A non-profit
organization is one that serves public interest. The main vision of a
non-profit must be related to education, charity, science or research. A
non-profit can have donors, offer services to the public, make its own
products. To be known in the public sector, they must market itself so that
they attract more of donors and make them satisfied to be a long term part of
the team. Universities, hospitals, schools and few other charities come under
one roof called the "non-profit". The success or failure depends on
how well it is run, like how a normal business functions.
The Non-Profit Organizations face
some common issues which are
1. Becoming a part of the community
2. Getting new donors
3. Retaining the existing donors
4. Creating a thought for
leadership
Currently, I am doing my internship
with a non-profit organization based in Boston which is the world leader in
providing mid-day meals for the underprivileged kids in India. To make them
reach the goal of 5 million kids who are being helped by them, they can use
Social Network Analysis to achieve their goal with lesser time.
Social
Networks can be used in gaining new donors. The primary key is to network
by which people do more of interaction with each other so that more number of donors
can be started for the organization. The development part (which involves
obtaining donors) is successfully covered here. Also, when people network, they
share their experiences, ideas and knowledge which will help the building
blocks of the non-profit sector grow even more. SNA would also help us understand
better how to reach a donor and keep a track on the communication cycle so that
he/she is aware of the current activities and can be a part of the contributions
on a regular basis. By the basis of communication, we can figure out who is a
suitable person who can be a leader for the entire organization.
The
centrality measures that need to be focused are the number of connections a
donor or volunteer within the organization has (Degree). How a person can be a
path (or mutual connection) between two people or connections (Betweenness).
The closest method by which a person can reach anyone within an organization
(closeness) and (the Eigenvector) the possibility of a donor to be connected
really well to another person in the organization.
As a
result of this analysis, we can conclude that SNA can help make the process of acquiring
donors more simple and it can also effectively measure how well the
organization is going on track. Additionally, the connections grow and we can
also decide how well the business is going and also where it is headed to.
References:
http://www.nonprofit.pro/nonprofit_organization.htm
http://sproutsocial.com/insights/nonprofit-social-media-guide/
http://www.nten.org/article/2013-enonprofit-benchmarks-study/
Patric
Babu
Masters
of International Business
HULT
International Business School
#HultSNO2016
1 comment:
This is an OK summary of how to use SNA in looking at a non-profit org. Since you are working already with an interesting non-profit, about which you must know something, I would have liked to see a more specific approach based on the organization's actual situation, as you don't really tell us anything about the org.'s specific needs and how SNA could improve their chances of getting donations. For instance, a Boston-based NGO dealing with feeding children in India must have an interesting mix of US and Indian supporters, no? Some interesting possibilities of donor networks there to be investigated.
Post a Comment