Check out this great infographic about how the top 50 nonprofits use social media from craigconnects! You can , and for more great info about nonprofits!
Posts Tagged ‘Nonprofit’
How The Top 50 Nonprofits Do Social Media
Friday, October 28th, 201110 Things to Consider Before Starting a Volunteer Recognition Program
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010An effective recognition program with the right mix of formal and informal recognition systems and that truly functions as an integral component of a volunteer program can honor and motivate volunteers for their contributions.
Formal volunteer recognition can include certificates, plaques, pins, or dinners to honor volunteer achievement.
Informal recognition occurs in the daily interchange between volunteers and the organization when its staff conveys appreciation for the volunteers’ work.
Volunteer recognition programs help to:
- Communicate basic volunteer standards;
- Identify organizational volunteer best practices and trends;
- Create role models and set benchmarks for volunteers;
- Strengthen the bond between volunteers and the organization; and
- Create and/or strengthen brand awareness and marketing opportunities.
Answer these 10 questions to help your organization develop and implement an effective volunteer recognition program:
1. How much staff time can be devoted to administering the recognition program? Will it be administered from
the organization’s headquarters or local offices? (Okay, that’s two questions. Quit being so literal!)
2. Who should be included in the development of the program?
3. How will senior management or program leadership buy-in be secured for the recognition program?
4. How can the recognition program help to meet the volunteer program objectives and overall organizational
needs?
5. What are the best practices of similar organizations’ volunteer recognition programs?
6. Is there an existing recognition program that can be adapted and customized to suit the needs of the organization (For example, see the President’s Volunteer Service Award or the Daily Points of Light Award.)
7. How do your volunteers want to be recognized for their community service? How can you incorporate recognition mechanisms that work for different types of volunteers (e.g., long-term and short-term volunteers)?
8. What will the award criteria and eligibility rules include? Who will judge the award nominations?
9. How will the volunteer award(s) be announced (e.g., special ceremony)? What communications vehicles
currently exist to promote the award internally and externally?
10. Should external counsel and expertise be sought to help develop this volunteer recognition program? Are there
core functions of the program that should be outsourced?
What ideas or thoughts would you add?
10 Ways to be A Social Media Rock Star at NCVS
Sunday, June 13th, 2010The 2010 National Conference on Service & Volunteering (NCVS) is nearly here!
It will be held on June 28th – 30th in New York City.
Thanks to social media, there are lots of ways you can participate online– whether you’re there or not!
1. Facebook
“Like” the so that the official wall posts show up in your Facebook news feed.
You are welcome and invited to post thoughts, ideas, etc. to the The National Conference on Volunteering & Service Facebook page.
2. Crowdvine
In order to help you meet and connect with as many people as possible, we’ve set up a conference social networking site where you can see who’s coming, find out what they have to share and make plans to get together.
Create your own NCVS attendee profile here and see who else is coming.
Meet up before you even get to New York!
3. Eventbrite
This free tool will allow you (or anyone) to organize an event around conference and invite anyone.
Want to host a breakfast to discuss the topic of your dreams?
Want to organize an affinity group meetup?
Want to suggest an afterhours meet up spot?
You can do all of this with eventbrite.
Check out what your fellow conference attendees are organizing so far.
4. Blogging
You are invited to write a blog post (for your own blog or as a guest post on ours) about a session you’re excited about leading up to conference or reviewing a session you attended afterward.
Blogging is a great way to share what you’re excited about and/or what you’ve learned.
The HandsOn Blog editorial guidelines are here and the National Conference Blog editorial guidelines are here.
If you write a post for your own blog, send us a link to it at
5. Twitter
to hear all the official conference tweets.
Additionally, follow the conference conversation by . (The search bar is located in the right sidebar of your Twitter homepage.)
Each NCVS workshop session and forum is assigned a unique session #hashtag.
While the overall conference conversation will take place on the #NCVS hashtag, you can follow individual session twitter streams by searching on the unique session #hashtag.
For example, the Social Media for Social Good Forum hashtag will be #SM4SG and, if you follow that hashtag from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 29th, you’ll hear what everyone in the forum is saying about it.
Join the conversation by adding “#NCVS” to your tweets — adding that hashtag in your tweet is the way to have your tweet show up in the conference twitter stream.
You can also follow HandsOn Network as well as our NCVS Featured Tweeps list.
Here’s a hint from Chris Jarvis of Realized Worth – If you want, you can cut & past twitter list name in to Tweepml.org and follow everyone on the list with one push of the button.
(Make yourself an NCVS Featured Tweep by tweeting “Make me a featured tweep “)
It’s super easy to follow twitter conversations using your cell phone so before conference, you might want to download a cell phone application for managing Twitter.
See all the conference tweets organized by session on our Tweet Notes page.
6. FourSquare
FourSquare at conferences can be fun.
Want to know who’s in the room with you at any given NCVS session? “Check-in” using FourSquare and you’ll be able to see who else is there.
Maybe you’ll even unlock a swarm badge!
