EVENT REPORT: The Canadian Anti-Spam Act: What Nonprofits need to know before July 1

spam

On June 17 NetSquared Vancouver partnered with Methodworks Consulting’s Jim Freer and Lawyer Maanit Zemel. The two of them provided a thorough introduction to what charities and nonprofits need to know about this legislation that goes into effect July 1, 2014.

Slides

Video: Screencast

Video by Eoghan Moriarty

Presenters

Maanit Zemel

Maanit Zemel is a lawyer and commercial litigator with substantial experience and expertise in internet and social media law, including Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), online defamation and cyberbullying. Prior to starting her own internet law practice in Toronto, Ms. Zemel was a partner at a large national law firm. Ms. Zemel regularly advises businesses, charities, and non-profits on practical and effective CASL compliance policies and procedures.

Jim Freer

Non-Profit Systems Consultant | Method Works Consulting

Jim is Method Works’ data guru. He is proficient with the range of Blackbaud’s web and fundraising product and has been professionally programming for over a decade. Today he’s here to speak about CASL (the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation) and the importance of process, workflows, and systems in ensuring compliance with the new legislation.

EVENT REPORT: A Digital Currencies 101 for the Social Sector

BitcoinDecentralized digital currencies such as bitcoin and litecoin are a disruptive technology that are re-shaping the international financial sector. On June 10th Scott Nelson introduced this technology and explored how the non-profit and social sector should approach incorporating it into their day to day activities.

Slides

Video

Scott’s Links

Scott shared these links through the course of the presentation.

1) http://seansoutpost.com

2) http://www.womensannexfoundation.org

3) http://peacegeeks.org/donate

4) http://coinmap.org

5) http://bitcoinwisdom.com

6) https://coinmarketcap.com

7) https://vaultofsatoshi.com

8) https://mintpal.com

9) https://dana.io

10) http://www.saftonhouse.com

About Scott Nelson

Scott Nelson founded Communicopia, one of Canada’s first web companies, in 1993 and has made a career of helping the progressive sector adopt and use innovative technology. A staunch advocate of open technologies he became involved in digital currencies in 2010 and has helped numerous organizations benefit from it.

Creating a Digital Community: The Adventures (and misadventures) of Fundraiser Grrl

Creating a Digital Community: The Adventures (and misadventures) of Fundraiser Grrl

In February 2013 Fundraiser Grrl was born, from a desire to bring together fundraisers from around the world – to commiserate, eye roll, sympathize and laugh out loud at the bizarre and amazing moments we all experience in our crazy wonderful careers. Since it began, over 200,000 fundraisers have visited the site, and it averages over 1,000 visitors per day.

Rory is a major gits fundraiser, who had little to no experience with the digital marketing, when she started the site. In this session, she will share what she has learned about using social media to build a community, what worked, and what didn’t, and how to apply this to your work in the non-profit sector.

RSVP on Meetup

When: Tuesday, July 8 2014, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Where: HiVE Vancouver, #210 – 128 W Hastings St.

Rory Green
RORY GREEN

Rory Green has been in the philanthropic sector for over eight years and is currently the Associate Director, Advancement for the Faculty of Applied Science at Simon Fraser University. Rory has also worked in major and corporate giving at BCIT and the Canadian Cancer Society.

Rory has spoken at national and international fundraising conferences, most recently starring in the “Kaleidoscope of Philanthropy” Plenary Session at AFP International, San Antonio.

In her spare time Rory is the founder and editor of Fundraiser Grrl, the fundraising community’s go-to source for comic relief. http://fundraisergrrl.tumblr.com/

AGENDA

  • 5:30 – 6:00 PM: Networking and snacks
  • 6:00 – 7:00 PM: Presentation
  • 7:00 – 7:30 PM: Q&A and Wrap

TWITTER

Event hashtag: #Net2van

Host: @Net2van

Presenter: @RoryJMGreen

ACCESSIBILITY

Mobility Access: This venue does not have ramps and elevators and is not wheelchair accessible.

