Strategic Online Communications for Nonprofits

The Upleaf Blog

Faced with the reality of shrinking budgets and fewer grant opportunities, many nonprofits– rather “social profits”– are turning to new web-based technologies to help out.

New technologies offer opportunities for online fundraising, publicity, participation in policy debate, and perhaps most importantly—and opportunity to deepen community engagement and social impact.

A new Hatcher Group report surveyed 30 organizations to see how they’re using social media and what their experiences have been.  All respondents reported currently using some form of social media, and most intend to ramp up their efforts next year.

Key findings:

Blogs. Blogs have offered a good ROI for nonprofits.  Nearly 100 million Americans read blogs at least once a month, and effective outreach can take less than 2 hours per week.

• 83% of the organizations reach out to bloggers, but only 30% do so frequently
• 88% reported being cited in blogs as a result of their outreach
• 16% of organizations were invited to submit guest posts
• 93% of the organizations monitor references to their organization or issues in the blogosphere

Facebook. Facebook is popular among nonprofits and with good reason: More than 200 million users, 50% of whom sign in every day; users become fans of causes (4 million per day) offering free visibility and endorsements for nonprofits; nonprofits have collectively raised more than $10 million through Facebook.

• 60% of the groups are currently on Facebook
• Facebook was used by respondents to generate record event turnout using Facebook’s event invites, raise money, and promote fundraising events

Twitter. Twitter was less popular among nonprofits, used by only 24% of respondents.  Those who did use it found it effective for disseminating news, promoting reports, and building connections with other organizations.

Conclusions? While we know that social media offers excellent opportunities for nonprofits, many are still not using it to its full capacity.  Those who are using it are ahead of the curve and already seeing the returns.  For those who aren’t—it’s time to start!

For tips on how to develop effective social media outreach, view our strategic communications blog posts and tweets.

Posted by Elizabeth Beachy, Upleaf Co-Founder

We speak so much about “nonprofits” and all the great work done by the sector, but few of us pause to reflect on the nature of the term we’re using– and how it might even be undermining our work!

I was reminded of this in a recent meeting with the Executive Director of the Albuquerque Community Foundation, Randy Royster, who corrected my use of the term “nonprofit” and urged me to replace it with “social profit”.

But of course!!!  I had never even stopped to think about it.  How can we call the tireless, dedicated work of this sector “nonprofit” when so many people ultimately benefit from it?

In many other countries this same sector is referred to as “organizaciones sin fines de lucro” or “organisations sans but lucratif” (literally “organizations without lucrative goals/ends”) which somehow seems to do a bit more justice to the nature of the work by setting it apart from the many who seek to profit financially from their work.

By contrast “nonprofit” simply sounds like no one benefits.

After working for years with international social profit organizations outside the U.S. I had never even heard of the “nonprofit” vs “social profit” debate.

I did a google search of “social profit” and found an excellent article by Claire Gaudiani in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, that does justice to the issue.  She outlines the implications of such a name change for the sector, as well as for the “social investors” who support it.

I also saw that several organizations have adopted the term, but unfortunately those are few and far between– most of the sector continues to use “nonprofit”.

Great food for thought.  Let’s start making the transition to “social profit” and give our sector a boost!

Posted by Elizabeth Beachy, Upleaf Co-Founder

New technologies are revolutionizing the way nonprofits do business.  Constituent relationship management systems, interactive websites, mass email applications, online giving forms and many other tools are helping nonprofits become more efficient and reach more people.

A good example of this is Acceso Hispano, an initiative of the nonprofit Self Reliance Foundation.  For years Acceso Hispano had been relying on a Microsoft Access database to store service provider contact information and field calls to its toll-free bilingual information and referral services.  Email lists were kept separately to maintain communication with key constituencies, and the project was producing a regular printed newsletter.

Acceso Hispano’s Director, Maite Arce, wanted to better engage constituent communities, expand the database of Hispanic-serving providers, and create networks to directly reach Latino communities across the country.  But her budget was limited and her small team was already overloaded trying to respond to a high volume of calls to the toll-free bilingual hotline.

Maite enlisted Upleaf to come up with a cost-effective strategy that would help Acceso Hispano reach more people without requiring additional staff.

Upleaf’s response was to:

1) Build an educational online platform (http://www.accesohispano.org) to inform and engage (a) Acceso Hispano’s target population; (b) stakeholders; (c) service providers; and (d) community-based promoters.  The interactive website shares news, resources, community stories and testimonies, and drives exchange with communities through a discussion forum, text messaging capacity, and social media mashups.

2) Create a user-friendly searchable online community service directory (http://recursos.accesohispano.org) so that people in need across the country can locate nearby Hispanic-serving providers.  The scalable community service directory lets providers to create their own listings by filling out a simple, standardized online form, thereby significantly reducing the amount of staff time required to maintain the directory.

3) Customize a constituent relationship management (CRM) system (Salesforce nonprofit edition) to administer all of Acceso Hispano’s projects, campaigns, newsletters and contracts.  The CRM helps organize, automate, track and evaluate interactions with service providers, partners, donors, media, and the Hispanic community.  All calls to the toll-free hotline are now documented through the system, which captures caller information, tracks referrals, and generates automatic follow-up emails.  The CRM system also streamlines project management by helping coordinate and supervise tasks across the team.

These three tools have boosted Acceso Hispano’s capacity to serve the public and enabled the small team to engage more community service providers and other partners. Individuals and organizations are now reaching out from across the country to collaborate with Acceso Hispano. The directory of service providers is growing by itself, and the volume of people served per week has increased.

All of this was made possible by using new open source technologies and by taking advantage of an array of discounts and in-kind donations of software licenses and services available to 501c3 organizations. Thanks to these the total implementation cost was less than that of an administrative assistant’s salary.  Better yet, these technologies are designed to accommodate growth and will require little to no new investments as Acceso Hispano continues to expand.