Archive for the ‘Capacity’ Category

Jan

2012

17

Category:

Books, Capacity

Tags:

2 Comments

Does Your Nonprofit Need Legal Counsel About Using Social Media?

Source: amazon.com via Beth on Pinterest

 

 

Over the past couple of years as I’ve guided nonprofits in preparing their social media policies or when I speak,  I get asked questions that are more legal issues than about using social media.   Here’s a sampling:

  • Our organization does advocacy around some policy issues.  How do the rules on lobbying play into our social media strategy?    What if we’re asking people to take action on Facebook, does that constitute lobbying?  What do we need to be do to protect our 501-c3 status?
  • We run a social service agency that provides counselling to people.   What if people ask for referrals or help on our Facebook page?   How do we respond without creating any -potential liability for our organization?
  • One of my employees has asked me to write a recommendation on LinkedIn,  if they were fired – could our organization be sued?
  • What do we need to understand about copyrighted material and our content strategy?
  • Our organization runs a youth programs kids under 18,  what if the kids want to friend the teachers on Facebook? Can we post their photos on Facebook or our Web Site?   What are the legal issues?
  • When should our organization consult a lawyer when we have concerns about our organization’s social media usage?

First, let me clear.  I’m not a lawyer nor do I play on television.   When I get asked this question,  I point people to resources with this disclaimer:  “CYA – Consult Your Attorney!”

Now, I have another great resource to share,   Good Counsel:  Meeting the Legal Needs of Nonprofits by Lesley Rosenthal, the astute General Counsel of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.   It is an thorough guide for the most common legal, governance, and fundraising compliance issues facing nonprofits.     Her writing style is less lawyerly, and well, human.   The book is filled with stories, practical resources, and tools.      The book is written for staff and board members.      While the advice in the book does not replace an attorney,  having this on your reference desk can help you be more efficient your attorney’s time because you’ll come to meetings educated.

The chapter about communications meets legal covers trademark review, third-party rights clearance, consumer regulatory compliance , and general review of communications strategies.     The points related to online tactics include such items as a web site privacy policy, sweepstakes, other privacy considerations such as HIPPA, and social media sites.       Rosenthal educates about these laws and the implications for nonprofits in pretty clear langauage and points out that these laws apply to social media sites.  She also covers the role of counsel if the organization finds itself thrown into a crisis communications situation where there is unflattering media attention or a “twitter storm.”

There is an entire chapter devoted to the limits on nonprofit organizations’ political activities as we know that 501c3 organizations are strictly prohibited from intervening or participating in political campaigns.  However,  what is or what isn’t permissible isn’t always clear.   The chapter shares some examples what is permissible and what isn’t permissible political activities.   It also describes what lobbying is and summarizes what record keeping, registrations, and disclosures are needed.

Each chapter of the book ends with some focus questions and checklist for a work plan.   The questions for this chapter are useful to help you identify specific activities or examples from your organization that you are not sure about and to share them with your legal counsel.

  • What kinds of political activity must a 501c3 organization avoid altogether?
  • What might happen if a 501c3 organization endorses or opposes a political candidate?  Cite a case example.
  • What are some politically related activities are permitted to undertake?
  • What steps can a nonprofit staff take to ensure that their personal political activities are not ascribed to the organization?
  • What is lobbying?
  • How do lobbying rules differ from rules of political campaigns?
  • How much lobbying may a 501c3 do?
  • What disclosure are required?
  • What are our state’s registration requirements for nonprofits lobbying activities?

A check list to work through with your legal counsel:

1.)  Review policies and practices for compliance with the absolute ban on intervening in political campaigns
2.)  Review lobbying activities to ensure it complies with laws (Public policy issues and limited part of organization’s activity)
3.)  Check bylaws for provisions regarding lobbying activity
4.)  Determine compliance with record keeping and registration requirements
5.)  Determine compliance with federal, state, and local reporting requirements and Form 990 disclosures
6.)  Find out whether organization has any significant history of regulatory action
7.)  Find out whether the organization has made a 501 h election
8.) Assess whether planned or desired political activities suggest a change in corporate form, spinoff, or establishment of sub-section 501c4 entity.

While not every activity that bears on politics or government counts as lobbying, the chapter notes that there is a lot of uncertainty in this area and many shades of gray.   Also, the penalties can be severe for 501 (c) (3) organizations that cross the line.     The book emphasizes this point:   If your organization has questions or is unsure,  consult with qualified legal counsel!