Hearing Access: Speakers at this event will use microphones.

Sight Access: Contact the organizers if you need an advance copy of the presentation.

We want everyone to be able to participate in the Net2Van community and events. Please don’t hesitate to let us know what we can do to accommodate your needs.

June Tech for Good Events

It’s June! It’s sunny! But if you want to avoid sunburn here’s some great indoor nonprofit tech events.

UPCOMING NET2VAN EVENTS

All NetSquared Vancouver events are free or by donation.

A Digital Currencies 101 for the Social Sector

When: Tuesday, June 10
RSVP: http://goo.gl/H3395M

Decentralized digital currencies such as bitcoin and litecoin are a disruptive technology that are re-shaping the international financial sector. This session will introduce this technology and explore how the non-profit and social sector should approach incorporating it into their day to day activities.

The Canadian Anti-Spam Act: What you need to know before July 1

When: Tuesday, June 17.
RSVP: http://goo.gl/VFfzid

An encore presentation of a two hour workshop on what you need to know before the new Canadian Anti-Spam Act goes into effect July 1 2014. Learn how mass emails could, should or are supposed to work under the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation.

Social Media Surgery for Nonprofits with HootSuite

Owly Social Media Surgeon

When: Monday, July 21
RSVP: http://goo.gl/hT3Isr

Join NetSquared and HootSuite for free personalized and hands-on assistance with your organization’s social media strategy. It’s one-on-one office hours for all your social media questions!

UPCOMING EVENTS FROM OUR COMMUNITY FRIENDS

The Crisis Conscious Community Manager

When: Wednesday, June 11
RSVP: http://goo.gl/AxLbsc

Every community or communications manager’s worst nightmare: The constant ping of notifications swiftly followed by phone calls at an otherwise quiet time. The next moments are critical and chaotic. Do you have your crisis survival kit ready to launch? In this afternoon workshop, we’ll simulate real scenarios, putting your social marketing and communications teams to the ultimate test: staying poised and in controlled in the face of a critical situation.

Volunteers for Salesforce

When: Wednesday, June 18
RSVP: http://goo.gl/TZcGlb

Join the Vancouver Nonprofit Salesforce User Group for a discussion of the free app Volunteers for Salesforce.

SAP Vancouver Lumira CodeJam

When: Tuesday, June 24
RSVP: http://goo.gl/x8O54u

Want to get your hands on the latest in SAP Lumira while having fun with other developers close to where you are? Then come and check out one of the coolest and fastest growing events from SAP: SAP CodeJam!

Community Manager CampAway

When: Thursday, June 26
RSVP: http://goo.gl/JCDcbD

CampAway is a 1-day conference for mid-to-senior level marketing, social media, community managers, and builders working at non-profits, agencies, lifestyle brands, tech startups, SMBs, enterprises and institutions. The event combines Industry-leading speakers with hands-on collaborative workshop sessions, where attendees can learn from each other and broaden their professional network and skills.

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That’s it for now. See you soon!

The Digital Nonprofit: Event Impressions from Brenton Walters

A guest post by Brenton Walters, Reid Communications and Winch Institute

On Friday May 9 I had the pleasure of attending Net2Van’s annual conference, the Digital Nonprofit. It was an excellent event organized by Elijah van der Giessen and the other amazing folks at Net2Van with a stellar line-up of speakers, amazing food from Tacofino and coffee from Stir-it-Up-BikeCaffe, and even some complimentary headshots from photographer Krista Caldwell.

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The one-day conference was designed to help nonprofit leaders and staff better navigate the constantly shifting digital world. As a project manager with the Winch Institute, I constantly work on improving our online presence, engagement, and messaging.

If you want to follow along, here’s the agenda and here are the slides from each presentation. Or even watch it all on YouTube.

