Round Up The Troops

Nonprofit organizations and crowds go together like PB and J! By allowing crowdsourcing, you can achieve greater results than you would ever reach with just one individual or organization alone. Crowdsourcing is the process of organizing many people to participate in a joint project. One of the best ways you can create and strengthen crowds is by utilizing social media. But, organizations must know how to manage and effectively use crowds in order for them to work to their full potential. Microplanning is the process of planning and implementation of crowd work into bite-size pieces, which is particularly applied to marketing, fundraising, communications and programs.  Crowdsourcing can come in many different styles and forms, with each having a specific goal.

• Collective intelligence/crowd wisdom: abundant information that can be distributed
• Crowd creation: original works of knowledge or art
• Crowd voting: determining temperature of crowd, what they like and don't like
• Crowd funding: want group to fund effort that benefits many people

Organizations need to remember though, baby steps! Smaller steps are likely to ass up to a big change than a quick call to action. Crowds engage in these small steps, which fit into the organizations larger strategy for change. Any organization should ask and answer the following questions before working with crowds:

• What should the crowd do? | break up the work into doable pieces 
• Who needs to be included in this crowd? | expertise v. enthusiasm/interest
• What will we do with the crowd's input? | decide early on exactly how they will use it

There are a few caution signs though an organization must look out for when beginning the crowdsourcing process. First, crowds are unpredictable, meaning they will come and go as they please. Second, they can become angry mobs. Crowds have the ability to put all their energy into punishing the organization when they are angry. Third, crowd contributions are 90 percent useless because it takes multiple missteps before gaining any advantages and building up the relationship. Finally, online crowds can fizzle out quickly, long before the organization is done with their work.