The book covers much more than legal issues related to your organization’s communications strategy.  It covers:  contracts, intellectual property, fundraising, financial disclosure, human resources, operations, facilities management, and political activities.   All in all, a useful reference to help you prepare working with your organization’s counsel.

What resources has your organization used to become educated about legal matters, social media, and your nonprofit?

Additional Resources:

Influencing Public Policy in the Digital Age by the Alliance of Justice
Friends, Tweets, and Links:  IRS Treatment of Social Media Activities by 501c3 Organizations
Social Media Policy Resources (includes links to legal issues)

Jan

2012

03

Category:

Capacity, reflection

Tags:

22 Comments

Taking 18 Minutes Day Towards A Year-Long Focus

Flickr Photo by Sebr

Over the holiday break,  I read  18 Minutes:  Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman who blogs at at the HBR.  This book is a gem.  Each chapter starts with a personal story that illustrates a concept related to managing unproductive distractions.   What’s refreshing and different about this book is that it isn’t about trying to get everything done efficiently.  Instead he guides you on how to focus on what matters and ignore the rest.     He offers both daily techniques that help you reach longer-term goals.

He suggests setting year-long goals.   His strategy for that is how to survive a buffet.    There are so many good choices with a buffet that you end up stuffing yourself and over-eating.  The way to avoid that discomfort is to limit yourself to putting five items on your plate.   That forces you to be strategic about what you pick.   The same discipline applies to setting an annual goals.   He identify 5 things to focus on for the year.

Bregman also suggests picking an overall theme for year.  I love Bregman’s idea.    The theme he selected for the year really resonated with me:  Slow Down.   Bregman talks about benefits of this theme:

My thought was that if I focused only on slowing down, everything else would improve. And, so far, it has. And what I thought would be a downside has actually been a positive: Slowing down has meant that I can’t get as much done. Which has forced me to make strategic choices about what to spend my time on and what to ignore. I’m more thoughtful, less scattered, and enjoying my work more fully. Counter-intuitively, I’m more productive.

That’s what I need.    So, I’m going to make that my theme, too.  This past year of writing the book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit” with KD Paine and editor Bill Paarlberg,  I got a taste of slowing down.   Writing a book required  a much deeper level of focus and paying attention.  I want to sustain that focus throughout the year and apply to what I do — from content curation to blogging to facilitating trainings and developing curriculum.    Be more of a focusing lens versus a fire hydrant.

Here’s some areas that I want go slow with:

  • Teaching and Learning: These terms are really one – you need both to be a good instructor or trainer.     My goal is to learn how to design the best learning opportunities for nonprofits to embrace networked ways of working, measurement, or strategic social media.    This will be a big focus of work at Packard in the coming year and what I want to blog more about.    Learning is also important – both what the learners are learning and also my own learning.  I’m not a happy camper unless I’m learning something and for me learning is about reflection – which includes blogging and establishing rituals like the 18 minute process that Bregman shares in his book (see below.)  To be successful in either teaching or learning, you have to slow down.
  • Measurement and Content Curation:   These are two focus areas that I want incorporate into my social media training.   They are content areas but also skills.  I’ve been immersed in writing about measurement and testing instructional frameworks this year.  Now, I want to refine those in more workshops and peer group learning opportunities.  I’m also interested in content curation and have been practicing it and teaching it, but want to take that to the next level.
  • Networked NGO:  I’ll be combing the two above in all my training work during 2012.  I will be designing and facilitating capacity building programs in the Middle East, Africa, and India.  I want to learn as much about how networked ways of working are used outside the US context.

Having a focus helps you say no to activities that fall into “all the rest” bucket.   Saying no is a muscle that needs to be exercised daily.    This year I’m incorporating a couple of techniques.   First, I’m going to create an ignore list in addition to my to do list.    Second,   I’ve always kept gratitude journals, but now I’m also to keep a “no thanks” journal  or record what I’ve said no to.

But keeping your focus day in and day out for an entire year can be a real challenge.   Bregman has a method for that.  It is the 18 minutes in the title of his book.  The 18 minutes refers to the importance of creating a daily habit of reflection and focus on what you want to accomplish, knowing that you won’t get everything done.   Here how it works:

Step 1:    Morning Minutes (5 minutes)
Before your turn on your computer, plan ahead for the day.   Decide what will make the day successful and that will further your focus for the year.  Put that on your calendar and don’t take more than three days to do it.

