Anyway I got to run!! Have an excellent weekend everyone!

The future of distributed fundraising is active giving. I think that Network For Good put out a report that talked about the average size of online donations being relatively small. I can see a time when people start to make many small, strategic donations that leverage resources to needs. The power of using widgets and such for fundraising online is not always to raise $1M, but to raise $10K in a day for an urgent need.

Back to Beth’s statement.. it is about the organizer’s passion to advocate for a cause and blending that with the right tools.

I couldn’t agree more with what you’ve said – in particular your comment that “people give money to people they know or causes they care about.” This is exactly why I think social giving (or giving through social networks) can be so powerful, and it’s one of the core concepts we have built our service around.

As I see it, widgets are a great marketing tool, no more, no less. Because nonprofit websites are rarely destination sites, the best way for nonprofits to get exposure on the web is to be where the people are – and that means blogs, social networks, and other personal websites. Widgets provide a great way for nonprofits to leverage their supporters in creating a distributed marketing operation across the web so they can touch people without requiring them to go to their website.

But as you said, people do not give because of widgets. They give because of the people who created the widget, because of their personal connection, and because of the stories that person tells about the important work of an organization they care about or the impact it has had on their life. If I look at the organizations and causes I care about, almost all of them came through a personal contact, and it’s these personal connections that form the basis for facilitating engagement and raising money through on Change.org.

As far as the second step – turning one-time donors into life-long supporters – you are no doubt right that active and personal donor cultivation from nonprofits plays a critical role. But I think integrating donors into an online community where they can connect to each other, share stories, and engage in dialogue about issues the nonprofit is working to address, can go a long way toward giving donors a sense of membership (indeed, ownership) in the organization and therefore in transforming them into life-long supporters.

In short, as you put it, it’s not about that tools, but the relationships. And I think social networking services, and Change.org in particular, is a tool that facilitates these relationships in a unique and valuable way.

Ben

“One of the things we’re trying to get away from are what I call “transactional” donations, where someone will write a check because their friend asks them to and never learns more about the organization or gets connected to its cause.”

The widget does not cultivate donors – whether it connects them to a donation page or online social networking platform. A person does and a person within an organization does. In addition to a widget, you need a donor cultivation strategy. It’s all about the relationship.

As I’m sure Ben knows, fundraising isn’t all about the ask (although its important), it’s the how you engage people in your cause. Whether it’s online or offline — whether it is being done by an official staff person or someone else. The organizations that are masters at – donor cultivation, donor appreciation, donor stewardship – are the ones that will get beyond transactional donations. Whether those donations come via a widget, phonathon, special event, or direct mail campaign.

Granted, there are many organizations that need to learn how to do better donor cultivation and not be asking for money all the time. And, some of the larger institutions may only be focused on the larger donors and not pay attention to smaller donors.
I used both the ChipIn widget and Network for Good widgets to raise money for a cause I’m associated with – the Sharing Foundation – we raised a lot of dollars and we added new donors to our list.

It has been our policy that all donors receive handwritten thank you notes from our founder. (The notes are written on postcards created out of children’s illustrations or photos of children in Cambodia that we support). We thanked all our donors via email messages as well and have added them on to our mailing list – they will receive our newsletter and updates from us – as well as invitations to events. We asked our volunteers and board members who asked their friends to donate to our widget campaign — we asked them thank them for helping us raise the money. We’ve kept them updated about our work — and we haven’t asked them for another dime. (yet) For the Leng Sopharath campaign, I have been sharing the personal letters that I receive from Cambodia and the photos with the other donors who chipped in to pay for that. It’s the relationship, not the tools.

The widget and social networking platforms are tools or a conduit — period. People give money to people they know or causes they care about. They keep giving money because a relationship has been established.

While MySpace has the largest audience on social networking platforms and, yes, perhaps it is the way we will build donor relationships in the future. However, traditional fundraising methods – direct mail and the more traditional online fundraising approaches are still working. You can’t make a comparison to the newspaper business where they are loosing ad revenue … yet.

With that said, I do think, Heather is correct, that organizations need to be exploring social media and social networking strategies – and adding them to organizational strategy repertoire. However, given that we are dealing with institutional cultures and change – adoption probably won’t happen at the same rate as young people adopting myspace. So, a savvy organization will be working looking at the total picture and looking at small experiments that build institutional knowledge in using these tools.

This also points out the role for technology stewards – someone who knows the tools and the organization’s fundraising practices and helps guide appropriate choices and strategy development.

http://www.myspace.com/fundforafricaneducation

Sure… people who don’t work at FARE can create a fundraising widget to fundraise for FARE… but I highly doubt FARE will mind…

I am a perfect example… I created a widget for the Africa Wildlife Foundation today… put it on my two of my MySpaces. I don’t work at AWF… I work at a university… and I’ve already raised $60 for AWF. Do you think AWF will mind? No… I think they’ll more likely be compeltely puzzled as to why they get a check from JustGive.org next month.

I’m telling you… Change nailed it… how long they stay number one… now that’s another story, but credit should be given where credit due… critique them if you like, but can you not see the importance of this at least?

Are there any other women in this debate? Women are the majority of the nonprofit employees and donors… where’s are you?!

And if I may dare critique Change.org, nonprofits have no role in creating the badge and promoting it to their supporters, whereas with Kintera, Convio etc the nonprofit can design their widget and promote to their users. In other words, with Change.org the nonprofit has basically no role in the badge-based fundraising, whereas with the other services the badges are an integral part of their overall fundraising efforts. I’m not saying that this means that the Change.org model is still not beneficial to nonprofits, but from a nonprofit perspective I would much rather “own” my badges and supporters.

Tim – you’re no doubt right that the fundraising widget space is getting crowded, but I think the key here is that, to perhaps summarize what Heather said, “all widgets aren’t created equal”.

MySpace is still a hugely untapped area for nonprofits and viral fundraising because there is still no drop-dead easy way for someone to select a nonprofit, do a little customization, and drop a personalized fundraising widget into their MySpace page which anyone can share. You’re right that it’s not rocket science (and we’re sure not rocket scientists), but we are the first ones to have done that. Sometimes it’s the little things that count.

Best,

Ben