Recently I was planning for a conference presentation, which involved choosing a Twitter hashtag, sending it to conference organizers for use in the program book, adding it to the template of all my slides, and making sure I added an all-caps prompt in my notes to MENTION TWITTER HASHTAG! (my presentation notes are full of all-caps prompts). Oh, and I also wrote some content for the presentation itself.

With your audience sitting directly in front of you, why put all that energy into a social networking tool that has the potential to distract people from listening to you? And what’s the best way to integrate tweets into the conversation? (more…)

Each year, the Council on Foundations recognizes a number of individuals and organizations for their outstanding leadership and contributions to philanthropy. This year, our client and friend, The Skillman Foundation, has been named a double-Silver Award winner for excellence in communications by the 2010 Wilmer Shields Rich Awards Program. The Skillman Foundation received the awards for its 2009 Good Schools Guide and its website. The awards program recognizes effective communications efforts to increase public awareness of foundations and corporate giving programs.

Created in 1960, The Skillman Foundation is a private philanthropy whose chief aim is to help develop good schools and good neighborhoods for children.

For more information on the Skillman Foundation:
http://www.beaconfire.com/Clients/Success%20Stories/skillman.php
http://www.skillman.org

For more information on The Council on Foundations award winners:
http://www.cof.org/events/conferences/2010Annual/awards.cfm

We here at Beaconfire have made no secret of our love for the Google Grants program. It is an incredible resource that allows nonprofits to get $10,000 per month worth of free advertising on Google and has resulted in some measurable success in new supporter acquisition and brand awareness. At the same time, Google gets advertising to fill less-competitive keywords and gets to improve it’s reputation for corporate citizenship. So now that Facebook traffic has surpassed Google, isn’t it time for Facebook to develop a nonprofit grants program of its own?

A new Facebook page is asking that very question. Call to Action: Launch an Ads Grants Program for Nonprofits was created to encourage Facebook to create a nonprofit grants program. The page administrators note that nonprofits have put a lot of time and energy into promoting Facebook as an online gathering place for their constituents, building fan pages, online engagement tools, putting links on their websites and emails, and making initial forays into using Facebook ads. The page administrators are hoping a large number of people will become a fan of their page in order to demonstrate to Facebook the demand and support for such an effort.

Normally, we’re not ones to jump on a bandwagon, but we’ve seen the good that Google Grants has done for many of our clients, and have really enjoyed working with organizations to optimize their Adwords programs. Facebook’s ubiquity and reach already plays a significant role in a nonprofit’s online marketing toolbox, and a grants program could help many cash-strapped nonprofits grow their supporter base and build their brand online. We encourage you to become a fan of the Call to Action: Launch an Ads Grants Program for Nonprofits page and pass the word on to others!

Periodically, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors.

What was the best April Fools joke you’ve ever played or been a victim of?

Mark, Functional Consultant: Best and worst joke I’ve fallen prey to… VA Beach’s Mount Trashmore Methane explosion joke of 1992 – #9 on museumofhoaxes.com all time worst April fools day jokes: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/worstaprilfools.html

We thought it was real for awhile, as 2 local DJ’s pulled off a total ‘war of the worlds’ type thing on their rowdy morning show.

Scott, Functional Consultant: Victim – http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/31/youtube-rickrolls-users/
terrible.

Marissa, Functional Consultant: One time, someone in my family put a rubber band around the spray nozzle attachment to our sink. When you turned on the sink for the first time, you’d get soaked.

Cara, Project Manager: My kids get me with this about once a month….they have the timing down to a science….I don’t always laugh…

Marissa: I changed my mind. This is my new favorite: http://www.trainsignal.com/windowstraining.aspx

Kesah, Client Manager: In the spirit of the day, I played an April Fool’s Day joke on myself this morning.  I accidentally got on the blue line train instead of the orange line.  There’s nothing like starting your day with a surprise trip to Arlington Cemetery.

At Beaconfire, we are constantly scanning the horizon for new technologies to help our clients make the most of their investment in the Web. However we’ve come to realize that sometimes the best and most elegant solutions are the ones that have withstood the test of time. That is why we are excited to kick off our newest project with the National Foundation for Cute Animal Rights.

