JMS

A good piece with some case studies and interviews from the NonProfit Times about ways that nonprofits are starting to integrate social media into their work and outreach.

Read the whole article here: NP Times / Role Reversal

November 15, 2006
Social Networking

By Tom Pope

Check out the American Cancer Society (ACS) on the Web portal YouTube.com and you’d think the nonprofit is active in showing videos. If you search for the organization on YouTube, you’ll see the cartoon The Flintstones appearing to change directions after smoking. You’ll also see that $100,000 was raised during one event at Michigan State University. News regarding colorectal cancer is in one video, and the Relay for Life details are shown in another video.

But Marty Coelho, national managing director for marketing and communication at ACS, isn’t using YouTube for Relay for Life. Volunteers took to the net and uploaded more than 120 videos.

Volunteers and donors are flocking to MySpace for personal pages, Flickr.com for photo sharing, and YouTube.com for viewing and uploading videos and social networking in general.

And another excerpt:

GetActive Software’s Haji echoed the strategy. He encourages clients to make official Web sites more participatory as a way to tie into the new medium. The strategy retains control, yet allows nonprofits to create a version of the social networking community.

“The whole movement of the participatory Web can have a huge impact on the nonprofit sector,” he said. While YouTube and MySpace are not direct competitors to nonprofits, they are competitors for attention, he said.

“We’re encouraging nonprofits to avoid a static, boring Web site,” Haji said. “Include participatory devices like personal pages.”

And

Nonprofits should be involved with portals like YouTube. “That’s where the young people are looking for information,” Sreenivasan said. “If you’re not there, much worse than losing control could happen to nonprofits.”