Posts about nptech
Nonprofit technology articles address specific software and services useful to nonprofit groups.
The NetSquared Year Three conference has gotten off to a great start: nonprofit staffers, activists, techies and funders gathering to talk about — and award some money to — using technology for social change.
This week, the Genocide Intervention Network was honored to be nominated by the NetSquared community as a 2008 Featured Project for our proposal to upgrade and extend the DarfurScores.org website. Thank you to everyone who offered your support!
In return for NetSquaredNetSquared is an organization "remixing the web for social change" by bringing together nonprofits, activists, techies, social entrepreneurs and funders. These articles deal with using social networking and "web 2.0" technologies for social change and advocacy.'s generosity, I wanted to post some tips for nonprofits thinking about using DrupalDrupal is an open-source content management system (CMS) used for many complex nonprofit sites. Other examples of CMSes include WordPress, Joomla! and Plone. for their sites — when to use it and when not to use it, as well as a few useful tidbits from a recent workshop.
For the Genocide Intervention Network, involvement in the "social web" is really an outgrowth of our entire mission: To form the first anti-genocide constituency, and to empower our members with the tools to prevent and stop genocide. The words "constituency" and "empower" are key. We're not simply looking for a mailing list or an ATM — we want an educated, active movement of people interested in preventing and stopping genocide. Our members need to be able to think for themselves on the issue, not to simply be another name on a list, but to be a hub in an ever-expanding network.
Although these two panels — "Leveraging the Power of Participatory Media" and "The Future of Online Outreach" — were held separately at the 2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference, I thought that they related so well that I'd present them together.
Offering concrete ideas for how to solve a seemingly insurmountable problem can give people a sense that they, as individuals, have a stake in an issue. The Genocide Intervention Network links to a list of "ten things you can do to stop genocide." Ivan Boothe argues that these steps, broken down into easily digestible chunks, give people an easy way to participate. Although they also link to the Genocide Intervention Network's main web site, that isn't always the point. "A number of these steps aren't even within our organization," Boothe says. This sort of advocacy is similar to bottom-up, open-source collaborative projects like Wikipedia, in which no one group has proprietary ownership over an idea or a product; instead, the goal is a constant generation of awareness and ideas. A MySpaceMySpace is a social network that is not built around a single identity. Users can and do have multiple profiles, with no restrictions on the "names" they use. Users have near-total control over their profile's appearance. MySpace is used by many bands and musical groups, and continues to be popular among the non-college oriented crowd, in comparison to Facebook. page, says Boothe, isn't simply an advertisement for an organization, "it's a tool for mobilizing people for different kinds of action."
The Genocide Intervention Network is a nonprofit based in DC that is a little more than two years old. We began as a student group at Swarthmore College with an idea: to change the way the world responds to genocide. As a result of our origins as a student group, we have a strong history in using online social networking and viral campaigns, and this continues even as we branch out into other constituencies. In our first year of existence, we raised a quarter-million dollars for peacekeepers in Darfur — the only NGO to raise money for protection rather than humanitarian aid — primarily through student networks, both actual and virtual.
Ivan Boothe helped start the Genocide Intervention Network in 2004, and was responsible for communications, web development and social networking strategy. He has since started doing freelance work on his own at rootwork.org. So he cautioned me that some of the information might not be entirely up to date that he shared on listserv including a pointer to his awesome slide show with audio.
Ivan is one of a small number of nonprofit early adopters in social media and social networks — he has a couple of years of experience under his belt — so his wisdom is priceless.
Ivan says their organization's social networking initiatives have been successful in building the "brand" of an anti-genocide constituency. Ivan notes, "Social networking is a long-term approach and using traditional metrics of advocacy or fundraising it may not look like much. But over a long period of time social networking is actually critical in building an effective, educated political constituency."
So, what is the right fit to use a social networking strategy? Ivan suggests:
Social networking is a natural fit for an organization that wants more than an ATM of donors or a list of petition-signers, but active and engaged political organizers.
Our experience, overall, has been that local people are really out in front on organizing [the anti-genocide] issue, and we're just creating the tools, putting the tools in their hands, and giving them the resources to take action. For instance, the 1-800-GENOCIDE Hotline, the Darfur Scorecard, things like that are giving people the resources to take action.
In our experience, they're already out there doing a lot of stuff. I know when we began a couple of years ago, and were just sort of starting our outreach on FacebookFacebook is a social network encouraging real identity — each user has a single account under their full, real name. Facebook began among US college students but has quickly expanded to people of all ages around the world., we found there were already dozens of Facebook groups around the issue and working on these issues. It was just about networking them, giving them resources, giving them support in the work they were doing. That's what we've been trying to do since then.
Nonprofit technology and software for techies, "accidental techies" and nonprofit executives alike, from Deborah Elizabeth Finn.
