Social Media for Social Change: An Interview with David Neff

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with David Neff, the creator and CEO of Lights. Camera. Help., a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging cause-driven organizations to use film and video to tell their stories. Neff is a Senior Consultant at Ant’s Eye View, and the co-founder of Internet start up HelpAttack! In 2009, he was named the American Marketing Association’s Nonprofit Social Media Marketer of the year and one of the top 20 Social Media people in the state of Texas.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: Your book, The Future of Nonprofits, came out almost a year ago. Has anything changed in your view of what the future holds for the nonprofit sector?

David: Not yet. I think if anything in the past year we are seeing the rise of more and more tools (Gowalla dying off, Pinterest interest rising) but nonprofits are still too obsessed with the tools and not the higher level tactics behind them. Much less concentrating on the objectives and goals that go above the strategy. I hope that starts to change in 2012.

Nell: SXSW Interactive just wrapped up, what is on the cutting edge of technology innovation for social change? What got you really excited?

David: To be honest what got me excited was the privacy push we saw at SXSW. The rise of the informed public as to what brand and nonprofits are doing with their data, who they are sharing it with and how’s it being used. For too long I think the average nonprofit constituent has just written a check or donated online and then not worried about what’s happened with their data. Hopefully more and more nonprofits will re-think their privacy policies just as Google and Pinterest have done.

Nell: Innovation has become quite a buzz word in the nonprofit sector lately. What does it mean to you and what makes an “innovative” nonprofit?

David: Most nonprofits think of themselves as innovative when they simply add a new program or tool to their arsenal. This is the same as when GM calls a new car “innovative” because it has a new cup holder. KONY2012 was not innovative. It was a great cause-driven film that had a clear message to 1) help spread the word about Kony 2) to drive revenue and sales of the awareness items for invisible children. Innovative nonprofits are those out there trying new ideas that go beyond advertising or new programs. When I think innovative I think of the ground breaking campaigns that Stacey Monk at Epic Change is creating.

Nell: You spent 9 years at the American Cancer Society working on their online initiatives. Often it is difficult to bring innovation and new technology to the largest nonprofits. How were you able to innovate within such an organization? And what tips do you have for other “intrapreneurs” working to bring innovations to large nonprofits?

David: Luckily the American Cancer Society had an innovation system in place. One that helped foster new ideas, kill bad ones, and re-direct mediocre ones. We called this the Future and Innovation Center and I was lucky enough to twice receive a grant to create and build new ideas out of this center. Randal Moss (my co-author) was at the helm of leading this center within the American Cancer Society and did an amazing job at funneling new and good ideas into real world products. My tip for other “intrapreneurs” is create the system for them to work in. Take what you learn from our book and create your own internal innovation center at your brand or nonprofit. It’s not hard. We promise. And we are here to help you!

Nell: You’ve recently moved over to the for-profit world, helping companies to employ smart social media strategies. How did you decide to move to the private sector and how do you stay engaged with social change efforts?

David: Good question. I was recruited away from running my own consulting business by the amazing folks at Ant’s Eye View. And was offered a position and challenge that I couldn’t pass up being a sherpa for large companies in their own social and customer experience journeys. It was a no-brainer for me to come and work with some of the smartest people I’ve ever known in this space. I still keep my head in the game of social change by being the CEO of Lights. Camera. Help., which is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to encouraging other nonprofit and cause-driven organizations to use film and video to tell their stories. We do this through our education and volunteer match programs, screenings and an annual film festival.

Tags: American Cancer Society, David Neff, Epic Change, Foursquare, Gowalla, KONY2012, Lights.Camera.Help, nonprofit social media, Pinterest, Stacey Monk, SXSW Interactive, The Future of Nonprofits

Reader Question: How to Create a Budget for Nonprofit Growth

I announced last week that I’m launching a new series on the Social Velocity Blog. At least once a month I will answer a reader’s question on the blog. You can send me questions about social innovation, philanthropy, financing, fundraising, nonprofit management, strategic planning, you name it. This first time around I received so many great questions it took me a long time to choose. But I finally settled on a great one from Kelley Nicoloff.

