RSS
Follow Social Philanthropy through your favorite RSS reader.
Author Archives: Cody Switzer
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 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 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.
October 3, 2012, 5:51 pm
Foundation Grants Aim to Boost Civic Engagement
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation on Tuesday announced $1.3-million in grants to technology projects aimed at getting people more involved in improving their communities and issued a report designed to encourage more money and attention for such efforts.
The four grants announced were:
• $590,000 to Change by Us, a project of CEOs for Cities, that gives citizens an easy place to suggest ideas to make their hometowns more livable. The grant money will help expand the site so it can accept donations, integrate with Facebook, and make the application available for other cities to adopt. The site already has versions for New York, Philadelphia, and Phoenix.
• $250,000 to Good360, an online product-donation site, to create a marketplace where nonprofits can post their needs, find products, and communicate with individual and corporate donors.
• $236,000 to
September 27, 2012, 11:04 am
What Is Keeping Nonprofit Leaders Awake at Night?
The Chronicle asked its followers on Twitter to share what is worrying them most right now in their professional lives. We asked them to reply with the hashtag #charityinsomnia. Here are some of their answers.
September 20, 2012, 3:49 pm
Are Online Philanthropy Contests Worth the Effort?
After this year’s Chase Community Giving contest closed after a troubled start, some nonprofit leaders debated the costs and benefits of participating in these type of vote-driven corporate philanthropy contests in The Chronicle’s LinkedIn group.
Some nonprofit leaders say they have had success with the contests, while others are skeptical of whether the campaigns benefit nonprofits or the corporate donor.
Here are some highlights from the debate:
“My nonprofit won a $25,000 grant via the spring 2011 Chase Community Giving contest… We are interested in a contest if there are good odds and no daily voting requirements, among other things. We did three contests spread through 2011, winning three grants, but we’ve done none this year.” —Anne Bowhay, director of foundation relations at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
“As development professionals, we need to remember…
September 10, 2012, 6:24 pm
Chase Online Contest Draws Ire for Technical Glitches
The prospect of winning a grant from the annual Chase Community Giving contest prompts many small nonprofits to aggressively encourage their supporters to vote in the online competition. Small charities that get the most votes from their online supporters are eligible to win up to $250,000, and a total of $5-million will be awarded through the competition.
But when some of those supporters attempted to cast their votes, they were turned aside.
A swell of visitors to the JPMorgan Chase’s contest on Facebook Thursday, the first day of the competition, slowed the system and made it difficult for some to vote for their favorite nonprofits.
By Monday, those issues had been resolved, said Erich Timmerman, a Chase spokesman. But many nonprofits are nonetheless using the contest’s Facebook page to post complaints about the competition and raise questions about its fairness, which has…
E-mail a Friend
