just came back from a meeting. my nonprofit is throwing a kind of event it hasn’t thrown before: it’s currently, by necessity, because of the clients it deals with, needing to connect with the younger generation, as the younger generation is crucially coming to face the issue my nonprofit has been helping older clients with for years. thankfully, my nonprofit has gotten a recent infusion of fresh, new blood, in their twenties and close enough, all of whom have great ideas. (i’m in my early 30s, and not feeling so young anymore, but i’m a major geek, into new technology, which makes up for it somewhat).

one of the fresh, new blood guys sat down across me at the conference table before the meeting started, and he said, “by the way, i’ve been meaning to ask you this: why aren’t we on myspace?” i thought for a second, looked down, and said, “hmmm. that hadn’t occurred to me.” i had just been 1-upped. =) he went on about why he thought it was a good idea, and what was going on in my head: makes sense, but i don’t know how the older executive directors of this nonprofit would feel about this, as they are somewhat resistant to new technology. (for instance, i suggested to one of the directors that it might be a good idea to create a client staging area on the site so we could consolidate the forms clients need to use, and help the different department directors manage their documents, so they wouldn’t have to resort to emailing them continually, and battling with usability issues. he immediately waved his hand and said no, that no one would want to deal with that, they would just keep doing it the way they’ve been doing it. you win some, you lose some, i am learning this. only fight the battles you can win, because that’s the best way you can help people. forcing help on somebody never gets you anywhere.) but i told the guy at the meeting, “i’m not sure how the executive directors would feel about this, but i think it’s a great idea, has a lot of potential, so i’ll run it by ‘em, see how it goes.”

i really like working for this nonprofit because the people here not only really care about the work they do, but they have a lot of energy, constantly coming up with new ideas concerning outreach, community involvement, fundraising, oftentimes fresh creative ideas.

Making a MySpace Page for Your Business:

MySpace is all over the news and all over computer screens across America and beyond. In November of 2005, MySpace had 26.7 million users*. Just one year later, an estimated 128 million people were using MySpace, the site that according to Wikipedia “attracts new registrations at a rate of 230,000 per day”. And although teens may appear to be more hip to MySpace lingo, an October 2006 report by comScore Media Metrix notes that “more than half of all MySpace visitors are now age 35 or older.”

that web page has a lot of good really relevant suggestions about what to do/what not to do when setting up your myspace page.

How to Use MySpace to Build a Blogging Audience:

The growth of MySpace and similar social networking make these sites vital ways to advertise yourself or your website as well as establishing a brand. By spending a few minutes a day using focused techniques, you can build a significant audience. Don’t discount these sites or look down upon them. Like any other community, you can find people with the same interests as you or your company. Knowing how and where to find them is the key.

that article has relevant, helpful tips as well.

Using MySpace to Market Locally

Nonprofits on MySpace

Nonprofit Organizations MySpace:

On a personal note, let me just say, I have been building online communities for nonprofit organizations for close to a decade, and this experience is one of the best of my life. This MySpace community is full of caring and passionate individuals from all over the world who are very kind and very appreciative of my work. As an activist who has spent years trying to engage individuals online to take action for social change, I never seen this level of immediate response to calls for action.

MySpace Best Practices has many highly specific tips, such as:

4) Use your organization’s logo for your default MySpace profile image

You’ve spent years and thousands of dollars building a brand around your organizations’s logo, right? MySpace is the perfect opportunity to further showcase your logo and build brand recognition. See how nice the logo looks when your organization’s MySpace profile is featured as a top friend:

www.myspace.com/NonprofitOrganizations

I suggest that you configure your logo image for your MySpace so that it is in the shape of a square or at least a full rectangle. In my opinion, the narrow, smaller logos just don’t look as sharp or professional when your organization’s MySpace profile is a featured top friend.

Using Facebook in Your Nonprofit:

Why Facebook (or any social network, for that matter)?
The first question to ask yourself is why use social networking at all? What can a nonprofit get from the experience? According to this TechSoup article, “What Can Social Networking Do For Your Organization?” the answer is that you can get quite a bit:

“Social networking platforms give nonprofits a forum for meeting like-minded organizations and potential supporters, and provide a medium for spreading their messages beyond the immediate community,” says Alan Rosenblatt, Executive Director of the Internet Advocacy Center.

In other words, social networking can expand your reach and help you find volunteers, donors and supporters for your cause inexpensively and relatively easily.

there’s also another good quote that’s important to think about:

Whatever You Do, Avoid Looking Clueless
The one thing you CAN’T afford on a site like Facebook is looking clueless. No one sniffs out inauthenticity faster than a social network native. As the Chronicle’s article reports:

“Any organization interested in leveraging communities on MySpace and Facebook must learn about them firsthand,” Mr. Gammel says. “You will come across as clueless and wooden if you try to make a big splash in either place before you really understand their culture of interaction.”

He recommends looking at social-networking profiles of other nonprofit organizations, examining how they interact with people online, and reading their blogs to get a sense of the tone and content online.

Promote your cause on Facebook in 5 easy steps:

Non-profits organizations using Facebook can now launch a social-networking-based fundraising drive for their cause, promote it to their friends and network, and raise money. That in a nutshell is what a new mini-application within Facebook called Causes is all about.

Launched by Project Agape, this new service extends the “group” features and allows users to create causes, take donations, and recruit members. Why is this feature good for charities? According to digitaljournal.com:

“This is a good step for charitable foundations, and will be a defining move as more and more of these groups begin to pop-up on Facebook. There are many worthy charities already on the site, so I see this feature taking a huge lead and pushing some action with the groups. The demographic of Facebook users is also younger, thus more likely to donate to charity.”

In my recent beginners guide to Facebook I covered some of the ways that you can get started using Facebook. In this follow-up post, I’ll take you through five simple steps you can do today to promote your cause on Facebook…

A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook
How nonprofits can get started on the popular social networking site:

I’ve always been interested in social networking sites like MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But lately, I’ve been spending quite some time on another social site which I’ve found to be quite worthy of my time and yours.

If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m talking about Facebook. This powerful networking service is not just for individuals like me to keep in touch with friends. It’s a very effective networking tool for nonprofits to create awareness and connect with their community.

Below, I’ll take you through a beginner’s guide to getting your nonprofit on Facebook and ways to effectively use this tool. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of features, but it may help get you started.

How Nonprofits Can Use Facebook:

Facebook has the potential to be successful in the nonprofit sector and I have already found lots of nonprofit related content on there.

Why the Facebook can work in the nonprofit sector:

Colleges have student organizations who are involved in volunteering and fundraising. There are also student groups of a nonprofit organization. Both college and regional networks hold events such as Relay for Life or Race for the Cure.