I love getting your questions, so if you have a question you’d like to see answered on the blog, send it to me at nell@socialvelocity.net, post it on the Social Velocity Facebook page, or send it to me via Twitter @nedgington.

Here’s Kelley’s question and my response.

Hi Nell,

How do you determine a good budget for your non-profit when you are just starting out and have no funding? Right now, I am writing a grant and the grant is requesting statistics on the capital necessary to reach growth goals for the next three years. This is in reference to scalability and opening new sites across the country. Thanks!

Kelley Nicoloff, Uteam4u, Inc.

Kelley,

Whether you are just starting a new organization or you are 20 years into it you always need a plan for the future with an integrated financial plan. Creating a budget is really step 2, so don’t skip the most important step 1, which is to create the overall strategy. If you are writing a grant that requires growth goals over the next 3 years you need an overall plan for the next 3 years of the organization. So before you write that grant request you need to develop a 3-year strategic plan, which will detail your growth goals as part of an overall organizational strategy.

The strategic plan should include:

• Long-Term Goals. A handful of broad goals you want to accomplish over the next 3 years. Typically, the goals break down into:
• 1-2 program, or mission-related, goals. This is where you determine how you want to grow, where and over what period.
• 1 funding goal that describes how much money it will take to make this growth a reality, this is directly related to your budget described below.
• 1-2 infrastructure-related goals that describe the marketing, technology, staffing, board necessary, this is where you will start to outline what capital improvements you will need for growth to happen.
• Objectives for Each Goal. You need to break each goal down into the steps required to get there.




• An Operational Plan. It’s not enough to have a general sense of the direction you want to go in, you need to make the plan completely operational: include activities, deliverables, people responsible, and timeline.




• A Budget. You need to figure out the costs for all of these goals (expenses) and how will you raise the money to meet those costs (revenue and capital). As part of this you need to create a capital budget for the one-time costs of building an organization ready for growth. Your final budget must be directly tied to the goals and objectives of your 3-year strategic plan.

If you follow these steps and come up with a 3-year strategic plan, not only will you have the “good budget” that you need for the grant proposal, but more importantly,  your nonprofit will have put together a measurable, actionable plan for the future. It won’t be just a hoop you had to jump through for this particular funder. You will have a real growth plan that you can feel confident you can actually bring to fruition.

If you want to learn more about creating a financing plan for your organization, check our Creating a Financing Plan webinar.

Photo Credit: Cellular Immunity

Tags: creating a budget, grant proposal, nonprofit budget, nonprofit financing plan, nonprofit grant writing, nonprofit growth planning, nonprofit strategic plan

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: March 2012

March, perhaps because it included SXSW Interactive, seemed to be largely about the use of new media to tell social change stories. There are an increasing number of ways and examples of how those working to solve social problems can tell their stories and get people motivated to act, from video, to Pinterest, to infographics, to data visualizations and much more.

Below are my ten picks of the best reads in social innovation in March, but as always, please add what I missed in the comments. And if you want to see other things that caught my eye, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Pinterest.

1. By necessity, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs are turning to new mediums to tell their story. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has created a showcase of nonprofit infographics and visualizations, and the MediaShift blog profiles the various ways educators are using Pinterest for curation, and finally while at SXSW Interactive, The Chronicle of Philanthropy got 25 nonprofit leaders to film their elevator speeches–it’s fascinating to see the various ways people tell their story quickly.




2. Speaking of video storytelling, there was much debate about the Kony 2012 video produced by nonprofit organization Invisible Children. But I think Paul Shoemaker from Seattle SVP had the most reasoned and interesting take on it all when he argued that nonprofits should not be evaluated based on “one-size fits all” metrics.




3. A new campaign aimed at solving staggering youth unemployment combines technology, crowdfunding and social entrepreneurship. It will be interesting to watch.




4. From the Atlantic, the results of a new study that demonstrates that because of technology and the social media environment how Millennials think and process is changing dramatically, so how we educate future generations must change dramatically as well.




5. Amy Sample Ward gives a great recap of the social good focused sessions at SXSW Interactive.




6. Writing in the New York Times, David Carr, examines “Hashtag Activism,” and whether someone clicking a “Like” button can really change the world.




