Prowlin' for the Catwalk Cure

I decided for my campaign evaluation that the local fundraising event, the Catwalk Cure, would be an interesting and fun topic to research and write about. Every year, in support of blood cancer awareness, people of the Greenville community flock to the Catwalk Cure event for fun, music and food.  

The annual event concludes a 10 week fundraising campaign in Greenville, S.C., for LLS (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) and their national “Man and Woman of the Year” competition. During the selected weeks, funding is raised for blood cancer research. The individual who collects the largest amount of money during the campaign is recognized as Man or Woman of the Year at the Catwalk Cure event.

Other activities at the event include a silent auction, designer fashion show and celebratory party at a local Greenville restaurant. From the Catwalk Cure, awareness for a variety of blood cancers was raised and the donations toward research was striking.They were successful at developing a strategic communication plan that revolved around the goals of the LLS's "Man and Woman of the Year" competition and supported LLS's mission statement.

After reviewing the campaign, I thought they could have provided more informational materials to the public. Also, while their social media site is used diligently around the time of the event, they fail to continuously update it throughout the year. But, overall, the Catwalk Cure event had amazing results in increasing funding for research on blood cancers and promoting awareness within the community. I believe they offer a great resource to LLS by helping them excel in their mission of awareness and funding for blood cancers!

Governing Through Networks

OK, first let's define governance in the sense of organizational success. "It is the mechanism by which outsiders can train a critical eye on operations and provide expertise, connections, and financial support," as defined in the book The Networked Nonprofit. Governing boards provide organizations safe "plans-of-attack" for entering into the future, but lately, there has been dissatisfaction by board members that there is no longer any effectiveness to their strategies. But wait, social media can be the answer to all their problems! Allowing organizations to connect with people and allowing them be a part of the discussion, will allow for more constructive input and feedback.

What does an ineffective governing board look like, you ask?

• Repetitive meetings, no change
• Nothing spontaneous or surprising
• People just nod and agree
• Asking friends for money
• Closed culture, no outside input
• Lack of diversity
• Poor leadership

These governing boards are doomed to fail, in fact there are three specific types of these "doomed" organizations.

• Rubber Stamp Board: board expected to approve plans/wishes of staff
• Muddle-Through Boards: lack strong leadership at all levels
• Fiduciary Boards: focused solely on financial statements and budgets

On the total opposite end though, we have a highly effective governing board utilizing social media. Here's what it might look like:

• Online meetings allowing people from all over to participate (geographic diversity)
• Ongoing conversation on Twitter
• Energized attitudes/new ideas
• Using social media contacts to search for skills they need
• Mobile engagement strategies
• Transparency

And...every governance process must contain these key characteristics:

• Anticredentialism: anyone should be able to participate
• Collective choice system: democratically make decisions
• Communal validation: choices of group are open to public scrutiny
• Open development: transparency is a must

Governing organizations must take place at the "meta-organizational level" in order for them to be successful. Organizations need to communicate and interact with their ecosystems. Even though some organizations may be unfamiliar with many social media channels, they can always start with the ones they feel most comfortable with and then continue to branch to others.Social media channels allow organizations to hear what people are saying, learn about new perspectives, and grasp onto trends that may be forming.

Meaningful Friendship[$]

Friends are nice, but for nonprofit organizations, friends can be a potential financial advantage! Nonprofit organizations need to recognize that by making friends and turning them into successful, trustworthy relationships, they can gain much needed funds for their cause. Networked nonprofits have the potential to turn friends into funders by practicing the following rules:

• Transparency: everything should be out in the open, available to the public
• Simplicity: allowing a simple message to be easily communicated
• Engagement and listening: allow followers to volunteer in their own ways, conversation encouraged

Even by following these classic rules though, nonprofits must realize that new approaches to funding must be established to be effective in their endeavors. Many nonprofits have become set in their ways and produce little change in how they approach fundraising, but with the quick rise of social media, this is not efficient. By utilizing and combining social media with fundraising methods, more people will become aware of the importance of the cause. Since social media has become popular more and more with the younger audience, nonprofits have the ability to connect with them, which hopefully leads to more giving in their lifetime. Even though building a trusted online community may take several months, the end product is quite exceptional.
Raising money online may be the right path for your organization! Additional components you need to remember include:

