What Rainie says, much of it related to the explosion of social media and mobile communications, applies to all messaging and communications, which makes these observations pertinent to fundraisers, and especially those in advocacy groups.

Some key thoughts:

• With hugely expanded networking capacities, there are many more — and new — civic actors, many operating independently.
• Four messaging opportunities — to traditional ‘paid media’ and ‘earned media’ now add ‘owned media’ (e.g., websites, customer service) and ‘shared media’ (e.g., social sites, YouTube) … all requiring communications strategies.
• Six stages of engagement — observing (Lurkers matter, he says), following, endorsing, contributing, owning, leading.
• Migration of authority away from organizations (like your nonprofit) to — traditional experts with new platforms (e.g., blogs), amateur experts who are avid contributors (some with tribes), new algorithmic authorities (e.g., Google, Bing).
• Different ‘attention zones’ — continuous partial attention to media streams, immersion in ‘deep dives’, info-snacking in free moments.
• All organizations under more scrutiny, where trust depends upon transparency — surveillance (powerful watch the ordinary), sousveillance (ordinary watch the powerful), coveillance (peers stalk peers).
• Age of big data is upon us, giving new power to analytics.

This is a powerpoint presentation, so you will need to fill in the blanks yourself. But it’s well worth the mental effort … a very stimulating presentation.

Lee Rainie, you deserve a raise!

Tom

Here’s the official descriptive blurb:

The Social Change Impact Report “provides a detailed picture of the state of social change engagement in America: Americans’ beliefs about social change, the issues they care about, the motivations behind their engagement, the actions they are taking to further social change and the tools they use.”

Heaps of interesting stuff here if you’re in the social change or advocacy side of the nonprofit sector.

But here’s what grabbed me: “Americans say they are most likely to get involved in social change in the future as individuals acting on their own or in informal groups (52%)”

And: “Nine out of 10 Americans (88%) agree that digital technology can turn interest in a cause into a movement more quickly than anything else.”

Couple these two proclivities together and you see the potential large-scale abandonment of major social change and advocacy organizations.

Who needs them (i.e., your nonprofit), when you can do it all yourself, or with a few social net friends, digitally?

Faced with this ‘do-it-yourself’ mentality, what is your organization doing to maintain its relevance? If your core business as a nonprofit is supplying timely, specialized information on what to do to save some small bit of the world (isn’t that what most advocacy groups do, in essence?), are you relevant anymore to — or needed by — net-savvy would-be activists?

A possible ‘macro’ reason for the fall-off in donor retention?

Tom

But then I saw this video, reporting on what they have accomplished to date and hope to achieve next.

The 2011 September Campaign. Our 5-year-anniversary video from charity: water on Vimeo.

The video itself is great. It tells an inspiring story about what average donors — raising money in every way from lemonade stands to birthday gifts to dance marathons — can help accomplish, and shows the concrete results in dramatic fashion. Lives improved in so many ways from the simple step of providing clean local water.

Excellent program and superb fundraising.

But then I reflected a bit on the message.

Part of it featured a Ethiopian — described as a national hero — who has been painstakingly bringing freshwater to his fellow Ethiopians, one well at a time, constrained only by the fact that his team has only three drilling rigs … and most of the country to go.

Charity: Water wants to get him one more rig … so they’re asking donors for the $1.2 million required to purchase and fully support one mobile drilling rig.

All of a sudden, it occurred to me that this request of lemonade stand donors bordered on the obscene.

The very request for $1.2 million of charity money simply underscores the total failure of the international development community — from the World Bank on down, and including national governments, both rich and recipient. These entities have squandered literally billions on failed development projects for decades.

Then a tiny, by comparison, charity comes along and shows everyone how important — and relatively simple — it is to improve millions of lives by meeting a fundamental human need … clean, easily accessible drinking water.

Here they are, begging for your lemonade stand proceeds to buy one rig, when some incompetent, probably corrupt, bureaucracy could write a check for a hundred of these rigs in a nanosecond.

Don’t you find that upsetting, even obscene?

I don’t ask that to denigrate the program of Charity: Water. I’m glad they’re showing the world how to get the job done. And maybe by doing that, they’ll embarrass some dripping-in-money development institution to make a first-ever meaningful contribution to alleviating the water problem.

I guess someone needs to fill the vacuum and get done the practical work of drilling water wells.

But the other need is for well-financed policy advocacy designed to force development institutions to either get the job done, or shut down and stop pretending. Unfortunately, as cause fundraisers know, it’s a lot tougher to raise the funds for advocacy than it is to raise money for ‘on-the-ground’ projects.

Is there some group out there as smart about raising advocacy money as Charity: Water is about raising funds for drilling rigs? Nominations, please!

Tom

Also some cause examples — from Hunger Action Month to volunteerism to gay marriage foes.

ClickZ’ Politics & Advocacy is a good news feed if you want to follow political use — often at the cutting edge — of the digital realm.