7. As the arts continue to struggle to find funding amid shrinking audiences and competing charitable priorities, crowd-funding may be the answer.




8. Beth Kanter hosted a great group of guest bloggers from the GeoFunders National Conference on her blog in March, my favorite of which was Adene Sack’s post describing the 3 myths about scaling nonprofits.




9. Writing on the Harvard Business Review blog Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, Simone Ahuja argue that Millennials take a do-it-yourself approach to solving large social problems, “they rely on a frugal and flexible mindset…and use the tools they have on hand to create a simple but effective solution to a highly complex problem. They are the contemporary MacGyvers.”




10. Rich Tafel takes social entrepreneurs to task for “failing to recognize the complex nature of the problems we face [and] engaging in linear, simplistic solutions, when lasting change requires collaborative efforts.”

Photo Credit: kadorin

Tags: Artspire, Foundations, Kickstarter, Kony 2012, Millennials, nonprofit scale, NPTech, Paul Shoemaker, Philanthropy, Pinterest, Seattle SVP, Social Entrepreneurship, SXSW Interactive

Send Me Your Questions

I’m launching a new series on the blog today. I receive so many great comments and questions from readers on the blog. So I want to start a new regular series that answers  readers’ burning questions.

Once a month (or maybe more often depending on the response) I will pick a reader’s question to answer. It can be about anything related to nonprofits, social innovation, boards, financing, fundraising, social innovation, philanthropy, you name it. Each month I’ll pick the most interesting question and write a blog post response to it.

If you have a burning question that you would like me to write about, send me an email at nell@socialvelocity.net, send me a Tweet at @nedgington, or post it on the Social Velocity Facebook page.

And as an incentive, the person whose question is selected for the first month’s post in the series will receive a free copy of my e-book, “10 Traits of a Groundbreaking Nonprofit Board”

So start sending me your questions. I can’t wait to read them!

Photo Credit: e-magic

Tags: board development, Fundraising, nonprofit board of directors, nonprofit fundraising, nonprofit strategic planning, Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, social innovation

Real Innovation in Social Change Lies in Reinvention

I’m excited to announce that I have a new post up at the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Mission:Innovation blog. It is reprinted below. The Chronicle’s Mission:Innovation blog is one of my favorites and was launched last year. Nicole Wallace, a senior writer at the Chronicle, manages the blog, which “reports on nonprofits that are taking bold, new approaches to the way they work, explores what charities can learn from other disciplines, and provides advice from experts on how organizations can better foster new ideas.”

I’m honored to contribute to the blog. Here is the article:

“Innovation” has become such a buzzword lately, particularly among people working on social change. But let’s take a step back and talk about what the word could really mean. Innovation is more than just new ideas. To me, it means taking a completely new approach to how we finance, structure, and prove social change.

The nonprofit world has never lacked new ideas to address problems. In fact, you could argue that nonprofits are innately entrepreneurial, being borne out of a recognized market failing and a new idea to remedy it.

The need, then, is not more new ideas. Rather, true innovation lies in reinventing a field built on social change.

Here are some ways that is starting to happen:

New support mechanisms. The avenues for sending money to social-change efforts are increasing significantly. What started 10 years ago with venture philanthropy has now expanded into nonprofit campaigns to raise growth capital, foundation loans and other investments in organizations, social-impact bonds, and investments that seek both financial and social returns. And that creates an opportunity for social-change efforts to be much more flexible and (we hope) successful, because access to enough and the right kind of money can often make or break a great idea.

A converging economy. We used to suffer from pretty strict delineations among the public (government), private (business), and nonprofit sectors, but that is changing. True innovation is happening where those lines blur—like businesses that make a profit solving social problems. Or governments developing new mechanisms to finance and evaluate nonprofit efforts, such as the Department of Justice’s Pay for Success program.

Proof of social change. Nonprofits used to be viewed as benevolent charities that received donations to support their good work. That’s not enough anymore. Nonprofit donors and social investors are increasingly demanding a social return on investment—proof that the organization is making a difference—in exchange for their money. And nonprofits are now competing not only with other nonprofits but also with for-profit social entrepreneurs. So nonprofits can no longer focus on how many children they’ve read to, meals they’ve served, or animals they’ve saved. They must track and prove how they have changed lives, changed systems, or changed communities.

