As a Social Media Consultant for a Non- Profit organization I find myself with a challenge every day, trying to create posts based on emotional stories of poor kids in Latin America struggling to go to school, in the hopes of finding new donors that will help to support our initiatives as well as making stronger ties with our current benefactors.
It is not a secret that the growth of our NPO depends on its network position, along with having collaborative relationships with other organizations sharing the same structure. However, my aha! moment took place after taking my elective class "Social Network Analysis and Social Media classes" with Professor Tunnar. I understood that it is very important to understand networks simply starting by analyzing our own network, composed by people and organizations online. It never occurred to me that analyzing our connections with current benefactors and employees as well as asking the right questions to people, will lead us to find the "go to person". Our network is filled with people who want to help with a cause, and our organization is filled with people whose values are aligned to the company's value which aim to help people. Therefore, if we analyze closely we have plenty of opportunities to increase our funds by using and visualizing our own networks.
So and easy way to start the process of looking for new benefactors and using the support of social media and online resources, we could start by defining a process to find new connections. For example, we can begin by asking to our donors and employees who do they think is the to go person. Since, the organization that I work for is located in a small town, there is a chance that people suggest the same "to go person or organization", a clue that can lead us to the right person. In addition, it is very important to identify patterns and ties between the people. ( See example below)
Other important point is based on formulating the right questions in order generate insights. For instance, questions such as What people or organizations, online bloggers are in our system? , What are their role? Are they connected or not? etc can be helpful.
Additionally, another way to conduction a SNA study can be done through social media and asking our followers to share post and reach more people everyday.
Finally, after reading and learning about this topic I can conclude that a SNA will help my company to identify the proper interviewees and help to recognize patterns that will lead us to approach new donors and generate better funds for our causes.
The links below give further information about this topic:
http://www.coyotecommunications.com/outreach/osn.html
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/12/guest-post-by-steve-waddell-systems-mapping-for-nonprofits-part-ii.html
2 comments:
Interesting!!
I was thinking about this topic earlier too.
You may have seen other posts from earlier classes about this interesting topic. I like your approach. SNA might be a very good way to make the distinctions you talk about ((bloggers, potential donors, etc.) You post an interesting map of network positions (the Monitor one.) What would have been helpful is for you to tell us what they mean in terms of your network. FOr instance, what's the difference between a blogger (or a donor) on the periphery vs. in the core? Since this is a real org. that you're involved with, you can turn this into a real project. Good luck!
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