7. Delicious
Delicious (formerly del.icio.us, pronounced “delicious”) is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks.
On Delicious, users can tag each of their bookmarks with freely chosen term.
A combined view of everyone’s bookmarks with a given tag is available; for instance, the URL “http://delicious.com/tag/ncvs” displays all of the most recent links tagged “NCVS”.
Its collective nature makes it possible to view bookmarks added by other users.
See all the great NCVS content saved to Delicious and add your own!
8. Flickr
Share your NCVS photos with everyone using the HandsOn Network Flickr group. You can upload your favorite conference shots by clicking on the words “add something.”
9. YouTube
Send links to your favorite NCVS videos and we’ll add them to our NCVS playlist on .
Send your video links to .
10. LinkedIn
Start a LinkedIn affinity sub-group on .
You can hold forum style discussions here on topics before conference and / or continue discussions that were initiated at NCVS.
See you in New York – or online!
#NCVS!
Hello Fundraisers! Meet Crowdrise.
Thursday, June 10th, 2010by Robyn Stegman
(Originally posted on Narrations on the Life and Times of Robyn Stegman and cross-posted here with the author’s permission.)
Okay I’m hooked on Crowdrise. Yesterday at the Mashable Media Summit Edward Norton spoke about his new project: . Initially I was skeptical. Do we really need a new online fundraising site? What makes this project so special?
Then Edward Norton said this:
We’re actually getting a lot of phone calls from organizations that we haven’t even engaged with saying ‘Who are you and why are we getting checks through ‘ And we’re saying it just means that somebody out there who supports you has gone and set up a fundraiser and started raising funds for you.
Wait a sec, bud! You mean that people will fundraise for nonprofits and you don’t even have to ask them to do it? They don’t even have to register on the site? I’ve got to try this out!
So I started a profile, and like claimed in his talk it was really simple. It took me about twenty minutes to get a complete profile and I’ve got to say it looks pretty cool!
That’s when I began to notice the difference between Crowdrise and other sites. For starters it has some of the best copywriting I’ve seen. The beginning of their How it Works section reads:
Please only read all this if you’re super bored or you’re writing a paper on ways to give back and you’re looking for something to plagiarize..
This perhaps is my favorite text from the site which you get while uploading a photo:
You’re going to see this message every time you post a new pic. So, we’re making the text really long so that it’ll take you at least five picture uploads to read it all. Here’s what we’re thinking…While you’re first picture is uploading think about someone you want to kiss. When you upload your second pic think about one friend who you can beat in a race. On your third photo upload think about your favorite food that begins with the letter H. While your fourth picture is uploading think about how great it would be if you were a world class breakdancer. While your fifth picture is uploading try to think of the best candy to eat if you were a mime spending a month in New Zealand. If you upload a sixth and seventh picture please just read all of this again.
And for those of you who can’t get enough of rock, paper, scissors you can actually choose your preference on your profile. Every once in a while a player on Crowdrise will throw rock, paper, or scissors and if whatever you have on your profile beats it you get 1,000 points.
That’s right points. Every time you raise money or someone votes for you on Crowdrise you get points. What do they do?
Points mean potential prizes, lots of respect and hopefully one day, a trip to the White House or at least a trip to Vegas.
For all of you in the volunteer and service field Crowdrise can help you turn your dedicated volunteers into fundraising machines! It has volunteer pages where volunteers can ask their friends and families to help support their volunteer efforts and they can also show them exactly how many hours they’ve given to your organization.
So I admit it, I’m hooked. For those who still aren’t sure here are a couple of other gems of Crowdrise;
- Ease of Use: Crowdrise nearly all US 501(c)3 charities already in its database so you don’t even have to register to allow people to fundraise for you. However if you do want to spruce up your site you can go ahead and claim it and simply update your profile.
- Celebrities: Edward Norton isn’t the only celebrity using this system. Already Seth Rogan and Will Farrel have signed up. In fact if you donate to Will Farrel’s cause you get a with semi-nude pictures of him on them.
- Personalized Fundraising: The profiles and projects profiles give you tons of space to post pictures, a place to post a video, and places to tell your story. Since each project has to be supported by a person not an organization it really allows the fundraising to be about you and your story. I think that is the best part about this site and what gives it potential to change the fundraising game.
- Picture of Napkin: ‘Nuff said.
Last note for AmeriCorps members, program directors, alums, etc.: Let me just say this has some great potential to allow members to fundraise and give back to their sites. In fact a City Year member (which is a national AmeriCorps program) is featured on the front page of their website. City Year LA is already using it by encouraging members to sign up and share their City Year stories on their profiles and challenging them to raise money for their projects and for City Year. I’m excited to see how this project evolves and see how other people in national service can use this to build their programs.
S
o now that I’ve signed up who should I fundraise for? Any suggestions?
What do you think about Crowdrise? Are you using it? How? Are you hooked? Are you unsure? Let me know! I’m always listening .
Robyn Stegman is an AmeriCorps VISTA, social media nerd, and founder of Geeks for Good. Follow her year of service on Twitter