Although these innovations are encouraging, there is room for so much more. What if:

• The best and the brightest of Generation Y worked to remake existing organizations from the inside out instead of just starting their own social-change groups?
• The social-capital market that’s emerging to provide financial vehicles for budding social businesses also included support for social entrepreneurs in the nonprofit world?
• Venture-philanthropy funds (growth capital for nonprofits) shared investor prospects with social-venture funds (growth capital for social businesses) and vice versa?
• All nonprofits interested in growth and with a proven model for success had access to enough capital and management expertise to expand?
• A nonprofit that solves social problems received as many resources and as much respect and attention as a business that solves a consumer need?

These things require sweeping, fundamental changes to the current structures of the nonprofit, government, and private sectors. To me, that’s real innovation.

Photo Credit: mademoiselle lavender

Tags: Chronicle of Philanthropy, Convergence, Mission:Innovation blog, Nicole Wallace, nonprofit outcomes, social entrepreneurs, Social Entrepreneurship, social impact bonds, social innovation, Venture Philanthropy

Why I Love Pinterest and Nonprofits Should Too

I am far from a social media expert, but I have grown to love some social media tools. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have been my favorites, while I still haven’t seen the value of Google+ (although if someone wants to convince me, I’m all ears). But the newest social media darling, Pinterest is fast becoming my favorite. And I think it holds an enormous opportunity for nonprofits.

Pinterest is a social media network based on images. If you find a recipe, a blog post, a pair of pants, a livingroom set, you can “pin” it to a board and share it with your followers. Similarly, if you see something someone else has “pinned” you can “repin” it to your board. Picture an enormous blank wall with individual bulletin boards organized by your interests.

For example, I currently have 12 “boards”. Some are not work-related like “Home” and “Healthy Recipes.” But the rest are directly related to Social Velocity and my passion for social innovation and the nonprofit sector, like “Nonprofit/Social Change Books,” “Nonprofit Campaigns,” “Cool Infographics,” and “Nonprofit Media.” That last board is actually a shared board among 40+ people and organizations where we can all add to and edit the board.

There are several things about Pinterest that I love. For fun last Saturday night I spent a couple of hours there just scanning and pinning (sad, huh?).

There have been many articles about the potential of Pinterest for companies. People can pin images of particular products and encourage their friends and followers to purchase. What a boon to business!

But I think Pinterest is a particularly powerful opportunity for nonprofits for several reasons:

• Nonprofits are naturally image-based. The every day work that nonprofits are involved in lends itself to compelling images: a child laughing while reading a good book, a hug from a case worker to their client, a new home, a beautiful piece of land conserved, an endangered animal. Include a compelling picture in every story you create about your nonprofit and pin it on Pinterest. You can also pin images from other places that relate to your passion and your mission.




• Nonprofits easily connect to passion. I don’t care how much you love that new vacuum cleaner, you cannot be as passionate about it as you are about the child you are tutoring. People launch nonprofits or donate to nonprofits because an issue really hits them at the core. They may have had a loved one die of a terrible disease, or they may absolutely love border collies. What the social change sector has in spades is passion. Pinterest is a natural place to share that passion and convince others of its worth.




• Female donors are a large and growing force. If you want to attract more of this increasingly influential philanthropic force you better find them where they are, and right now that’s Pinterest. 68% of Pinterest users are female. And they spend a lot of time there. You want to be part of that.




• Nonprofits are all about good story-telling. Pinterest is a natural place for storytelling. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has put together a great gallery of ways nonprofits tell their stories through data visualizations. Although the gallery isn’t on Pinterest, all of these images should be and probably will be soon. Images tell such a better story than words, and nonprofits have so many great stories to tell. Use Pinterest to do it.

If you want a quick guide to getting started on Pinterest, check out this great HubSpot post, although it’s focused on businesses, it definitely applies to nonprofits.

Get out there and give Pinterest a try. I think you’ll like it.

