The Social Non Profit

I believe that non profits are more capable of fulfilling their Mission, meeting their business goals, empowering (liberating) their staff and engaging their stakeholders when they choose to work smarter using social technologies.

As non profits embark on a working smarter path I see them incrementally evolving into a social non profit state (continuous dynamic process). Working smarter is more than adopting social networking, YouTube, Twitter and other social channels for your already overstressed non profit organization.  Those social media tools are very useful, however focusing on the tool can distract (confuse) the organization from the underlaying purpose of these tools – working smarter.

My starting point is that working smarter with social tech is about doing a better job on delivering on your Non Profit’s Mission and empowering your staff’s creativity and innovativeness so they can be even more effective in their work.

Having worked as a manager and executive director in the non profit sector for a few decades, I have gained insight into how resourceful and smart non profit leaders are when it comes to keeping their organization in business. With all sectors of our society being transformed by social technologies, I believe now is the time for non profit leaders to tap into their innate resilience qualities, utilize the social tools at hand and take their organization to new levels of proficiency and accomplishment.

As a consultant in the social media and non profit sphere, I am firmly embedded in “working smarter” motif. In my estimation, it’s my most relevant and commanding mantra for my work with non profit groups and associations.

Simply put, I believe non profit leaders aspire to develop the most efficient and highest quality organization, delivering the very best services to their community(s) and stakeholders.

Also, staff delivering services are hired for their competence at communication, collaboration and empathy skills. Staff resourcefulness and creativity is put to test each day as they work with children, youth, families and communities. Non Profit leaders are taxed with the role of providing staff with the best tools available so they can deliver the highest quality of service and be front row ambassadors of the organization.

There are risks to organizations that refuse to consider online communications as a fundamental aspect of their work. In many non profit organizations, staff are already using social media to learn and work more effectively. Unfortunately, many (most) are using these social tools without the organizations guidance, training or support. As staff use these tools without the organization’s support or policy framework , they put themselves, their clients and the organization at risk.

Risks include online practices that affect issues such as: privacy, confidentiality, liability, standards, ethics, safety, human rights. The list can go on.

Creating an online communications strategy is a critical component in a non profit’s strategic business plan. A non profit organization usually (if not, it should have) has a communications strategy as part of their business plan. If the organization has not developed an online communication strategy, accompanied by policies, they are operating with a hood over their head as they cannot see, hear, listen or engage their stakeholders who are online, working smarter and looking for results.

Obviously, the organization needs an online strategy with accompanying policies that will guide its online communications inside and outside the organization. More than strategies and policies, my view is that non profit leaders need to foster a “working smarter or social learning” culture within the organization. By fostering a “social learning culture” staff are empowered to safely and transparently use social channels to communicate, collaborate, network and most importantly represent the organization accurately to users, partners and networks.

Below is a small excerpt from an international organization’s strategic plan. In this excerpt, the organization clearly articulates the building blocks it used prior to establishing their strategy outcomes. The excerpt comes from NTEN’s (Non Profit Technology Network) Strategic Planning document.

NTEN’s Mission is “to aspires to a world where all nonprofit organizations skillfully and confidently use technology to meet community needs and fulfill their missions.

Assumptions Necessary to Accomplish NTEN’s Strategic Outcomes As part of the development of the theory of change, it is important to make explicit the assumptions and/or underlying beliefs about what is necessary to create change.  Sometimes there are called pre-conditions; they can be thought of as things that are necessary to exist to support the change the organization seeks to make.  We articulated the following assumptions:

1. Technology has the potential to help nonprofit organizations fulfill their missions and create impact.
2. Nonprofit leaders must be able to make and implement informed technology decisions to fulfill their missions.
3. Nonprofit leaders and technology staff need skills, knowledge, and access to a community of peers grappling with similar decisions in order to make informed technology decisions,
4. Improving the skills and knowledge of nonprofit technology leaders can leverage change within organizations such that they more effectively use technology.
5. Influential organizations serving the nonprofit sector (e.g., state associations, funders, technical assistance organizations) must serve as thought leaders and influencers to support nonprofits effectively use of technology.
6. For-profits and consultants must provide the appropriate software and tools to nonprofits in order for them to effectively use technology.

NTEN in its value statements, clearly places it’s starting point on working smarter with the organization rather than practitioners or staff.

My view is that working smarter is already happening on the staff level and in many situations, the organization’s leadership needs to catch up with its staff. A quote from the Working Smarter Fieldbook written by Jay Cross defines working smarter.

The Working Smarter Fieldbook defines working smarter as “the key to sustainability and continuous improvement. Knowledge work and learning to work smarter are becoming indistinguishable. The accelerating rate of change in business forces everyone in every organization to make a choice: learn while you work or become obsolete”

In future posts, I will share more about how staff can use social tech in their every day work and how non profit organizations can support staff to work smarter by developing clear strategies, policies and procedures.

Below are my key mentors, thought leaders and guides who espouse the working smarter philosophy. I’m so pleased to have discovered their work as it has given me a concrete foundation for my work with non profit organizations.