Here are some thoughts from each presentation:

Monique Sherrett, Boxcar Marketing – The Multiscreen World

This seems so simple, but Monique’s main point, that organizations need to design all their digital outreach for the users’ experience, is only slowly being adopted in the nonprofit world.

In practical terms, this means that websites must be properly responsive (that is, they adapt to the screen they are being viewed on). It also means that even small details like the viewable intro to emails (before they are opened) should be taken into consideration.

Lynda Gerty, Vantage Point – The Abundant Not-for-Profit

Volunteers bring a lot of skills and experience to many nonprofits. Organizations need to figure out how best to use these skills – too often we recruit volunteers with huge networks and tons of skills and then put them to use with menial tasks.

An important part of this is the need or value in letting go of control – open, engaged organizations attract engaged volunteers. Let people become key components of your organization and they will return the trust with quality work and more recruits.

I look forward to connecting with Lynda to discuss this further – every organization I work with struggles with this issue. At the Winch Institute we are young enough that volunteers are being put to work immediately on whatever they want to take on, which has been encouraging.

John Bromley, Chimp Fund – Digital Philanthropy

John asked a key question: What challenges will charities/nonprofits face in 2020? For starters, most of it will be online. Corporate charitable giving will be even more aimed at marketing. And charities that thrive will be the ones that engage best with their donors and potential donors.

Organizations need to facilitate giving – make it easy for people to give. Find matching funds! Establish charitable foundation to funnel donations (for larger orgs).

And for me, the most important bit: What are you offering donors for their investments? Because they are investing in your organization. Figure this out, figure out what people want in return, and do that.

Crystal Henrickson, Invoke Labs

Tailor your outreach to your audience, on all social media channels. Find out when and where your supporters are online and engage with them.

Track your results – check out the University of Invoke’s resource bank by sending them your email for a raft of tools to help with this.

Crystal brought a ton of energy to her presentation, and promised to answer every question to her (so take advantage of this!).

Meriko Kubota, Telus – Corporate Community Investment

I missed much of this while on a work call, but the upshot is that large corporations are increasingly adopting digital technologies in their approach to charitable giving. And Telus gives a boatload of money to a lot of different groups.

Fuck the Poor video

The Pilion Trust (UK) created this video to challenge and shock people – do we actually care about helping people?

It was effective, but what was the ask? It works as a video, but maybe not as a campaign. This was perhaps a factor of the large room/audience – it certainly works better on a computer screen.

Group work: What creative actions would you and/or your organization do to get noticed? Know your audience, know what will resonate. Tip: the answer to this is never “Wear a chicken suit”.

Reilly Yeo and Vojtech Sedlak, Openmedia – The Engagement Pyramid

My notes for this are simple, but it’s so important: Build relationships, not lists. Check out the slides for this, as they are quite informative.

Consider list movement vs. list growth. Engage your supporters and strengthen your core. Think about the various ways that people support – it’s not a simple ladder, necessarily, but more like several sides to an engagement pyramid (so to speak – it’s a bit of a tortured analogy).

Lee LeFever, Common Craft – The Art of Explanation

I had a wonderful moment the evening before the event: I read about the work that Lee and Common Craft do, which is explaining things via videos in ways that really increase comprehension. And then I tried to fix my wireless router using four different pages of an utterly incomprehensible user-wiki.

Explanation is an art that is too often ignored. Great ideas and products fail to take hold because they aren’t properly explained to potential users.

As a starting point: What are you trying to communicate, and why should people care? Provide context, give people a reason to care, and then fill in the details.

Consider:

  • Who is your intended audience? How much background knowledge do they have about your idea?
  • Empathize with them – How will your explanation sound to them?
  • Use language familiar to them – but don’t dumb things down.

Start with the big idea before going into detail – i.e. describe the forest before you focus on the trees.

I’ve started reading his book (same title), and already I feel it should be mandatory reading for every professional communicator. Some of it is somewhat intuitive, but as a basis or reference point for all communication it feels extremely valuable.

At the Winch Institute, like every other nonprofit, there is a huge need for us to properly communicate what we do and why we do it, to build support for our work, and to sell our services. Every presentation offered practical tools for doing this, as well as bigger ideas for how all organizations can improve how they engage, communicate, fundraise, and grow.

Thanks to Eli and the Net2Van crew for putting on this great event, to the speakers for their knowledge and insight, and to the sponsors, two of whom I have already contacted about their services. Click the links and see if they might be able to help you out.

Storifys: The Digital Nonprofit

The Digital Nonprofit was connected. Our lead social media reporter David Gloyn-Cox has wrapped up the day’s conversation and key insights into a series of Storifys.

Thanks David! You’re the best!

September 2: $ocial Media? Using small wins to grow social media revenue

$ocial Media? Using small wins to grow social media revenue event image

Ever heard it said “there’s no ‘$’ in social media. Just a plain old letter ‘s’?” Many organizations have found that a strong social media presence has not yet translated directly into significant fundraising revenue.

Shoni Field will share the BC SPCA’s experiences using a ‘small wins’ approach to growing their social media sourced revenue.

Using case studies that reference some of the BC SPCAs successful online campaigns including BC SPCA Medical Emergency, Second Chance Holiday Campaign, Calendar Contest and National Cupcake Days she’ll explore:

  • Whether a shifting emphasis from transactional to relational fundraising fits better with the social media psyche.
  • How we move social media supporters out of their silo.
  • What role virtual peer2peer models can play in growing social media sourced revenue.

RSVP on Meetup

When: Tuesday, September 2 2014, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Where: HiVE Vancouver, #210 – 128 W Hastings St.

PRESENTER

Shoni Field for Net2van Shoni Field
As Director of Fundraising Innovation at the BC SPCA, Shoni Field explores dynamic opportunities in micro-campaign and peer-to-peer fundraising that deeply engages their support base. Shoni has eighteen years of experience in direct response fundraising. She has worked with a range of non-profits including The Pembina Institute, Imagine1Day, EcoJustice, The Arthritis Society and the B.C. Cancer Agency.

AGENDA

  • 5:30 – 6:00 PM: Networking and snacks
  • 6:00 – 7:00 PM: Presentation
  • 7:00 – 7:30 PM: Q&A and Wrap

TWITTER

Event hashtag: #Net2van

Host: @Net2van

Presenter: @motherhoodissue @BC_SPCA

ACCESSIBILITY

Mobility Access: This venue does not have ramps and elevators and is not wheelchair accessible.

Hearing Access: Speakers at this event will use microphones.

Sight Access: Contact the organizers if you need an advance copy of the presentation.

We want everyone to be able to participate in the Net2Van community and events. Please don’t hesitate to let us know what we can do to accommodate your needs.

AGENDA: The Digital Nonprofit 2014

What’s the day going to look like? Like this!

AGENDA

8:45 – 9:30 AM: Registration, coffee and snacks

10:25 – 10:45: Coffee break

  • 10:50 – 11:10 AM Session 3: Philanthropy Q&A w/ John Bromley
  • 11:15 – 11:35 AM Table work: Philanthropy discussion with John Bromley
  • 11:40 – 12:00 PM Session 4: Meriko Kubota

12:00 – 1:15 PM: LUNCH

2:35 – 2:45 PM: Coffee break

Slides and Video: What Nonprofits Need to Know About Canada’s Anti-Spam Law

On April 28 NetSquared Vancouver partnered with Methodworks Consulting’s Jim Freer and Maanit Zemel, a lawyer from Miller Thomson LLP. The two of them provided a thorough introduction to what charities and nonprofits need to know about this legislation that goes into effect July 1, 2014.

NOTE: the event sold out, so we have scheduled an encore presentation on Tuesday, June 17.

Maanit’s Slides and Video

Jim’s Slides and Video