The Future of Network Centric advocacy

The Future of Network Centric advocacy
Marty Kearns, presenter. Netcentric Campaigns.

Note: This one was a little crazy for me. I was probably the only non Social Advocacy group in the room. But believe it or not, I found a lot to take away from this session.

The big question asked at this session was: What would you do with 10,000 people for 10 minutes. That resounds with me because, while we don't get groups of 10,000 showing up at our door, we do turn away groups of 500-1000 or more who want to volunteer, but don't have enough time to spend at the our property doing helpful work. So is there some awareness piece or program piece we can have these people do at their conference that will still educate them about our mission, why also doing significant good for our organization as well. Hmmm.

How is what's going on (web 2.0, etc) shifting strategy for creating change?

Take the Buzzword - Social Networks. Forget web 2.0 for a moment and remember Social Networks are people. They don't show up on the bottom line, but they are the wealth of the social organization.

Technology has allowed social networks to spread out and stay connected in ways that would have been impossible before.

At the same time the 'organization' is becoming less central. People will advocate, network, discuss the organization or mission outside the structures the organization has set up.

Connectivity Matters. The ability of your base to connect and pass the message on is dependent on density. The more connections the fast and father the message travels.

Not everybody wants a newsletter. Some feel overloaded by information. And more and more people feel they can find information when it's valuable. (As long as you make it available on the new semantic web, I guess)

So we have to find new ways to connect. Some of these ways includes uses like: Evites, SMS Messages, meetup.com, upcoming.com

Successful viral networks must have shared resources to work. Face to face, phone to phone, email to email, sms to sms.

They also need Clarity of Purpose. And you have to know right things to ask them.

It's going to take a new type of leader to lead these new networks. I recall the old saying "leadership is finding a parade and getting infront of it" I can envision self made media celeb who does just that. So you need to find away to be in front of that parade as soon as you can.

Alex's Lemonade was powerful because it empowered others to go open their own lemonade stand. A simple PDF. (Which makes me think. What is our organizations lemonade stand?)

Some of the things being built under this new theory are networks to build engagement and to influence media. They rely on systems like Amazon's Mechanical Turk to use volunteers to identify data, organize data, do research, online searches. etc. Plus that makes these people feel more involved in the cause,/organization.

Thanks to the Presenter. He came with this amazing slide show and a great handout that really showed the power of what he was talking about with concrete examples.

Technorati Tags: 07ntc, ntc07, nten, nptech, viral+marketing, viral+campaigns, advocacy

Selecting an Online Fundraising Technology - Large(r) Organizations - Thurs, April 5 1:30PM

Breakout: Selecting an Online Fundraising Technology - Large(r) Organizations - Thurs, April 5 1:30PM
Panel: Mark Sirkin (Int'l Rescue Committee), Erin Anderson (Am Cancer Socity), Jeff Heron (Beaconfire), Carolyn Pizzuto (March of Dimes)

Top Questions:

• Needs Assessment
• Build vs Buy
• Organizational Structure
• Who owns the donor
• How to build the relationship
• Hosted?
• Ease of use for - staff, users, etc

Needs Assessment:

MS: To do it right, needed to get Buy In from across the organization. He found it very helpful to have taken a course on how to do "requirements development". Research what the user really needs. Find out what is the staff experience. Watch for increases in productivity, easy of use, and training.

Requirements take a lot longer than you really want them to too.

CP: Started by interviewing people, included influencers, squeaky wheels, decision makers. Then make sure you close the loop, "This is what we heard. Is this true? What did we miss?" Gives you a strong base for implementation too.

JH: Must be driven by problems you're trying to solve. Who owns the outcomes and results. How do they get those results. Recommends sometimes considering changing processes to leverage tools.

MS: Build vs. Buy/Choice discussion can't happen until you have the 'requirements'. Used a internal site to keep transparency with end users on what was happening product development and implementation.

Organizational Structure:

EA: Organization departments need to work closer or merge (Marketing and Development) so it appears unified to outside world. The existence of online donations has helped this happen as it brings IT, Marketing, and Development together.