The Internet Time Alliance: This stellar group includes 5 Principals:

Jay Cross - Informal Learning Blog and Internet Time Alliance

Jane Hart – Center for Learning and Performance Technologies (Jane’s Pick of the Day)

Harold Jarche – Life in Perpetual Beta

Charles Jennings – improving performance through learning innovation,

and Clark Quinn – Learnlets

I am also closely following and absorbing the work of Marcia Conner a Partner with the Altimeter Group. She and Tony Bingham have recently published a new book titled The New Social Learning Learning – A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media. You can follow Marcia through her blog Learnativity

Related Posts:

Working Smarter – My New Lens: The Social Non Profit

Putting Social Into Social Services – My Take

Brent Uncategorized learning social elearning socialnonprofit

My starting point is a recognition that non profit leaders (Executive Director and Board Directors) are generally masters of their craft.  They seek the highest quality performance from  their staff and aim for the most potent outcomes for their constituents.

That said, “working smarter” for me is about leaders understanding the new landscape in which their organization operates and strategically using new communication and relationship tools to bring their organization into alignment with that new landscape.

Over the past week, I’ve felt a synthesizing or coming together of new ideas about how charities are evolving (or not) into social non profits. As I made sense of these new ideas, I was able to see my social media consulting work in a different context.

To help me communicate my new understanding of how non profits are evolving, I created a new “purpose statement” for my business.

My new purpose statement can be viewed as a lens that I put on when I work with non profits that are seeking ways to work smarter using social media tools inside and outside the organization.

A social non profit aspires to deliver the highest quality service using social tech tools that enhance communication and learning amongst staff, volunteers, partners and service users.

Social non profits align their people, services and governance systems with their online communications and use technology to empower staff, improve services and enhance governance practices.

Informal Learning with others in and outside the organization and encouraging innovation are central principles that fuel the work of social non profits.

There are numerous authors that are contributing to my understanding of what I refer to as a social non profit. Here are a few of them with links to the posts that have influenced my learning. These posts are just the tip of the iceberg. To learn more about what a social non profit or business is, I recommend you read more from these authors.

Michael Brito – The Three Pillars that Shape a Social Business

Jane Hart – The New Workplace Learning Professional, new roles, new skills?

Marcia Conner – Where Social Learning Thrives

Harold Jarche – The Value of Social Media for Learning

Clarke N. Quinn – Bridging Formal and Informal Learning

Jay Cross – Internet Time Blog, Working Smarter Field Book

Seth Godin – Best Selling Author Have a look and listen to this brief video where he talks about how charities should pursue innovation. (The Chronicle of Philanthropy)

I will close with two quotes by Jay Cross and Clarke N. Quinn. For me, these quotes bring this whole theme of what is a social non profit together. I will continue blogging about how charities are evolving (or not) into a social non profits in the coming months and years. I’ll do this even though I recognize that the word social will eventually (sooner rather than later) become so ubiquitous it will become unnecessary.

I would love to hear comments from my colleagues in the non profit and business sector.

Jay Cross: “Working smarter is the key to sustainability and continuous improvement. Knowledge work and learning to work smarter are becoming indistinguishable. The accelerating rate of change in business forces everyone in every organization to make a choice: learn while you work or become obsolete.”

Clarke N. Quinn: “The recognition that learning is 80% informal suggests that we need to support natural connections between people who can help one another. And we can distribute that support between employees, partners, or customers. You can see real benefits, but you’ve got to have a way to think about them!”

Brent Uncategorized

What a delightful video I found when I opened up a colleague’s newsletter this evening. Mark Holmgren’s Anticipate newsletter is always filled with social media goodies and this was no exception.

It is so thrilling to see our ever so predictable community get shaken up by the unexpectedness and talent of professional singers posing as lunch time munchkins. When community space is bursting with song and vibrant energy it can bring a joy to everyone in the room.

Brent Uncategorized flashmob community

Non profit and social service organizations are challenged to evolve into a social organization.

The challenge is real. There is no choice. It’s a forced evolution.

Our non profit world, composed of community members, users, and supporters has irrevocably changed. The social web is not a trend that your organization may or may not take part.

As Seth Godin says, “social media is an event, not a process”.

To view the social web as a trend is just poor judgement.

If you are a non profit board or an Executive Director, transitioning your social service organization (or business) to the social web is a requirement, not only for your organization’s survival but to retain relevancy to your non profit cause.

Non profits that first examine their organizational dynamics and communications will have a stronger base for their transition to the social web.

Using social media tools to connect and engage your stakeholders is important, however transforming your organization’s culture is more than using Twitter or a YouTube channel.

I applaud non profit leaders for making a conscious choice to engage their constituents online. They are farsighted and have conducted a sound assessment of the new realities of the business world.

Many non profit leaders who chose to look inwardly at their organization took this path because they had a vision as what their organization could accomplish.

They saw a future where their organization could operate in a realm of possibilities instead of like a fort under siege, struggling for its very existence.

I believe once a vision is crystallized and a decision made to transform the organization, the next step is to create an online communications strategy (organizational change process) that addresses the elements that keep the organization operating as a silo.

This is tough but very necessary work. The benefits far outweigh the cost as the organization will eventually be aligned and engaged at all levels, internally and externally with their stakeholders.

One long lasting sustainable benefit (there are many more) is that the organization will have created online policies, guidelines and procedures that protect their organization, yet empower their employees.

This past year I’ve been fortunate to work with several non profits that chose to look inwardly at its internal communications. They looked at their programming, team work, governance communications and especially how their web platform delivered on their organization’s business goals.

These organizations chose to be strategic with their online communications and are becoming a more authentic social service agency, with social as an active verb rather than a weak adjective.

There is a huge difference between engagement in social behaviour and becoming a social non profit.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power. Lao Tzu

What do you think?

Brent Uncategorized onlinestrategy, socialservice, transformation