Tom

Stories generated on Facebook about families helped by Medicaid became the fuel for other lobbying approaches — media outreach, direct and e-contact with members of Congress, etc.

But what I especially like about Beth Kanter’s report is her emphasis — reflecting the  strong focus of MomsRising — on measurement … the range of metrics the organization uses to assess its use of social media.

We wrote last week of learning from newbie nonprofits. Here’s a good example.

Says Beth: “MomsRising is one of the best living examples of a nonprofit born as Networked Nonprofit, a simple, agile, and transparent organization that work more like a network than a single isolated institution. Like all Networked Nonprofits, MomsRising values simplicity and the ability to leverage its network while engaging and building relationships with people and organizations to get results.”

MomsRising has grown from zero members in 2006 to over a million active members today. They’re doing something right! Attention to measuring results might be part of it.

Tom

The 2008 Obama campaign re-wrote the online fundraising handbook, and all the wannabees have studied it closely.

This report from Clickz.com provides several articles for you political groupies, covering Obama, Romney, Palin, Bachmann, Pawlenty, Huntsman … and even Ann Coulter.

As always, my interest in this political propaganda is chiefly from the perspective of … Anything here for us legitimate, principled fundraisers?

Tom

As reported in ClickZ Marketing News …

“Among 18- to 29-year-old Facebook users, 21 percent said they’ve used Facebook to advocate for a political position, 29 percent have liked an issue, and 24 percent have liked a candidate. Of college students, 29 percent said they’ve used Facebook to advocate for a political position, 37 percent liked an issue, and 31 percent liked a candidate.

Even smaller portions of the groups used email or letters to push a political issue or candidate. Sixteen percent of 18- to 29-year-olds advocated via email or letter, compared to 23 percent of college students. However, more said they’ve signed an online petition. Thirty percent of 18-29 year olds and 40 percent of college students said they have done so.”

In the survey around a third of 4-year college students said using online tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has a greater impact than in-person advocacy. 14% of this group have contributed to a political campaign.

BTW, 80% in the 18-29 age cohort have a Facebook account … 90% of 4-year college students. We’ve come a long way since phone trees!

Tom

P.S. The full study here is Survey of Young Americans’ Attitudes toward Politics and Public Service. Lots of info on political affiliations, involvement and issue concerns.

Here are some findings. Among online adults:

• 16% sent email related to the campaign or the elections to friends, family members or others;
• 12% revealed online which candidates they voted for in the November elections;
• 7% used the internet to organize or get information about in-person meetings to discuss political issues in the campaign;
• 22% used Twitter or a social networking site for political purposes;
• 6% took part in an online discussion, listserv or other online group forum such as a blog, related to political issues or the campaign;
• 5% used the internet to participate in volunteer activities related to the campaign—such getting lists of voters to call or getting people to the polls;
• One-third (35%) went online to look for information about candidates’ voting records or positions on issues;
• 8% of online adults signed up online to have updates about the campaign or the election delivered to them directly;
• 31% viewed campaign-related videos online (jumped from 19% in 2006 Congressional elections);
• fully 20% went online to follow an interesting election campaign in another part of the country.

And for you fundraisers, 5% of Republican voters and 6% of Democratic voters donated money online in 2010.

The study includes plenty of demographic and political affiliation breakdowns of the stats. Naturally, on a trend line basis, virtually all of these numbers are up over the 2008 election, even though that election was a — presumably — higher interest Presidential year.

Tom

“Crowdfunding websites that let you contribute to specific projects are nothing new, but anewwarrior.greenpeace.org launched by Greenpeace to generate funds for their new Rainbow Warrior has lifted the bar to a new level in terms of on-site experience.”

And he is spot on. This site is brilliant. You can browse through the interactive 3D model and find thousands of items of equipment or fittings that you can pay for (i.e., sponsor) for due recognition — from a GPS system (at 4000 euros) to portholes, blankets, and curtain rods. Talk about creating a sense of ‘hands-on’ participation!

Being a fan of fundraising videos, of course I didn’t skip the intro video, which is powerful, ending with: “The Earth needs a new Warrior. It needs You.”

Take a look.

Tom

Here’s what MTV says:

“What Act is really about is you. Seriously. Every campaign we’ve launched and change we’ve made is because you watched, listened, chatted, blogged, tweeted, posted and acted on things that matter. So this blog is meant to recognize you for all that.

We might post about your school, or your community, or even you, or someone like you. We’re not sure who’ll make it on Act yet. We just know it’s gonna be epic when they do. And hopefully it’ll inspire more people to do some good along the way.

Of course Act will recap the latest news and events, and tie it all in with music, celebs and a few unexpected perks. But first, we need your feedback. You can start by answering a few questions for us: What organizations, school clubs, or campus leaders should we profile? What cause do you think needs the most action right now? Which celebrity do-gooder are you most inspired by?

We’ll be updating the site with new stuff daily, so make sure to check in on us often. See you soon.”

Sounds like an invitation at least some Agitator readers should be taking up!

Tom