During the NFCAR discovery process, we evaluated 8 well-known content management systems in order to best house and leverage their wealth of adorable animal photography and accompanying snarky, yet educational commentary. However, while each CMS offered a solution to fit some of the organization’s needs, none of them truly had the ability to make NFCAR’s impactful imagery the centerpiece of an immersive and interactive user experience. That is when we realized that the most compelling–some would say radical–solution was right under our noses. We decided to redesign their entire Web site to be an interactive Flash showcase.

There were, to be sure, some initial concerns about doing an entire site in Flash. Would search engines be able to index it? How would we be able to easily and accurately measure site traffic? But NFCAR assured us that they were not worried about these issues because their compelling stories and high-traffic partner sites would lead people to the site, and the innovative concept would lead to it becoming a viral sensation. Furthermore, their belief that analytic data does not truly capture the essence of success helped free Beaconfire from the time-consuming effort of placing tracking code on each site page and setting up dashboard reports.

While the final design is yet to be approved, we are proud to report that we have been able to acquire the rights to the song “You Are My Sunshine,” which will be recorded exclusively for NFCAR’s use by last season’s American Idol winner Adam Lambert. This music will provide a continual cheery backdrop for the stunning high-resolution photography of kittens, bunnies, hamsters, and puppies. NFCAR has also purchased the rights to the Archie’s version of “Sugar, Sugar,” which will serve dual purposes–being a prelude to the “meat” of the site, and providing visitors with toe-tapping entertainment during the estimated 7-minute load time.

Keep your eyes on Beaconfire Wire for news of the site launch, which we anticipate to be some time around September. And stay tuned for next week, when we tell you about our forthcoming strategic partnership to help ensure that Internet Explorer 6 remains the gold standard of all Web browsers!

* Photo of cute kitten from Flickr user clevergrrl, adapted under a Creative Commons license.

If you haven’t been to the American Lung Association Web site in a while, you might want to take a look.  Beaconfire redesigned the site, which launched in December on the Convio platform.  Content is now much easier to find, in spite of how deep and rich the site is.  The design now reflects the mission and stature of the organization.  Calls to action are prominent and direct. It’s also easier to find programs and your local information.  You might say it’s actually a breath of fresh air!  Check it out at www.lungusa.org.

To take our minds off the second blizzard in a week currently bearing down on us here in the DC area, let’s think about happier things. Like Austin Texas, & South by Southwest Interactive. And, ya know, the sun.

With hundreds of panels and what seems like miles of convention center to cover at sxsw interactive, it has been challenging for folks working in the non profit sector to find a place where you can easily meet up with peers, unwind your brain, or just share all the cool stuff you’re absorbing with other people who “get it”.

At SXSW 2009, with the help of our partners and colleagues, we planted The Beacon: Lounge with a Conscience at the Austin Convention Center, hoping to give nonprofit professionals and the socially conscious community a place of their own. And our little seedling flourished. More than 500 people hung out at the Beacon last year, enjoying the comfy couches, the free wi-fi, the daily coffee and snacks, and the company of their peers.

This year, we’re excited to watch the Beacon grow bigger and better than ever with the rockin’ events we’ve planned:

• Morning coffee with panelists from “Will Kiva Kill Your Non Profit”.
• A daily social media rockstar interview/broadcast by Mark Horvath of Invisible People.
• A gallery of Mike Rohde’s beloved Sketchnotes.
• SoapBox lunches and talks for a cause.
• Afternoon acoustic concerts, including local & virtual musicians, sponsored by BlackBaud, befitting Sweet Relief, Musicians Fund.
• And of course, a place for you to hang your hat, rest your feet and catch your breath.

So if you want to get your good on at SxSW, there’s no better place for it than The Beacon: Lounge with a Conscience. Check out The Beacon Blog for the latest update and follow us @thebeaconsxsw.

And just for a thrill, check out the blurb sxsw wrote about us today. We’re downright giggly about it. (ok, I am).