Step 2: One of Reflection for Each Hour (8 minutes)
He suggests setting a watch or timer to remind you each hour.  When you hear the beep, reflect and ask yourself if you’ve been productive in the last hour.  This is similar to the pomodoro technique

Step 3:  Evening Minutes (5 minutes)
Shut off the computer and review how your day went.  What did you accomplish?  What could be improved? What I have learned?

It’s a simple, powerful technique to help you select your daily focus deliberately and wisely and remind yourself of this focus throughout the day.  But  your daily ritual needs to support an annual or yearly theme.    This is the time of year to ask and answer:  What is the year about?   It is the time of year to create good daily habits so you achieve it.

What’s your year about?  What new habits will you create so you have the focus to reach your goals?

Aug

2011

17

Category:

Capacity, Measurement, Organizational Culture

Tags:

13 Comments

How Can Nonprofits Switch to a Data-Informed Culture?

Example of A/B Testing Results

I’ve been reflecting on why some nonprofits do a better job of  measurement and learning, while others do not.  What is the difference?  It comes down to organizational culture.   The nonprofits that embrace measurement have a data-driven culture.  That is they make decisions based on meaningful data, rather than solely by gut.

Not all nonprofits are born with the spreadsheet gene.    And it isn’t simply a technical problem that can be solved through training or purchasing analytics software.   The  challenge has to do with organizational beliefs and work styles.    Whether it be a widely held belief that measurement practice is not worth investing resources.  Or a practice that swings the other away where there is an excessive investment in collecting gobbly gook data to appease a funder.

What is needed for  nonprofit organizations to make this shift?

The Evolutionary Stages of  A Data-Driven Culture

It is helpful to look at making the switch  as an evolutionary process.   In the end, it comes down to leadership.

Dormant: At this stage, the organization does not know where to start.  Does data collection may occur from time-to-time, but not formal reporting.   There are no systems in place, no dashboards or simple collection method.  Staff is often overwhelmed by thought of measurement and the task falls to the bottom of the to do list.     Or there is an emphasis on collecting lots and lots of data, but does not relate it to decision-making.  There not is a reflection process for analyzing success or failure to take into next use or campaign.

Testing and Coordinating: At this stage, the organization is regularly collecting data but in a bunch of different spreadsheets and collected by different people or departments.  Data is focused on the metrics that are specific to social media channel.   It is used to  improve  content, messaging, and engagement on specific channels.  Social media data is not linked to higher level organizational results or mission-driven goals across programs.   Discussions on how to improve results are rarely part of staff meetings.

Scaling and Institutionalizing: Has an organization wide system and dashboard for collecting measurement data that is shared with different departments.    Has different views or level of detail for senior leaders,  implementors, and different departments.    Holds weekly campaign check-ins to evaluate what’s working and what’s not across communications channels, as well as, any specific social media feedback received that would help shape our future campaigns or social media use.   Monitors feedback from target audience in real time but balances with trend or survey data.     Documents quantitative results against goals and value when asked by senior leadership.   Works with measurement consultants or specialists to improve skills and capacity.   Provides training and professional development for staff to learn how to use measurement tools.

Empowering: Sets organization wide key results areas and key performance indicators that are used across programs.   Has a staff position responsible for stewarding organization’s data, but staff are empowered to check and apply their own data.    In addition to weekly check-ins, the organizational dashboard includes  key performance metrics related to goals as well as more detailed metrics.  The organizational dashboard is shared across departments and there is a process for analyzing, discussing, and applying results.  They use data visualization techniques to report the data analysis but also to reflect on best practices culled from the data.

There is a regular report to senior leadership which details high level successes, challenges, and recommendations for moving forward.    Staff performance reviews incorporate how well the organization is doing on KPIs.  Works with measurement consultants or specialists to improve skills and capacity or to commission independent study and provides training and professional development for staff.    Celebrates successes by sharing measurement data across the organization.

DoSomething.Org: A Data-Driven Nonprofit In Action

DoSomething.Org is most definitely moving into the “Empowering Stage”  and are leaders in the non-profit world for exhibiting the characteristics and work habits of a data-driven organization.    Look at their approach to social media measurement in this terrific slide show by George Weiner, CTO, at DoSomething.Org called “What Does The Data Say.”   Despite being a relatively small nonprofit, they have a “Data Analyst” on staff, Bob Filbin.      What makes an organization to make this kind of investment in being data-driven?

It has to do with leadership.   Their Board, which is dominated by leaders in the tech field including Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linked-In, and Raj Kapoor, co-founder of Snapfish, are all staunchly behind the philosophy of  ”The future of the web is data.”

