The Digital Nonprofit – a project of TechSoup Connect Canada
Events and community for nonprofits curious about technology.
Here’s Susanna Haas Lyon‘s slides and video from the November 2011 Net Tuesday.
Slides
Flexing Facebook’s Civic Muscles [slideshare id=10028595&w=425&h=355&sc=no]
Presentation
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msFluFfnk84?rel=0]
Q&A
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQdwQ_j1KdY?rel=0]
It’s not just your Communications and Fundraising teams that should be leveraging online tools. Many non-profits are looking at new ways to use technology to fulfill their mission, including the delivery of programs through technology. Just as many universities have focused on e-Learning to deliver education to students, non-profits organizations can also utilize e-Learning to deliver association services.
This session will share tools and techniques that can be used to deliver non-profit services online. Looking beyond facebook and twitter, this session will cover both synchronous (webinar) solutions as well as asynchronous tools that are available. There will be a focus on sharing best practices, lessons learned from the education sector, and how your non-profit can get started with e-Learning to deliver association services.
When
Tuesday, December 6 2011
DOORS AT 5:30 PM
EVENT STARTS AT 6:00 PM
WRAP AT 7:30 PM
Where
W2 Media Cafe
Admission
Free, with $5 suggested donation.
ABOUT OUR PRESENTER
Chad Leaman is the e-Learning Manager for the Neil Squire Society, working directly with people with disabilities and empowering them through technology. Over the last eight years, he has led the organization’s growth of online learning and connecting the association to various rural and aboriginal disability centers. He has spoken at numerous conferences on themes of e-Learning and accessibility, including the Innovative Professor Conference, MoodleMoot, and the Justice Institute Online Course Showcase. His current projects include running a network of free-computer sites in Burnaby; creating an online one-on-one computer tutoring program; and supporting the technology enabling an online employment program that reaches across Canada. Chad also sits on the other side of the online learning environment, completing his Certified Association Executive certification through online learning.
chadl@neilsquire.ca | @chadleaman
OUR SPONSOR
Net Tuesday is thrilled to have the W2 Media Cafe as our venue sponsor for the 2011-12 season.
They do cool things. Check them out!
RSVP
LOCATION
W2 Media Cafe
111 W Hastings, Vancouver, BC
DATE AND TIME
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Governments around the world are experimenting with social media as a site of civic engagement. Online public participation is a young field however, and little is known about the benefits or limitations of these projects. Key issues that must be considered include anonymity, privacy, government activity in privately operated spaces, demographic diversity, delineating between crowd-appropriate and expert-appropriate tasks, community building and more.
Vancouver was recently the home of an innovative Facebook based public conversation. Hundreds of Vancouver residents and commuters participated in a July 2011 Facebook conversation about the City of Vancouver’ Transportation Plan. Using a uniquely developed Facebook app, this ground breaking social media conversation asked Vancouverites to share their own commuting stories, learn about key issues, propose transportation recommendations to the City. This project was both an innovative engagement exercise in partnership with the City of Vancouver and it was the focus of Susanna Haas Lyons’s masters thesis research with the University of British Columbia.
The City has already written a response to recommendations resulting from the conversation, and these ideas will be considered for integration into the City’s draft transportation plan. Results of the research are emerging.
ABOUT OUR PRESENTER
Susanna Haas Lyons is a public engagement specialist who develops strategy and provides training for better conversations between the public and decision makers. Bridging online and face-to-face methods, Susanna has worked on some of North America’s largest and most complex citizen engagement projects. Currently, Susanna is researching collaborative policy development, with a focus in digital engagement practices, at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Resources, the Environment and Sustainability. She is also a senior network associate with AmericaSpeaks, a global leader in large-scale public participation. Previously, Susanna was project coordinator with the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Mohn Prize. She holds a certificate in Public Participation from the International Association for Public Participation, and is an advisor to the Alberta Climate Dialogue project.
OUR SPONSOR
Net Tuesday is thrilled to have the W2 Media Cafe as our venue sponsor for the 2011-12 season. They do cool things. Check them out!
We’re thrilled to have Lauren Bacon of Raised Eyebrow web studio presenting the October 2011 Net Tuesday.