• Social media is part of a multichannel strategy: use multiple mediums, such as email, Web site, Google, face-to-face events, Facebook, etc., don't just focus on one strategy
• Partners are not ATM machines: let people know that they are important partners in your work
• Storytelling for personalization: issues become real and urgent, brings a human face on ideas, they strengthen connections between people creating empathy and changed perspectives
• Thankfulness: needs to happen often so people feel truly connected, be sincere and personal
• Click for dollars: on Facebook or Web site, particularly engaging for the younger audience
• Online fundraising contests: started by America's Giving Challenge, sponsored by The Case Foundation, in 2007

So, you want to know how to successfully complete online fundraising? Of course you do, and I don't blame you! The benefits are striking for nonprofit organizations! To be successful though, fundraising efforts need the following characteristics:

• Credibility: establish trust, make appeals meaningful
• Compelling messages: short and easily understood
• Urgency: clear and short deadlines, don't set expectations too high, adds momentum 
• Spread out giving: use multichannel strategies, reach people of all ages
• Recognition to donors: highlighting influencers and encouraging others, creates momentum
• Storytelling: people remember personal stories, builds relationship and credibility

Being an animal lover, I found this great organization that utilizes just about everything I have mentioned above.Wildlife Direct, which encourages people to save endangered species, is a great example of a nonprofit organization becoming part of the social network and creating unique fundraising efforts through the help of their audience. Wildlife direct realized that the best opportunity for saving these endangered species came from the use of social media and building relationships online. Their main use of social media is through blogs, which allow people from all over the world to become active in their cause. All bloggers writing on behalf of the organization  are allowed and encouraged to link their blogs to fundraising sites. Also, on their website, Wildlife Direct has a link allowing people to donate of they wish. This organization has turned their friendships and connections into something highly valuable that will only continue to grow and prosper as time continues.

Loops of Learning

It has always been crucial for an organization to measure their efforts in order to see if they are succeeding, but with social media becoming a valuable tool in today's society, we need to utilize learning loops and social media measurements, as well. The process of learning loops includes the implementation of  planning, measuring engagement, tracking, metrics and reflection. First, organizations must think through what they want to learn from their project. They need to have a specific and narrow objective, which can be achieved by identifying a target audience.

Second, organizations need to understand that they need to start off with low-cost, low-risk experiments, also known as microplanning. Finally, key learning questions should be established so they can learn about them as the project unfolds, and then find relevant metrics to track. After the planning stage has been completed, an organization is now ready to move on to measuring engagement and connections. By following conversations people produce, organizations can better understand how to stimulate and broaden these conversations. Blogs are a great way for organizations to connect with people and other organizations. They offer the following measuring options:

• Number of subscribers-want a growing audience of people who care about blog
• Monthly trends-help understand how to better connect with and engage readers
• Engagement metrics-examine topics and styles driving the highest attention
• Bookmarking-allow for future reading and tends to attract additional readers
• Comments-each one is part of a larger conversation happening on blog
• Influence- each influential blog is part of larger conversation within the blogosphere
• Industry index- regularly review lists to understand their influence better and connect

The next important step for organizations is the reflection process. By reflecting on what the project has produced, can make the next effort even better. Valuing learning and receiving insight is key to getting tangible results. Also, organizations need to take time to review what their overall purpose is and how social media fits in. Examining return on investment can also be looked at as a way of reflecting. Return on investment includes benefits, costs and value of an effort, whether the results were tangible or intangible. The ultimate goal of social change for an organization is having people do something on their own for the organization. By using social media, change can be affected directly.

The Humane Society used the process of learning loops in their efforts to make people aware of the dog fights, Michael Vick, had been housing. By following the process, they were very successful in analyzing which topics received the most traction for discussion, specified which parts of the network responded frequently and determined who were the main influencers. By examining these metrics, they were able to create great awareness for animal cruelty through a YouTube contest This is a great example how the use of learning loops became a powerful way for the Humane Society to learn and improve their future efforts. Here is the winning YouTube video-how cute!

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.

Working In Glass Houses

Organization + glass walls =  #winning

The issue of transparency has become increasingly popular in today's business world. Businesses who don't create "glass walls" are losing trust and essential interaction with its publics, even though they may think otherwise. Transparency, internally and externally, allows people to get a better understanding of an organization, such as their operations, strategies, difficulties they are facing and how they are improving. Nonprofits, especially, need transparency to develop the audience base they need to to prosper and grow. By broadening their networks of individuals and other organizations they become engaged in vital communication.