The board supports the organization’s orientation towards using tech and data to realize its mission.   CEO  Nancy Lublin was  the driving force for hiring a data analyst and leading the charge for DoSomthing.Org to become a poster child for a data-driven nonprofit.

So, what does a data analyst do at a nonprofit?  It is more than hiring someone who knows how to program formulas in Excel spreadsheets.  Bob’s  job is to make sure that  departmental and overall organizational goals are aligned, and that social media data are seamlessly integrated into achieving their  organizational key results.

Bob’s responsibility is less to provide fish to staff, but more to teach them how to fish.   “My goal is to make sure that every person on staff has access to the data they need in order to create actionable changes in the way they do their programs. Ideally, each person will receive the data they need with automated dashboards that have different levels of detail and ladder up to organizational results.”

One of the biggest barriers in nonprofits for staff is finding time to devote to rigor and discipline measurement.  The time to collect data, the time to analyze, and the time to action on it.   Bob concurs.  ”DoSomething.Org understands the value of data-driven social change and has backed that up by creating a “data team” of three staff people.  For the past month-and-a-half, I’ve been working organizing our data collection, storage, analysis, and dissemination efforts.  Unless someone is put in charge of data, and it’s a key part of their job description, accelerating along the path towards flying is going to be hard, if not impossible.”

Bob points out the secret is to not to collect more data, but smarter data.   He says, “Just in case data collection can get in the way of achieving goals because it is wasted energy and time.  I am working with each department to make sure departmental  all data collection supports decision-making. ”

Do.Something is integrates critical metrics from social media,  e-mail, SMS, and Web.    They don’t just count the data, they use it to improve their tactics.    Says Bob, “DoSomething.Org uses A/B testing, where people can be randomly assigned to get different messages simultaneously. ”  This fall, DoSomething.org will start a push to acquire members via mobile phone, and A/B testing will be a crucial part of figuring out how to keep those new members engaged.  (The graph above is an example.)

Bob likes to quote Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google,     “I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” to others on the DoSomething.Org staff.  He thinks the business world is moving in the direction of more data analysis. “With the advent of social technology, we are facing an avalanche of data. The goal is to be able to sift through it, and find the diamonds in the rough on how to improve organizational effectiveness. That’s where statisticians, or data analysts, come in.   Non-profits know this is true, but the problem is investing in the resources needed to become a data-driven non-profits.”

Bob also believes that part of the problem moving away from making decisions by “gut” feelings, or intuition.  Bob says, “The data should tell us whether or not the program is effective.”

To make the shift, Bob suggests using small wins and share an example from an analysis on Facebook Ads for an event sign up.  ”We discovered the conversion rate was very low because we directed people to an external site (our web site) versus a sign up on Facebook.”   This insight will help use Facebook ads more effectively the next time around.”

Bob also talks about how to overcome resistance on staff to using data for decisions.  ”Your reports should be presented in a way that seeks to avoid bruised egos. Rather than bringing a number to a meeting, people should be reviewing their own statistics and data.     This is part of what I am doing at Do Something – closing the data loop. Making sure each department can access its data to answer their questions.”

Tips for Making the Switch

Culture is an organization’s operating patterns of behavior, activities, and attitudes, influenced by a shared set of values and beliefs that characterize the way people work together.  Changing a nonprofit culture isn’t as simple as
identifying the new ways of working you want to see or articulating a new set of beliefs and values associated with them.   Most people won’t change their behaviors until they observe the role models in their organization acting
differently as DoSomething.Org has done.   Also, when new behavior is positively recognized and rewarded — job promotions or some praise from the top of the organization –  change begins to happen.

1. Start at the top. Does your Executive Director know where the organization stands?  Educate through examples – showing how adding a data-driven approach to your social media can avoid ineffective campaigns and increase audience satisfaction.  The organization’s leadership needs to model and encourage a data-driven approach.

2.  Make the case to improve your measurement practice. The only way to evolve is through implementing a series of social media measurement pilots and small data wins.        Keep the end in mind when agreeing to how experiments will be structured, run, and measured.

3. Think big, but take baby steps. Start with looking at Key Result areas and key performance indicators, but since these may outcomes deal with long-term changes, you can’t get there overnight.  Keep the steps in the plan small and manageable.   Use measurement pilots.

4.  Share stories: Celebrate every bar graph that leads to a program or campaign victory.    Share it at staff meetings.    Also circulate stories about other nonprofits that have  become data-driven success stories.