Who owns the donor?:

CP: Answer, the organization owns the donor. Chapter offices have to know that the national office will treat the donor with respect.

JH: Need to set up rules on who contacts who, when, how its documented. Software makes it possible to do so much now, so the organization has to carefully set up the rules and get everyone to agree on them. It's useful to talk about it from the view of the constituent.

How to Build The Relationship:

Take it audience by audience. Someone has to be in charge of relationship management to make sure that we don't over reach and lose the relationship. Tracking and metrics are key too. Try using Google Analytics to insert trackable URLs, set goals, etc.

MS: Consumers have all the power. So look directionally. Are we building relationships en mass. We don't have the technology to track as with as much detail as we want. Really recommending situational (aka A/B) testing to find what works on websites, enewsletters, etc.

Question: Do panelists have user accounts like amazon. Sort of a 'MySite'.

MS: Had idea for it, collected data, but never used it. So turned off the customization. But still let's user log in and get their own data, donation history, tell a friend, etc.

That's all for this one folks. I'm still looking for great resources for the needs assessment process. Thanks to the presenters, especially those who stepped in late.

Technorati Tags: funding, 07ntc, ntc07, nten, nptech, nonprofit, online+fundraising, fundraising+tools, fundraising

Breakout: Managing Technology 2.0 - Thur. April 5

Managing Technology 2.0
Strategies for integration in the new, decentralized world
Peter S Campbell - Techcafeteria.com

Liveblogging the session.

Web 2.0 is:

• Data-centric
• Standards Based
• APIs everywhere

Questions to ask off the bat:

Does it have standards-based, well-documented open API? Does it have an active community of users and developers? Is the data dictionary available for review prior to purchase?

Reporting Screen:

Can you report on at least three tables in one report? can you modify a standard report and customize your own reports? Finally how export friendly is the reporting system.

I would add, are queries and supports integrated? The idea being to reduce as much excel use as possible.

Budget and Planning:

We have to be realistic about our realities in funding and planning. Maybe 6 months to implementation is unrealistic. Communicate with the Executives why it's important to have the above requirements. No Vendors that lock us out of the data.

Have a strategic plan with 2, 6, 12, and 24 month goals and frequently review those goals.

Peter talks about the power of RSS feeds. Think about getting the data reports fed to you via RSS, latest contacts, tours, etc... instead of having to run reports weekly.

Next question: Should I build or buy?

Buy if you can. Base decision on unique business processes and objectives. Develop platforms, don't build from scratch. If you have to build, build standards based and extensible software.

Since about the year 2000 nonprofits have come around to thinking that investing in technology is central to fulfilling your mission. Now, Peter believes organizations have to be API savvy. Can you use GoogleMaps, Yahoo Pipes, etc, tap those APIs for your organization.

See this presentation in PowerPoint.

There is some post discussion about finding an 'out of the box' solution to a nonprofits needs. Peter users Salesforce.com. Which he uses because of the open API. You get free licenses, but you pay for the development. If you're in meetings with Convio, Kintera, etc... Peter hopes you'll keep hitting them on when the open API will be ready.

A question was asked what resources there are to help you through the process of deciding what software is right from you. If anyone has any resources for finding Needs Assessment systems, processes analysis, and then plugging that into a needs matrix. Finally, we need somewhere the compares the software based on features and needs. I'm hoping to find some answers to this at the Selecting an Online Fundraising Technology: Larger Organizations breakout session this afternoon.

Thanks to everyone for the great questions and help and thanks to Peter S Campbell for the excellent presentation. Good luck on your new career in consulting!

ps... Peter, update your LinkedIn Profile
See also Peter's Del.icio.us links

Technorati Tags: nptech, 07ntc, ntc07, nten, web2.0, technology

David Weinberger - Morning Plenary, Thur, April 5

David Weinberger PHD, Johotheblog.com, on how the web is ours. Great speech, very motivating. Why aren't you blogging?

More later when I have time to input my notes.

Technorati Tags: o7ntc, ntc07, nten, david+weinberger