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January 28, 2013, 9:27 am
Survey Aims to Measure Effectiveness of Nonprofit Online Videos
YouTube and two marketing companies are collecting data about how people interact with nonprofit videos online.
YouTube is working with See3 Communications, a company that advises charities on creating videos and other materials, and the Edelman public-relations firm to conduct a survey to measure the success rates of videos in North America. The results of that survey will be combined with data from YouTube’s nonprofit program to create a report expected for publication this May, according to See3.
That report will include information on nonprofits’ video budgets, how they distribute videos, and how effective videos are as a marketing tool.
The survey is available online now, and participants will be entered to win a $400 donation to their organization and other prizes. All survey results will be anonymous in the final report.
What questions do you have about video use in…
December 14, 2012, 12:46 am
How Social Media Helped Livestrong Weather a Tough Time
As online community manager at the Livestrong Foundation, Brooke McMillan has been the social-media face for an organization that has spent months at the center of an unrelenting crisis.
Last month the organization announced that its founder, Lance Armstrong, was stepping away from the group’s board and that his name would no longer be part of the organization’s official identity. That decision came after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a detailed report about Mr. Armstrong’s use of performance-enhancement drugs and the Tour de France stripped him of medals he won.
Ms. McMillan says the constant storm of criticism of Mr. Armstrong meant she was spending time on social networks like Twitter and Facebook almost around the clock—largely working to nurture and protect an online community that still cared about the organization, despite its founder’s transgressions.
“We’re…
November 29, 2012, 5:52 pm
Charity Faces Social-Media Blast for Dropping Gilda Radner’s Name
Gilda Radner as her character Roseanne Roseannadanna on “Saturday Night Live.”
Charities change their names for many reasons.
But when Gilda’s Club Madison, a Wisconsin chapter of the cancer-support organization created to honor the late comedian Gilda Radner, announced plans to rechristen itself the Cancer Support Community Southwest Wisconsin, people on social media howled in dismay.
The Madison chapter, which wanted to make its mission clearer to prospective clients, is the third to strip “Gilda” from its name, but its decision has sparked at least two petitions posted on Change.org (one currently with 1,500 signatures, another with 200) urging the Madison group to reverse itself.
Ms. Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989, is best remembered for her 1970s heyday, when she was a beloved …
November 28, 2012, 1:24 pm
When Bad Things Happen to Good Nonprofits Online
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At many nonprofits, just one person is responsible for monitoring conversations on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and elsewhere online.
But Allyson Kapin, founder of Women Who Tech and a founding partner of the Rad Campaign, believes nonprofits should encourage everyone in the organization to play a role in watching what’s happening online.
That makes it easier to cover more ground than one person ever could, but more important, helps people throughout the organization better respond to criticism and understand challenges to its reputation.
“It’s our responsibility as executive directors, as fundraisers, as program managers, to also be in the social-media space and listening to what people are saying about our organizations,” Ms. Kapin says. ”We can’t just rely on a few people on our teams to be doing that.”
In this episode of Social Good…
November 21, 2012, 4:33 pm
Nonprofit Fires Employees After Facebook Photo Causes Controversy
A small Massachusetts nonprofit has fired two employees who were involved with posting a controversial photo on Facebook.
The photo, which depicted one of the employees holding up her middle finger at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, sparked a social-media firestorm that engulfed their employer, LIFE Cape Cod, a Massachusetts nonprofit that provides residential programs for adults with learning and intellectual disabilities.
The photo, which was posted to the personal Facebook page of former LIFE employee Lindsey Stone, was taken while she and seven other LIFE employees were accompanying residents on a trip to Washington.
Ms. Stone’s posting has since gone viral, according to the Web site Gawker.com. A Facebook page called “Fire Lindsey Stone” was created Monday to pressure the nonprofit to take action.
The protest group, which has generated more than 7,000 likes, also…
November 21, 2012, 4:17 pm
Donald Trump’s Tweets About Nonprofit Executives Prompt Outrage
Donald Trump, the real-estate mogul and television personality, has taken aim at two high-profile charity leaders, criticizing them on Twitter for collecting too much in salaries and not spending enough on programs.
The tweets pointed to “reports” about the financial practices of the United States Fund for Unicef and the American Red Cross and have been widely shared by some of Mr. Trump’s 1.9-million followers.
The problem is that the figures are false.
Snopes, a site that checks the validity of Internet-based rumors, labeled the information included in Mr. Trump’s tweets as ”mostly outdated and inaccurate,” saying that the information may have come from a chain e-mail that was first sent in 2005.
Reports are out there that many CEO’s of charities are getting overpaid, while their causes are seeing very little…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2012
…
November 15, 2012, 9:01 am
Pinterest Debuts Pages for Nonprofits and Businesses
Pinterest this week unveiled new free accounts for nonprofits and businesses to help them make better use of the popular social network.
The new accounts don’t look any different from personal accounts, but people who manage the new pages will be prompted to verify their Web sites by uploading an HTML file to their server. They will also be asked to add “follow” and “pin it” buttons to their sites.
Pinterest also added two features that allow people to embed pins and boards on other sites more easily.
To learn more about the new accounts and see case studies from businesses, go to business.pinterest.com.
Will this change how your nonprofit uses the visual social network?
Send an e-mail to Cody Switzer.
November 2, 2012, 12:24 pm
Facebook Tests New Tool for Online Giving
Facebook users can now do more than simply click “like” to support charities on the popular social-networking site.
As part of its new Facebook Gifts feature, Facebook users can donate directly to an organization or let their “friends make the choice” about which organization they should support.
To start, the social network is accepting donations for 11 organizations: the American Red Cross, Blue Star Families, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, DonorsChoose.org, Girls Inc., Kiva, Livestrong, Oxfam America, Rainn, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Water.org.
The effort is separate from Causes, a Web site that allows users to donate to charity through Facebook and other social-networking sites. It has 185-million users, according Matt Mahan, the organization’s president and chief executive.
Facebook Gifts is not yet available to all Facebook users, but it is expanding, a…
October 24, 2012, 11:15 am
Online Fundraising and the Meaning of Life
When Marc Erlbaum was trying to raise $150,000 to finance a series of short films on the meaning of life, he turned to Indiegogo, a site that makes it easy for people and organization to advertise and raise money for projects.
He learned as much about what’s meaningful to people from fundraising as he has from his filming project. When people give through a site like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, “they’re contributing because they believe in something and they know it will come around, ultimately. That’s what’s really refreshing.”
But successful campaigns on mass fundraising sites aren’t easy to run. They often require building relationships with a group of dedicated supporters who are willing go beyond their donations and collaborate on a project.
In the most recent episode of Social Good, The Chronicle’s podcast about social media for nonprofits, Mr. Erlbaum shares what he’s…
October 4, 2012, 10:13 am
Why Nonprofits Need to Do More to Reach People on the Go
If your nonprofit hasn’t found a way to reach people on mobile devices such as iPads and smartphones, a new study suggests that it’s time to start.
More than 13 percent of all Web-page visits in August were made on a tablet or a mobile phone, according to the online measurement company comScore.
That figure is almost double the percentage of Web traffic that came from mobile devices a year ago, the company says.
Tablets accounted for 4.3 percent of all Web traffic and phones for about 9 percent. Even with the growth, desktop or laptop computers remain the most popular devices to view the Internet, providing 86.7 percent of all page views.
Dig deeper: Learn how nonprofits are redesigning their Web sites to appeal to supporters using phones and tablets in this recent Chronicle report.
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