Photo Credit: Mashable

Tags: female donors, infographics, nonprofit social media, nonprofit storytelling, Pinterest, social media

Upcoming Financing not Fundraising Webinar: Creating a Message of Impact

In order for nonprofits to start effectively financing their efforts, they must get prospective donors excited about their impact. Creating a message of impact is the only way to engage and invest people in the work you do. The next webinar in the Financing Not Fundraising webinar series will help your nonprofit create a message of impact.

Our Financing Not Fundraising webinar series has been very popular. Comments from past webinar participants include:

“This webinar was more useful than whole three-day conferences that my nonprofit has sent me to.”

“I loved the reframing of financing for desired results instead of funding for operations…your message to wed money to the mission was a big AHA moment – and am now figuring out how to bring this to life for staff and board.”

“Social Velocity conceptually is way ahead of the curve in nonprofit consulting. Visionary and spot-on!”

The next webinar in the series, Creating a Message of Impact, will help your nonprofit have a more compelling conversation with potential donors. No one likes to beg for money. And donors increasingly aren’t moved to respond to the “tin cup” approach. A far more effective way to communicate with potential donors is to talk about the change your nonprofit is creating in the community.

Donors invest in nonprofits that share their values and are creating change to things the donor really cares about. So in order to attract those donors, nonprofits need to understand and articulate the change they are creating in the community. They need to create a Message of Impact.

This webinar will help your nonprofit:

• Move from begging to investing
• Create a compelling case for support
• Target donors who care about your work
• Get your board excited about asking for money
• Differentiate between donations and investments
• Talk about the work your nonprofit does in the community
• Articulate a social return on investment (SROI) for donors

The registration fee will get you:

• Access to the live, interactive webinar
• A link to a recording of the webinar, which you can watch as many times as you like
• The PowerPoint slides from the webinar
• The ability to ask follow-up questions after the webinar

I hope to see you there!

Financing Not Fundraising: Creating a Message of Impact – Live Webinar
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
12 noon – 1:00pm Eastern

Tags: community change, financing not fundraising, impact messaging, nonprofit fundraising, nonprofit impact, social return on investment, theory of change

Technology for Good: An Interview with Craig Newmark

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist, the web-based platform that has fundamentally changed classified advertising. In early 2011, Craig launched craigconnects, his initiative to link everyone on the planet using the Internet in order to bear witness to good efforts and encourage the same behavior in others.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: You seem to be a different breed from other high-tech philanthropists. What is your philosophy about philanthropy? For you, what’s the best way to do it?

Craig: I’m a nerd, and can be somewhat simplistic. If there’s some area where I can help, I should to that. My broad theme is “technology for good”, where people work together using social media for the common good. So, I proceed on that basis, finding groups who are good at something, usually using tech, at least using social media for outreach, fundraising and more.

Nell: Why is Craigslist Foundation winding down? How and why did you come to that decision?

Craig: I’m not really a part of CLF, and I think the consensus was that it had run its course, and had accomplished a lot.

Nell: With Likeminded and craigconnects you obviously have an interest in making the social sector more transparent and integrated. Do you think that is happening? Are those working on social change (nonprofits, foundations, social entrepreneurs, social investors) getting better at sharing information and what will encourage that?

Craig: I feel that people in the social sector are starting to work together in more and better ways, but it requires folks like me to nudge them together. In particular, I’m chatting with nonprofits about promoting each other in social media, with little success so far.

Nell: A big part of craigconnects is to get nonprofits to collaborate more effectively. Collaboration is often a tricky concept in a sector where the reality of scarce resources breeds constant competition. How do you reconcile collaboration and competition in the space?

Craig: I don’t know yet, but will figure it out, with lots of help.

Nell: Part of the craigconnects model is that you vet the nonprofits that you showcase there based on ratings services like CharityNavigator and GuideStar, so what do you make of recent efforts to move nonprofit ratings systems to outcomes as opposed to use of funds? What are your thoughts on how we create meaningful ways to evaluate nonprofits?

Craig: I think that real measures of nonprofits will involve their effectiveness, but the means of doing so are still under development. Charity Navigator, GuideStar and GreatNonprofits are making real progress.

Tags: CharityNavigator, Craig Newmark, craigconnects, craigslist, craigslist foundation, GreatNonprofits, GuideStar, high tech philanthropy, Likeminded, Philanthropy, social entrepreneurs, social media