As some of you may remember, last March Beaconfire created “The Beacon: Lounge with a Conscience”, a gathering place at south by southwest interactive for tech social do-gooders and the nonprofit geekeratti (like you!) to find one another, share ideas and decompress between sessions. With the comfy furniture, great WiFi, cool ambience, and daily refreshments (thanks to our friends at Blackbaud, Free Range Studios, NTEN, The Capital Area Food Bank, Opportunity International, and Operation Smile) the joint was always jumping and became the nptech hub at SxSW.

This year, we’re doing it again, hopefully even better. The Beacon will host a daily acoustic concert put on by local Austin musicians, offer up great food & drink, and provide even more hanging out space than last year. And if that’s not enough for you, we are lucky to be showcasing the amazing work of Mike Rhode, a SxSW icon for his “Sketchnotes” and soon to be released 37 Signals “Rework” book.

This is where YOU, our dear readers, come in! To honor the nptech community at the core of The Beacon’s very existence, we want to gloriously and unabashedly adorn the walls of the lounge with posters/artwork from nonprofit organizations like yours. What better opportunity will you have to show off your great design, as well as raise awareness at South by Southwest for important causes that everyone should know about.

Interested? Email me for details at eve.simon@beaconfire.com. We will need all posters in hand by Feb 15th, and hope that we can showcase as many of them as possible in The Beacon Lounge at sxsw this March.

Each year about this time, nonprofit marketeers sit hunched over monitors, anxiously awaiting year end returns. The current economy has not helped ease fundraisers’ sleepless nights, though overall donors still give generously this time of year.

Whether your organization focuses on email appeals or symbolic holiday gifts, matching gifts from corporate partners or private donors, tax-deduction plugs or holiday tie-ins, many organizations use will use total donations through December 31 as a key marker to build budgets and programs for the year ahead.

Here are 3 common mistakes of end of year appeals:

1. Sending too few messages.
If your organization only sends one or two messages per year, mark your calendar for July 2010 – that’s a great time to begin planning year end efforts for next year. Make sure to invite your organization’s most creative minds, and plan a communications stream that stretches from pre-Thanksgiving to post-New Years.

2. Lack of continuity between messages.
A good end of year campaign tells a story, building from the first email to the last. The asks, tactics, and even authors may be different, but the arc of the story should be clear, positive, and hopeful. Your supporters likely get messages from multiple organizations and you want yours to be recognizable.

3. Thank you’s as an afterthought
In the rush to create compelling campaigns, we sometimes forget that donors choose individual organizations because they are passionate about the mission. Think about how your donors connect to your work and whether there are new, more meaningful ways to acknowledge their commitment.

Happy New Year!

As web sites get bigger and more sophisticated, it seems like more and more of our build work involves working and collaborating with multiple parties, rather than just working directly with a few folks on the client team. Now projects frequently require bringing other vendors and stakeholders to the table – design firms, brand agencies, technology vendors, you name it. From a project management perspective, this adds a layer of complexity to the project, and requires adapting some of our standard practices and tactics.

Communications. This is the Project Management equivalent of “location, location, location” to real estate. In successful project management, too much communication is rarely the problem (ok, so maybe it’s possible). When partnering with multiple parties, this is absolutely critical for success. At Beaconfire this means:

