This week, a colleague and I got to attend the Social Media for Nonprofits conference in New York City. Speakers like Beth Kanter and Paull Young from charity : water enchanted us with stories and advice for how social media can energize nonprofits. To share this great event with the Rally community, we sponsored two nonprofit leaders to attend, and they’ve graciously shared a few of their top takeaways with us.

Eric Cohen is the Founder and Executive Director of ‘nPlay Foundation, a 501c3 organization that is helping schools meet the criteria of the HealthierUS Schools Challenge. He writes:

This past Monday I attended the Social Media for Nonprofits conference in NYC thanks to a scholarship from Rally! It was a very enlightening day as I learned some very new things about the right way to utilize social media for the non-profit world. While the issue of childhood obesity is something that is very visible today, it clearly hasn’t translated to fundraising and visibility online the way it should. I know the takeaways from this conference will help ‘nPlay reverse that.

Stand for something positive

People want to be inspired and see positive change. Social Media provides a great platform to do that. You need to utilize your real donors and recipients to do that. No one wants to be depressed. Who passes along a video to a friend or family member that makes them sad?

Add your own spin to great content

It’s not enough to just re-tweet content no matter how good it is. It’s important to put your own slant on it that makes it fresh.

 

I especially love his last point. “Content curation” is getting a lot of attention as a quick way to build up an authoritative social media presence. What’s easy to forget, though, is that great content curation requires adding value to the web, not just aggregating value from the web.

John Link, the second nonprofit leader Rally sponsored, also wrote about the importance of content curation. John leads communications for Harambee USA, a small group of caring individuals pulling together to support disadvantaged youth and communities in Kenya. Currently they support a family of former street boys and help sponsor a girls soccer team in Nairobi. He writes:

Social media changes the dialogue between a non-profit and the public.  It replaces one-sided money “asks” with a two-way “give and take” relationship, ultimately furnishing trust and empathy.

Build authority through social media content

Social media provides a low-cost opportunity for any non-profit to become a trusted resource, which individuals can rely on for consistent content.  The tools are out there already to custom-tailor your organization’s online content so you meet potential givers where they are and have an actual conversation.  If executed properly, social media engagement can shift the public’s perception of your organization from a static single-topic cause to a proactive dynamic conversation relevant in multiple dimensions.

Awaken donors’ hearts through social media

People are predisposed to care and give to one another.  Our job as non-profits/fundraisers is to facilitate the public’s capacity to do so.  Network for Good’s Katya Andresen gave us all this little gem on the matter… ”There is no exception to the rule that you must awaken the heart to arouse the mind.”  Social media is the largest venue to figure out how to accomplish this goal, and we use it wisely.

Thank you so much to Rally.org for your organization’s continued support of Harambee USA Inc.

 

And thank you, Eric and John, for spending the day with us at the conference and sharing your takeaways. It’s a privilege to work with you both.

 

Related Tags: 'nPlay, Best Practices, Content Curation, Harambee USA, Social Media for Nonprofits