Unfortunately, not every organization realizes the benefits of transparency (sad, I know). There are two other types of organizations that are at a disadvantage. Fortresses, working on the "caution" operating philosophy, keep people out and don't share information freely. They keep people out by using plans only developed by staff, having closed meetings and unexplained decision making. Transactionals primarily care about obtaining money from their publics and that's about it. They provide services offered and selected by the public based on cost. Transparents, on the other hand, are clear about they do and what they want to accomplish. Organizations can become transparent when they achieve the following:

• Leadership is easily understood by publics
• Employees are available to reinforce the public view of the organization
• Values are easily seen and understood
• Culture and operations apparent inside and out
• Communicate all results, good and bad 

Every nonprofit would be smart to adopt the transparent philosophy before it becomes too late and publics begin to face away. First, working in transparent ways means you need to be findable. Author and blogger Jeff Jarvis makes a good point, "Living in public today is a matter of enlightened self-interest. You have to be public to be found...Publicness is also an ethic. The more public you are, the easier you can be found, the more opportunities you have." Using search engines, like Google, makes it easy for organizations to become noticed and easily found. Second, organizations need to free their information. Inform the audience of information, financial audits, strategic plans, etc. An organization doesn't have to be scared of losing control entirely of their content. Creative Commons is a great device to use, enabling creators to share content however they choose. Thirdly, internal sharing needs to be mandates, as well. The staff needs to feel like they are treated fairly and are "in the loop."

Example of dashboard

It is highly recommended that organizations create a dashboard, which provides visual and compelling ways to get an insight of organizational performance. Allowing employees and publics to see and communicate on the dashboard shows you appreciate what they have to say. The dashboard invites employees and publics to work with them and understand them better. Also, using other tools  like, blogs, Twitter and Facebook, encourages interaction and provides information, as well. By following the transparency pathway, nonprofits will discover numerous ways of sharing information that reduces uncertainty and increases trust inside and outside the organization.

Friends With Benefits

Building and engaging relationships is crucial to any organization; social media can provide the right tools to accomplish this. Perhaps the first spot an organization would want to look at is their website. For instance, Safe Harbor shares information about their organization, explains issues they advocate and provides resources for people in need. Can you guess the next hot spot on the list? You're probably right; social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Organizations need to engage with their audience through open conversations on these sites, allowing a build up of trust and development of relationships. Also, these are great tools to use when trying to connect with a younger audience. In my class group, we are working with REP to ignite their social media efforts, seeing how they want to relate to teenagers and young adults. There are many outcomes that can come from building these connections on social media.

Listening is an important step to building these trusting relationships and an easy way to become comfortable within the new social scene. Seeing how REP will be new to social media, it will be easier for them to focus on their listening skills first to ease their way in. Listening should include identifying key influencers and finding key leverage points for spreading messages. Many organizations will use social media listening tools, like RSS readers, tags and Google alerts, to name a few. After listening is accomplished, organizations need to be smart about how they engage with the public. Smart ideas for engaging with the public could include online polls, thanking people for their efforts or simply initiate a conversation. Engagement also means dealing with criticism, whether it be a destructive attack or a honest disagreement. You can think of this as a way to let the public know you are actually hearing what they have to say and continuing the relationship building process. Yes, building relationships is great, but building strong relationships is even better. Building relationships that are powerful can be achieved by practicing the following:

• Be willing to lose control, people want to contribute in their own way
• Be authentic with your audience, do not have ulterior motives
• Send good into world without expectation of immediate return
• Believe in people and the good they bring to the table
• Follow and support the social media rhythm, do not create or dictate it (but you can use the model below to help predict!)

The ladder of engagement shows how to strategically increase supporter engagement and better understand their efforts towards this. Take a look at a similar engagement ladder showing additional information, from Bloomberg Businessweek.

• Level 1: Happy bystander-listen to content
• Level 2: Spreaders- share information about a cause
• Level 3: Donors- contribute financially
• Level 4: Evangelists- reach out to personal social networks and influence them towards the cause
• Level 5: Instigators- create their own content on behalf of the cause

People can start anywhere on this ladder, working their way up or down. By understanding these levels of engagement, organizations will better treasure their relationships and discover the value they offer.