• Clearly identifying and understanding the makeup of each of the project teams. Who are your peer PMs? Who are the decision makers that need to signoff for approval? If possible, gather all the key players around a table for a real meet and greet. You’ll be spending a lot of time together, and it’s great to put names with faces, especially in today’s virtual world.
• Out of the gate everyone is invited to our project extranet. We use a tool called Central Desktop , but Basecamp or other collaboration tools will work. The bottom line is that using only email to communicate just won’t cut it. By having all documents and exchanges in one place, people can more easily map in and out of the project.
• Create a clear project schedule and definition of tasks. Sometimes we find it worthwhile to create a separate Roles and Responsibilities matrix. This lists the major project tasks, and identifies the specific person responsible for the task as well as those who also need to weigh in.
• Schedule meetings and calls in advance. Scheduling is always a challenge, but can be nightmare as teams get bigger and more diverse. Creating a Workshop Guide at the onset, listing all the upcoming meetings, a brief description and required attendees can go a long way to help with this.
• Extra meetings. I know, I know. No more meetings. As a PM, sometimes I avoid having a team meeting by sending a detailed Project Update / Recap email to everyone. However, it is really important to meet frequently as a group to talk through the latest issues and make sure everyone is on the same page. To respect people’s time, I do try to make sure only the necessary people are invited to the meeting. Or, I start the meeting with a topic relevant to a person, and then let them go while we continue the rest of the meeting.
• For team meetings, it is critical that the PM prepares an agenda IN ADVANCE. Meeting notes are also important to make sure there is a record of decisions and next steps. As a time saver, I’ve also learned to take rough meeting notes right into our project extranet. They may not be pretty, but they do the trick.
• Finally, it is worth taking extra time to document the basics. This includes developing a Project Charter that contains all the key information about the project, creating high-level systems diagrams, API documentation, etc. Taking a few extra hours to define key information will save hours of miscommunication and frustration in the end.

This isn’t rocket science, but taking the time to follow some of these steps will go a long way in ensuring a happy project team and successful project delivery.

We all know that testing your wireframes to make sure your priority audiences can complete key tasks on your website-in-progress is a good idea – but is there an inexpensive way to do it? I was alerted to an online tool yesterday that can help you conduct tests quickly, easily and inexpensively, too.

Optimal Workshop’s Chalkmark (http://www.optimalworkshop.com/chalkmark_alt.htm) makes usability testing a snap. First identify the tasks you would like your audience to complete. Next, upload the image of your wireframe. Invite your audience(s) to participate and then wait for the results to roll in. The test results are returned in the form of a heat map (see image). You can immediately see where people chose to click on your wireframe to complete the task you put forward. Of course Chalkmark can’t give you all of the information you would get from true wireframe prototype testing, but if budget is a concern, some information is better than no information. And feedback directly from the audience your site is trying to reach? Priceless.

chalkmark heat map

Myth #1: Monthly breast self-exams save lives

Most of us think that regular breast self-exams are a no-brainer, but the evidence actually shows that breast self-exam does not save lives or detect breast cancer at an earlier stage.

This myth, along with 30 other myths and truths about breast cancer, will be highlighted throughout the month of October by the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC).

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and NBCC is doing what it does best – getting us to think critically about our assumptions and keeping us focused on the important part: finding a cure. To help translate this message online, Beaconfire partnered with NBCC on a redesigned homepage and new site skin that draws attention to common misconceptions about breast cancer and offers concrete action items for people ready to take the next step.

Sometimes a client needs a change.  When you’re talking about websites, that change can be the whole enchilada: a new (or first time!) content management system, a comprehensive content audit with audience matrices and  IA work, a big build with tons of new functionality.  Or it might just be a creative design refresh with some minor tweaks and enhancements,  resulting in the appearance of a major revision at a lower cost and quicker implementation — the website facelift.

A website’s search can be similar.  Many clients we talk to are convinced that their site search doesn’t work and needs to be torn out — and sometimes that’s true.   We can gut the whole works, put in a new Google Mini or MS Search Server, spend hours dividing your site into collections, setting up separate searches based on audiences or site sections, but that’s not always necessary.  As a counterpart to the website facelift, the site search facelift seeks the same result: more for less.  How? By applying lessons from your search metrics, particularly what the top search terms of people seeking information at your site are and then making specific corrections to content.

While a site search facelift has several techniques to improve results, one of the easiest steps you can take to improve search results is to review frequent search terms and provide recommended links through your search engine for those terms.  The term used is dependent on the search engine, but is commonly referred to as “best bets” or “suggested results”.

Perhaps your search engine doesn’t make those frequently searched for terms reports available? Don’t have that data in the first place? Don’t be so sure – if you’re using Google analytics, most of the time that information is available to you irrespective of your search engine technology.