Does your nonprofit have a data-driven culture?  How are you making the shift?  Where does social media measurement fall in that mix?

I’m working on a book with KD Paine about social media, networked nonprofits, and measurement.    Have a story to share?  Let me know in the comments.  You could be in the book!

May

2011

18

Category:

Capacity, Strategy

Tags:

3 Comments

Are You Charting Impact of Your Social Media?

The BBB Wise Giving Alliance, GuideStar USA and Independent Sector launched “Charting Impact,” a standard framework to easily and clearly understand the objectives, benchmarks for progress, and impact of nonprofits and foundations.    Charting Impact uses five deceptively simple questions that require reflection and discussion about what really matters – results.

  • What is your organization aiming to accomplish?
  • What are your strategies for making this happen?
  • What are your organization’s capabilities for doing this?
  • How will your organization know if you are making progress?
  • What have and haven’t you accomplished so far?

What if organizations focused these simple questions on their social media strategy using common sense measurement as my colleague Kami Huyse describes it in Geoff Livingston‘s,  forthcoming book Welcome to the Fifth Estate.

What if we made sure the process for identifying  SMART objectives included capacity building, measurement, and reflection?   What if we stepped away from the process of checking off items on our to do list, and spent a little bit of time charting impact of our nonprofit’s social media use?

Apr

2011

27

Category:

Capacity, Training Design

Tags:

9 Comments

Learning In Public On Wikis

Photo by Beth Kanter

I’m just beginning a new crop of peer learning projects for nonprofits to learn the practice of being  networked nonprofits and use social media effectively at Zoetica and through my work as Visiting Scholar at the Packard Foundation.

I’m also trying to shift my own practice into more design and train the trainers and coach the coaches versus direct delivery.   It’s hard because you have to be very disciplined about noticing and documenting your practice.

Wikis can be terrific platforms for supporting professional learning in real time, but it requires a comfort level with  “learning in public.”    Learning in private is what most of us did in school.  You wrote your essay, studied your spelling words, took tests (without looking at anyone else’s answers!).   Learning was an individual, often solitary activity.    For many of us of a certain age, that style has carried over to our work culture where we are rewarded for our expertise and to keep quiet what we don’t know (or screw up).

Social media has unleashed a fabulous opportunity for professional learning about practice  in public.   And that can be fun too! Certainly less exhausting than having to know everything.

Creating an environment for learning in public means that it is okay to say “I don’t know” about an issue or problem and to ask others what they think.  When professionals acknowledge not knowing and reach out to a colleague, it not only opens us to learning, but it signals to others.    Using social media and  networked approaches successfully requires a culture shift away from learning in private to learning public or what Nancy White has called “Over the Shoulder Learning.”

How do you do this?   How do create an environment where it is okay to learn in public?  This environment can be a training workshop or it can be in an organization.  One answer comes from Eugene Eric Kim in a presentation he did about networks, “Be the Change You Want To See” – it’s about modeling.

Three Different Designs for Public Learning On Wiki

Over the past five years, I have created many wikis to support online learning projects and wikispaces has been one of my platforms of choice because it is easy to use, free, and integrate other social media content.   There are three different models:

Personal Learning or Portfolio Wikis: My first wiki was  more “wiki portfolios” as my colleague Marshall Kirkpatrick phrased it.    But it is more than an social media resume.

You can also use a wiki as a professional learning journal – a place to seek, make sense, and share learning about their practice.   It’s open or public document.   It can be “transparent” so others can peer or browse or can be open and others contribute or comment.   I’ve created a couple spaces like this for:  Listening and  Screencasting.    Debra Askanase has a terrific space for Facebook Landing Tabs.

Peer Learning: The wiki is used a platform to capture group knowledge about practice.  Often,  face-to-face and conference calls are used to supplement the group’s work together as well as other social media platforms.   Examples include the Social Media Lab,  Leveraging Social Media for Arts Organizations, and the Networked Funders.

Network Learning: This example involves a network of people looking at a field of practice beyond a peer learning group.   For example, on the  Packard Foundation OE wiki , which started as a “see through filing cabinet”  has moved into engaging with nonprofit consultants and evaluation geeks about the prelminary findings of its evaluation of nonprofit consulting practice.   NTEN facilitated a wiki to create workshop curriculum for social media and nonprofits with more than 200 nonprofit technology practitioners as part of the WeAreMedia project.

How else are nonprofit professionals,  organizations, and fields using social platforms like wikis for public learning about practice?

12