One of my projects was to create for our organization a strategic communications’ plan. It has been a rewarding challenge, and one part I have enjoyed very much has been adding strategic social media messaging to our communications. Working with Beth has been a blessing.

This plan has allowed our management team to meet regularly and to plan and executive external and internal communications much more efficiently.

I believe we are on the right track as we cope with an ever-rising service population–serving now 1/5 of Monterey County–nearly 100,000 people with a staff of 16 and a volunteer network of many hundreds. Getting the word out in any way we can to people who need food and to our supporters is essential, and now we have a proactive approach to it all. Tweaking will be ongoing, of course!

Granted this is the most extreme example and many of our other communication efforts are more streamlined and timely, especially our social media efforts. Upon reflection, each has its place in our overall marketing and communication strategy. Nevertheless, nonprofit communication must be thought of much less “promotionally” and be approached much more relationally.

We need to change the question.

Instead of asking “how will we be percieved?” we need to ask ourselves “how does this connect us to the people we care about?” If it were to take three months to draft and vet a Facebook post, we’d have missed the opportunity to connect because we were stuck in meetings haggling over a dangling participle.

If we are asking how does this connect us with the people we care about, we’d be much more deliberate about the balance between the “relational” and “promotional.” To connect with people requires timeliness and a personal touch. At the same time, it requires the attention to detail that shows we care about our message, our cause and ultimately about those we serve. (Sloppy messaging, no matter how timely or personal, is not good.)

Social media not only accelerates the communication effort, but allows for the transparency, trust and reciprocity that you and Allison talk about in The Networked Nonprofit. The scary thing about trial and error for any organization is the fear of wasting time and possibly displaying our failures publicly. No professional communicator wants to publish their “work in progress.” But, a relational culture of communicating should teach us to do our work out in the open, allowing people see the steps in our process, even collaborating with us and helping us improve, respond and adapt.

I am lucky as an AmeriCorps VISTA to serve a Volunteer, Service-Learning and AmeriCorps program office in a small town in Idaho. As their Social Media Developer, I have tried to expand this office’s reach through social media and increase the quality of our web presence using mostly Web 2.0 technology.

I think it’s important that you get everyone in the office using social media, keeping everyone up to date about changes in how it is used for non-profits, and I have recently found that Nutshellmail is popular for those who are interested in social media but have limited time and would rather peruse an email to stay up to date.

The next step for me is to get us on the track of using e-volunteering and taking advantage of the cloud, with crowdsourcing. By working collaboratively online with co-workers and people around the world who share our goals. One example is using Vark.com to ask questions that help us make decisions in the office. For example, we recently asked what was out there to build online learning modules for service-learning, and we got a bunch of great responses, saving us days or weeks of research. It’s only when you’ve plugged into the largest group possible that you can really adapt and be flexible.

Thanks for posting this…I love the idea of cognitive surplus. I may just dedicate my career to it…

I think encouraging a shared mindset among the board and staff that learning from unsuccessful or ineffective ideas and tools is valuable, that trying new things can be positive and actually improve what the organization already does well, and that…{gasp} failure is not the worst thing that could happen, is definitely a start to breaking down the adaptation barrier. Easier said than done, I know. Believe me, I know. Our board president was reluctant to create a website! Shocking, but true.

Please feel free to disagree, but adapting and learning rapidly seems to me to be a function of an organization where the staff and board members each individually believe what Clay talks about, “It is more important to try something new, and work on the problems as they arise, than to figure out a way to do something new without having any problems.”

Again, easier said than done and I am interested to see some feedback on the second part of Beth’s question, for those organizations that do adapt and learn rapidly, how exactly did you get to that point?

Thanks so much for this post Beth! I look forward to reading The Networked Nonprofit.

And, while reluctant to add my birthdate in order to validate my perspective, being wired has more to do with curiosity about the world we live in than age!

And with gentle nudges thanks to books like yours with amazing examples, all generations can find ways to participate in Networked Nonprofits!

Trust me on this one and check the number of grandparents who take on the challenge of Facebook to stay in touch with their grandkids!!!

I bought it with the hope that I can find a way to lead my very small nonprofit to a comfort zone that will allow them to see the value that using social media wisely can bring to our group and the causes we support.

So, rapidly adapting does not ring true for this group quite yet, but I think that Shirky’s idea that trying something new with the assumption that any problems that arise can be solved along the way is good for a small, young and not quite ready to be networked nonprofit like the one I work with.

As I have been reading your book and the excellent examples you and Allison cite, I’m closer to answering my original question – now to find ways to bring my group along!

Enjoyed this post!