The best thing about this method is that it generally follows the 80/20 rule where 80% of your searches are coming from 20% of the search terms people use.  Start with the terms most frequently searched form and you are automatically handling the search results in the order that will gain the most benefit from clear, recommended content suggestions.  And while there’s a lot more to a full search facelift, this is a quick way to get some significant results.

There’s no doubt that Google is the search engine for most of the Internet.  Over the past few years, the big G has taken almost all of the growth in the search business (90% according to the linked source). And when vendors speak of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), they are recommending practices that are tantamount to Google Engine Optimization.  And why not? Most website administrators looking at their search referrals can plainly see why that’s where to put your effort in.

With the recent agreement between Yahoo and Microsoft making MS Bing the search platform for all of Yahoo’s sites, there’s now a new wrinkle in the SEO game.  Take the two numbers in your referral logs for Bing and Yahoo, combine them together — big enough to matter now? Especially with MS pushing the technology everywhere it can?  Right now you’ll continue to have traffic from both Bing and Yahoo, but moving forward, most sites will only have to optimize for a single additional search engine in the #2 position — Bing.

If you decide Bing is worth watching, try out these tips on optimization.  Remember – SEO is always a bit of black magic rather than hared science, but the rewards can definitely be worth the effort.

Announced last year, Facebook Connect heralded an architectural shift for Facebook developers, away from the thousands of insipidly cute notification apps and toward a sophisticated way of wiring up full-fledged websites with social actions.  Here’s the proposition: your web developer adds a bit of javascript to your website and you can allow users to post your website actions to their walls, or update their status, or many of the other actions they would take directly within Facebook.

The real power of the system becomes evident when you “connect” profile information on your site with Facebook, allowing information to flow through to your site with a button click instead of a lengthy sign-up form.   The barrier-of-entry for all aspects of user profiling is reduced — people that wouldn’t bother to sign up for an account on your site at all can still be served personalized information and tracked demographically, and people who would sign-up get their information pre-populated and connected to their social network of choice (assuming that’s Facebook, of course).  In a way, it’s similar to the effect that Amazon Payments or PayPal has in merchandising and micropayments — people are more likely to actually check-out with their cart if they can use a name they trust and don’t have to type in their name, address and credit card information over and over again.

The benefits to all parties seemed pretty clear: the user experiences simplified profile management, Facebook serves as a defacto “social action” engine and drives traffic back to its site,  and your website gets data it may not have had otherwise.  But things aren’t that simple.  For instance, who owns the information about the profile that Facebook provided to your website? What exactly can you store from Facebook, and at what point is that data part of your site’s profile and not the users’ Facebook profile?

It’s not a trivial point.  It turns out that even major site Digg.com, the example site Facebook shows a screenshot of as a Connect site in it’s Facebook Connect announcement post,  didn’t know where the line was.  As the writers at AllFacebook.com point out, the Facebook TOS are muddy: different rules about what data can be stored and cached under different circumstances; conditions for people removing or disconnecting from your app; frequent changes due to new functionality and occasionally, public outcry.  Compound that with the fact that it’s near impossible for Facebook to police the requirements among the many sites using Connect, and there is a lot of confusion between what a Connected website wants to do, should do, and can get away with doing.

As websites link up with Facebook Connect more and more, the lesson for prospective integrators is to plan for the implications of the TOS on your data collection and make sure you aren’t left in the lurch if it doesn’t match up with Facebook’s rules.  A decent back-up plan includes OpenSocial, Twitter and maybe a little bit of praying.

Microsoft’s mash-up engine Popfly died a quiet and unlamented death last week.  Very few people seemed to even know it existed, but based on its colorful, icon-layered interface , its few visitors probably got the impression that it was some kind of Flash game creator – which it was, if you replace “Flash” with “Silverlight”, just like Microsoft would like you to do.

But the editorial emphasis on cheap “my first game” entries on the site’s homepage belied its underlying strength as a mash-up platform.  Think of it as a system with the fluent routing of Yahoo’s Pipes but with the component architecture of traditional programming languages, all wrapped up in the gloss of  Silverlight technology.  Popfly users had the capability to take up components prebuilt by hard-core programmers as data sources – Facebook, Twitter, Flickr – and use them as building blocks in Popfly’s visual editor to create powerful, integrated apps with a modern look.  Except they didn’t – they made Pong clones.

