Heather Mansfield - Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits

A How-To Guide for Nonprofits

HEATHER MANSFIELD

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ISBN: 978-0-07-177099-6
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This book is dedicated to all the nonprofit staff and volunteers worldwide who Tweet, Share, Update, Friend, Like, Check-in, Join, Connect, and Post for Social Good. The world is a better place because of you.

The Internet has come a long way in the last 15 years. Back in 1997, while I was volunteering with a school for street children in Guatemala, I launched my first online fundraising campaign, using only a Yahoo! e-mail account. I had no digital camera or smartphone, no blog or Facebook profile, no PayPal account. None of those tools existed yet. From Internet cafs, I began telling my family and friends the stories of the children and their need for clothing and medicine and asked them to write and snail mail checks to a close friend in California, who then wired the funds to a bank in Guatemala. All told, a little over $400 was raised, which went a long way in Guatemala at the time (and still does) and did a great deal of good for the childrengood that would not have happened had it not been for the Internet.

That experience led me to fall in love with the Web and its potential for social good. I was young(er), passionate, and motivated (and saddened) because so many people were suffering unjustly. I believed deeply that the Internet could change our world for the better and help alleviate that suffering if we could discover ways of using it that would inspire and thus mobilize the masses to take action and to give. I still believe that. I have watched the rise of websites, e-newsletters, donate now technology, and e-mail advocacy in the years that followed that first online fundraising campaign, and those tools have empowered nonprofits like no others before them. It was a very exciting time to be in nonprofit communications and fundraising.

Then came social media. I joined Myspace in 2005, and within three minutes of browsing, I had the exact same epiphanic moment of clarity that I had had with Yahoo! and e-mail fundraisingthis is going to change everything. And it has. Nonprofits and their status updates and tweets have filtered into almost every content area of the Web. Nonprofits have become omnipresent online. They are leading communities of millions worldwide who are unified in the common goal of making life better for people, animals, and the Earth. In the whole scheme of things, 15 years of Internet history is a drop in the bucket, but today, in the era of the Social Web, we are truly beginning to witness and experience the power and potential of the Internet for social good.

Now, in 2011, we are on the brink of yet another great shift in communications and fundraising technology. The Web is going mobile. Without a magic crystal ball, it is almost impossible to know where nonprofit communications will be by 2015, but its thrilling to ponder. There are tools that do not yet exist that will propel nonprofits and connect advocates for social good in ways that our brains cant even imagine yet, and similar to my e-mail fundraising and Myspace moments of clarity, the purchase of my first iPhone in 2009 made me realize yet again, this is going to change everything.

During my professional career, I have experienced the birth of three separate eras of nonprofit Web communications and fundraising. Each era has come with its own unique set of tools and best practices. However, they are complementary in nature. One era does not replace the previous one. In fact, when a nonprofit successfully integrates the tools and best practices from all three eras into one comprehensive, integrated communications and fundraising strategy, the potential for social good is multiplied exponentially. And that, friends, followers, and fans, is the purpose of this book: to help you make sense of these three eras, their distinct tool sets, how they affect one another, and how they can be integrated successfully and cost-effectively to maximize your nonprofits return on investment (ROI) and its contribution to the greater social good. For the sake of clarity, the three eras of nonprofit Web communications and fundraising are defined in this book as follows: