Social Good Podcast Series

Chronicle of Philanthropy

Allison Fine, a nonprofit leader and expert on technology and communications, discusses how charities and foundations can more effectively use social-media tools to spread their messages and raise money. Ms. Fine will incorporate suggestions and questions from readers into her podcasts and invites you to send e-mail messages to her at afine@demos.org. Look for new installments on the first Thursday of every month.

http://philanthropy.com/media/audio/socialgood/

Create a Listening Dashboard for your Organization

by Amy Sample Ward for NetSquared

This month's Net2 Think Tank question asks, "How do you stay up-to-date online?"  There are so many blogs, news sources, and conversations happening at the same time, every day, and the chances that you'll be able to find them all without trying is pretty unlikely.  There are hundreds of millions of blogs according to Technorati, and that's just blogs! Think of all the places your organization's name, staff, projects, programs or focus area could come up in the news, in campaigns, or in online conversations. 

To stay on top of it all, I suggest you create a listening dashboard for your organization - and here's how to do it!

http://www.netsquared.org/blog/amy-sample-ward/create-listening-dashboard-your-organization

June Holley and The Art of Being Rhizomatic (The Practice of Network Weaving)

Beth Kanter Beth's Blog

http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/10/june-holley-and-the-art-of-being-rhizomatic-the-practice-of-network-weaving.html

The POST Method: A systematic approach to social strategy

by Josh Bernoff | December 11, 2007| http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2007/12/the-post-method.html

10 Ways to Support Charity Through Social Media

| July 14th, 2009 | by Josh Catone for Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/2009/07/14/support-charity-sosg/

Ways to Be Human at a Distance

October 23, 2009 Chris Brogan

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ways-to-be-human-at-a-distance/

Phoebe Owens

Government 2.0 - Best Practices: http://government20bestpractices.pbwiki.com/

"Hey everyone, the intent of this wiki is to compile a central list of current initiatives (and eventually "best practices") involving social media and government. These can be internal or external, marketing or IT, it doesn't matter. I even added a special "unofficial" category at the bottom of each page for all side initiatives. Let's see what we can come up with. Please keep your entries very high level and only fill out what you know. If you don't know the answer to one of the fields, leave it blank. If you see an error, please fix it! Should you have any questions or suggestions for improvement please email me here: mike(at)mikekujawski(dot)ca. Good luck! - Mike Kujawski"

Strategies for mainstreaming networks in philanthropy

Nonprofit organizations trail the private sector when it comes to applying innovative networking practices. The isolation of organizations, limited resources and inadequate know-how may all be to blame. Building the Civil Sector’s Networks: Five Strategies, an excerpt from Net Gains: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change published by the Innovation Network for Communities, asks how the sector can progress from stirring anecdotes to systemic arrangements. The excerpt offers five strategies to overcome systemic barriers to the successful creation and deployment of networks in the sector. The emphasis is on leveraging existing but hidden networks, encouraging experimental work and spreading the word about successful networking strategies. “More networking can beget more networking,” the authors assert. http://www.geofunders.org/document.aspx?oid=a0660000004dErg

Beth Kanter's Twitter Primer:

http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/twitter_primer

Digital Makeover: Do you need one?

July 10, 2008 01:30 PM

Here are two great ways to start learning about social media, examining your organization's online presence and improving the way you work digitally.

1. We Are Media Project - from NTEN and Beth Kanter

The Social Media Starter Kit for Nonprofits: This project is a collaborative approach to build a "toolkit and instructional guides about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world." It is now in its second week, which focuses on strategic thinking about social media. You can see what participants have shared and how the project is growing, by visiting the wiki.

2. Digital Makeover Project - from Simon Fairway

This project focuses on South Yorkshire Funding and Advice Bureau to examine the current state of digital communications, needs, and staff capacity. The strategy development for social media and other technology advancements for the organization are coming from the larger community (even you!). SYFAB's website is very much like that of many nonprofit organizations: it does provide information, but it doesn't provide community or participation, and isn't very welcoming. The organization has 12 employees (some part some full time), so in size it is similar to many other nonprofits as well. This is a great project to stay up-to-date with and learn along with! You can see it unfold on Simon Fairway's NetSquared blog.

Amy Sample Ward

4 Ways Non-Profits Can Use Google Buzz

Geoff Livingston for Mashable.com 04/2010

Despite some initial flaws, Google Buzz () continues to show promise as a social marketing platform. It has a significant (though somewhat latent) user base, with an increasing number of loyalists who swear by it.

When a green field lies before you, so does opportunity. Some non-profits stand to gain from being part of the early Buzz adopter community. Whether a cause needs to further the dialogue with a tech-savvy crowd, or is attracted to the functionality of Gmail () integration, Buzz does bring some new capabilities to bear.

Here are four great uses for Buzz in cause-based activity.

http://mashable.com/2010/03/20/non-profits-google-buzz/

Getting Social Media Right: A Short Guide for Nonprofit Organizations

http://www.bridgespan.org/getting-nonprofit-social-media-right.aspx 10/2010

Imagine you've written a blog about your cause and readers pick up on it, re-tweeting it to Twitter users 400 times. Is that good? How would you know? To answer those questions with any confidence, you have to know what your goals are for that blog—and you have to know how those goals fit into your use of social media, and your organization's mission overall.