So the world won’t be crying for Popfly, but it’s hard to wonder if the same fate isn’t in store for other mash-up systems – was it Popfly’s candy colored wrapping or the hands-off visual programming mash-up idea itself that doesn’t have legs?

If you’re an avid follower of this blog, you may have noticed that the people at Beaconfire are full of great ideas, and not shy about lettin’ em loose on the world. From social media to design to web metrics to just general non profit tech guru-ness, we leave no stone unturned. But there is one thing we have not yet accomplished – and for that we need your help, dear readers.

Driven by our desire to share what we are most passionate about on a larger stage, we have submitted five innovative, thought provoking and exciting panel ideas for consideration at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, TX this coming March. Among the overwhelming landscape of 2210 other great ideas in the sxsw panel picker (a crowdsourcing approach to selecting conference content, which counts for 30% of the overall decision-making) we bravely stand toe to toe, competing with the rockstars, the uber geeks and other movers and shakers in the tech world. South By, we are Beaconfire! Hear us ROAR!

Helen Reddy-inspired bravado aside, in order to be able to present these great ideas anywhere outside of our own conference room, we desperately need you, our dedicated community, to help us. So now we humbly ask that you not only cast a “thumbs up” vote for our panels, but also post your insightful comments on each entry to let the sxsw “deciders” see how timely, thrilling, brilliant and ya know, really cool , our ideas are. You will have to make an account first, but we know that won’t hold you intrepid souls back. Forge onwards, brave readers, and let your voice be heard! Without further ado (or any additional hyperbole) – our panels:

Yoga for Social Networkers: Striking the Right Pose
Organizer & Speaker: Amadie Hart
There are hundreds of social networks, but only one you. Instead of overextending yourself, you need to bring focus on the important things and let go of the rest. Learn how to center your social media practice and balance your online activities. Bring your yoga mat! (don’t miss the video preview!)

Will Kiva Kill your non profit? Donations 2.0
Organized by Shiloh Stark, Jo Miles and Michael Cervino
Speakers: Skylar Woodward, Director of API development at Kiva; Ian Scott Haisley, OptINnow.org, Milo Sybrant, Amnesty International
Connecting donors directly to the beneficiaries of contributions is a game-changing fundraising strategy. Will traditional nonprofits need to adopt new technologies and fundraising models as donors demand greater accountability for their funds? This vibrant, moderated discussion will include representatives from Kiva, OptINnow, and 2 national advocacy organizations.

Can double-clicking change the world? Slacktivism 101
Organized by Eve Simon & Ali Cherry
Speakers: Jacob Colker, CEO of The Extraordinaries; Premal Shah, President of Kiva; and Jason Cooper, Online organizer for Kaboom.org and at least one other rockstar “surprise guest” to be named later.
Sl’ack-Ti-vism. Noun. Taking action for social change without lifting a finger. As the latest technology allows people to “engage” from their computers/phones rather than getting their hands dirty IRL, will this impact the future of volunteerism? A panel of experts will debate the pros & cons of couch potato activism.

Data Data Everywhere: Drowning in a sea of Analytics
Organizer & Speaker: Marissa Goldsmith
A Web site gives a nonprofit access to data that makes old school direct marketers salivate. But many organizations find themselves getting bogged down in producing graphs every month, obsessing over drops in pageviews, throwing their hands up on the air, and deciding they don’t have enough resources to maintain this kind of analytics analysis. Stop obsessing about the small stuff, and start learning about creating a goal-oriented, actionable analytics plan that can help your Web site thrive.

It’s not all about you: respecting your users
Organizer & Speaker: Jo Miles
Google practices it with AdWords. Facebook learned it the hard way. The truth is, your site isn’t there for you or your board; it’s there for your users. All the clever marketing tricks in the world won’t win their loyalty if you don’t give them a little respect.

Of course, not to be all “Me me me” about this, we also kindly ask that you share some panel picker love with these other great sxsw sessions, proposed by non profit tech rockstars, social media visionaries and really, really smart people:

Crowd Sourcing Innovative Social Change
Beth Kanter, Beth’s Blog

Non-Profits and Social Media: Not the Usual Suspects
David Neff, American Heart Association

The Real Housewives of Social Media
Jordan Viator, Convio

Advanced Brand Monitoring: Let the Haters Hate
Carie Lewis, The Humane Society of the United States

Competition > Innovation > Change: Examining Competitions For Social Change
Amy Sample Ward, NetSquared

Can Social Media Change Global Consciousness?
Panelists include: Amy Sample Ward, Danielle Brigida and Stacey Monk

Evolution, Creation and Extinction (of the organization)
Ted Fickes, The Wilderness Society

Handheld Awesome Detectors: Sustainable Apps
Rachel Weidinger, Rachel Weidinger Consulting

Building an Employee Platform for Social Change
Patrice Thramer, Nike, Inc

Doing More With Less: How Not-For-Profits Leverage Technology for Change
Nancy Lublin, DoSomething.org

Digital Marketing for Non-Profits
Amy Seidenwurm, LA Phil

A Different Documentary: Online Storytelling & Social Change
Boyd Neil, Hill & Knowlton Canada

The Socially Conscious Geek: Makin’ Money While Doin’ Good
Leif Utne, Zanby

SMS And Social Change: Lessons From Senegal
Terra Weikel, UNICEF

We all look forward to representin’ the non profit sector in Austin this spring, and can’t wait to see everyone in The Beacon: Lounge with a Conscience again. (details to come – watch this space!)

While it’s not a new term, a few months ago, “slacktivism” became the topic of a firestorm debate among nonprofit advocates, online marketing professionals and social change proponents after a series of media stories including an article by Warren Clements of Toronto’s Globe and Mail, “A slacktivist and his crackberry are seldom parted.” The fire doesn’t seem to be going out any time soon.

While the definition is its own debate topic, most agree that it is the act of doing something that requires very little effort and has only the perceived effect of impact. Or in the words of Urban Dictionary, “the act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.”

So do “click actions” like signing a petition and becoming a Facebook fan actually make a difference? We want to get the best and brightest in a room at SXSW and go at it. Help us out and vote for our panel “Can Double-Clicking Change The World? Slacktivism 101″, leave a comment and come to SXSW in March to join the debate with Jacob Colker (Co-Founder and CEO of The Extraordinaries), Premal Shah (President of Kiva) and Jason Cooper (Online Coordinator at Kaboom.org).

And in case you’ve missed the debate,  I’ve done some of the reading for you…in the true spirit of slacktivism.

1. “For [Jacob] Colker, the idea of spare-moment do-gooding is ‘transformative.’ He takes the long view of short attention spans…it’s sometimes hard for people to find the right organizations to volunteer for, and it can be equally hard for organizations to capitalize on the various skills that volunteers bring to the table… But microvolunteerism, Colker says, ‘is perfectly suited for the Millennial Generation. They are used to text messaging, MySpace, Facebook, get-in, get-out, instant gratification. For them, going out and cleaning up a park — that’s not necessarily attractive to them…’” – Linton Weeks
2. “Are the publicity gains gained through this greater reliance on new media worth the organizational losses that traditional activists entities are likely to suffer, as ordinary people would begin to turn away from conventional (and proven) forms of activism (demonstrations, sit-ins, confrontation with police, strategic litigation, etc) and embrace more ’slacktivist’ forms, which may be more secure but whose effectiveness is still largely unproven?” – Evgeny Morozov
3. “Sure, each new technology comes with Faustian ambivalence, but even though the Twitter protesters may not have lead to any substantial change (yet), I’d argue that the worldwide attention (and sympathy) for the cause of the Iranian people was significantly enhanced through the hundreds of thousands of Twitterers who used #iranelection (especially given #CNNfail). Was this ad-hoc Twitter community a political movement? Maybe not. But it politicized and generated social power that can instigate political change.” – Tim Leberecht
4. “These groups will need help to find ways to break down their efforts into bite-size pieces while maintaining the thread of connection between these immediate actions and their intended longer term results. And it is exactly these results that are at risk within the micro-environment. It is quite possible that we will become frantically busy doing a lot of change stuff that does make the doers feel great (which is important ) but doesn’t add up to the systemic social change needed in communities. Does busy mean the same thing as impact?’ – Allison Fine
5. “VolunteerMatch is different from slacktivism services because we’re using technology to help nonprofits and volunteers create enduring relationships based on real-world contributions of time and energy (and often skills as well). Whether these contributions are on-the-ground service roles like working in a soup kitchen or reading, or whether they are “virtual” opportunities like providing Web design or grant writing help from home, the support VolunteerMatch volunteers provide can often be measured in sweat rather than clicks or page views.” – Robert Rosenthal
6. “But we have to recognize that just because someone is using social media as a part of their “strategy” does not automatically mean they are using it strategically. There are ways to waste time with campaigns that, in the end, don’t really bring about social change, but there are ways to waste time with direct mail and organizing rallies too. This flaw is not that the tools are ineffective; it’s rather a misuse and missed opportunity by the organization.” – Kristin Ivie
7. The recipe for effective slacktivism is embracing technology to attract and organize mass amounts of people combined with an authentic belief on the part of the slacktivist and action sponsor that it will make an impact, add in a dose of creativity and recognize that a click is part of a portfolio of other actions – numbers, stories, face to face meetings, etc. – both offline and online. Ideally a click action is used as an entry point for new supporters, or supplemental, and that most people engage in many forms of action when they care about an issue. – Ali Cherry

Don’t forget to vote for our SXSW panel “Can Double-Clicking Change The World? Slacktivism 101″.

Is acquiring an email address for your new campaign more important than having good user experience?  How about securing a donation?  Online marketing is full of temptations to toss user experience aside in the aggressive pursuit of conversions.  Let’s face it: marketers have a bad reputation when it comes to respecting your users.

That’s the issue we’ll dive into in the panel “It’s not all about you: respecting your users” at next year’s South by Southwest conference.  Or (ahem) we will, if you vote for it to be picked!  You can read the full description, vote, and comment to tell SXSW that you think this is a great topic: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/3738

We’ll take a look at some of the usability sins most often committed by marketers (many of whom know better), why these abuses are so tempting, and ultimately, why a practice of respectful interactions and positive user experience may be the best marketing you can do.

It’s not just marketers, either.  Most of us are guilty sometimes of putting our own interests above those of our users, even though our users are the most valuable part of your website.  Are you?  Confess!

SXSW Panel Picker Page: “Will Kiva Kill Your Nonprofit? Donations 2.0“

Kiva has been connecting donors with low income entrepreneurs since 2005. Their model of microlending has proven meaningful, effective (they have a current repayment rate of 98.7%), and popular (over $80 million in loans have been made so far). They’ve been such a game-changer in the nonprofit fundraising space that we want to bring Kiva together with other national nonprofits at SXSW Interactive 2010 to talk about the future of online fundraising.

Kiva creates a one-to-one relationship between donor and recipient. Donors know exactly where their money is at all times and can see the tangible effects of their dollars – if desired, they can completely avoid a general fund, symbolic gift, or representative success story. It’s also a gift that keeps on giving – as recipients pay back their loans, donors can reinvest in new ones.

One question that both traditional nonprofits and startups are facing is whether this model poses a threat to the status quo of fundraising appeals. Will donors demand more accountability for each dollar? Will they expect a personal relationship with the end beneficiaries? How do the principles of Kiva apply to advocacy-based organizations?

If “Will Kiva Kill Your Nonprofit” is chosen for SXSW’s program, Skylar Woodward of Kiva, Ian Haisley of OptINnow, and others will tackle these questions in a vibrant conversation moderated by Beaconfire’s own Michael Cervino.

SXSW wants to know what you think about the panel idea before setting the program.
Does this topic sound intriguing? If so, drop a comment and place your vote on the panel picker page: “Will Kiva Kill Your Nonprofit? Donations 2.0.“