RSVP
LOCATION
W2 Media Cafe
111 W Hastings, Vancouver, BC
DATE AND TIME
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
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When it’s time to overhaul your website, the task at hand can feel overwhelming. Where do you start? Content, functionality, and design are all vying for first place, and everyone in your organization probably has a different idea of what’s top priority.
In this one-hour session we’ll share tips for how to corral your team, clarify your needs, and set the stage for a successful redesign project. Our specialty is working with nonprofits and public sector organizations, so we will bring that focus to this session.
You’ll learn:
ABOUT LAUREN BACON
Lauren is a veteran web designer, who co-founded Raised Eyebrow Web Studio, Inc. with her business partner, co-author, and all-around right-hand woman, Emira Mears. The two have been in business together since early 2000, and are advocates of values-based business and of sustainable growth. From humble beginnings in a corner of Lauren’s bedroom, to a small office in Vancouver’s historic Gastown district, Raised Eyebrow has expanded gradually to include a staff of five.
OUR SPONSOR
Net Tuesday is thrilled to have the W2 Media Cafe as our venue sponsor for the 2011-12 season. They do cool things. Check them out!
Darren Barefoot presented at the September 2011 Net Tuesday and he killed. The kid’s a pro. He generously offered his slide deck and allowed us to record the session.
P.S. Darren and Julie Szabo also offer a Social Media Marketing Bootcamp. The next one is on October 21.
The slides
How nonprofits win with word of mouth marketing [slideshare id=9156501&w=425&h=355&sc=no]
The Video
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guOprYhxzJs]
This is the year I get off my duff and put some effort into my Net Tuesday meetups.
I’ve committed to one per month for the year, and I’ve brought on an organizing team to help. I’m super jazzed for the first event of the season:
=========
How nonprofits win with word of mouth marketing with Darren Barefoot
with Darren Barefoot
RSVP
If you only engage in ordinary outreach activities – petition asks,
email marketing and Google AdWord buys – you won’t get noticed in a busy landscape where every nonprofit is vying for attention and support. Why? When everyone does the same thing, no one organization shines.
Truly remarkable organizations get their marketing done for them – for free – by their most excited, committed, passionate and devoted fans. They earn it by providing exceptional member experiences, by being unique, bold and creative. Word-of-mouth isn’t just about one-off gimmicks or “viral” campaigns. It’s an overall approach to movement building based on a new online reality where everyday people have become the most powerful marketing department on the planet.
In this session, we’ll discuss how nonprofits and charities are creating
remarkable online campaigns based on the theory and philosophy of
movement marketing. You’ll learn from experienced practitioners how to augment limited budgets with creativity and technology that will help your nonprofit get talked about.
DATE: Tuesday, September 6
DOORS AT 5:30 PM
EVENT STARTS AT 6:00 PM
LOCATION
W2 Woodwards
#250 – 111 West Hastings
Vancouver, BC
RSVP
ABOUT DARREN BAREFOOT
Darren Barefoot is internet famous. He has an honest-to-goodness wikipedia page.
He likes to play on the internet. He’s tweeted more than 17,444 times and it has been suggested that he’s Reddit’s biggest booster. Plus he’s co-written several books, the latest of which is Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook.
For the official bio: http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/about.php
ABOUT OUR SPONSOR
The venue is generously provided by W2 Community Media Arts. They’re lovely!
Volunteers are awesome. So the July 5 Net Tuesday is gonna focus on volunteer coordination.
Volunteers are awesome, but the relationship between a nonprofit and a volunteer can be tricky.
VOLUNTEERS: Maybe the nonprofit never got back to you? Maybe the job they offered kinda sucked?
VOLUNTEER COORDINATORS: Are your volunteers creating a ridiculous pile of administrative paperwork and overhead? Can you find volunteers with the right skills? Why is this so hard?
Net Tuesday can’t solve all your volunteer-related challenges. We aren’t MAGIC.
But we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeves that might help. Check this out:
DATE: Tuesday, July 5
TIME: Doors and (cash bar) booze at 5:30pm, Speakers at 6:00pm, Ends at 7:30pm
LOCATION: Pull Focus film school. 306 Abbott St (upstairs)
WHO’S TALKING? ABOUT WHAT?
ITEM: Volunteers for Salesforce
Elijah van der Giessen (Net Tuesday and David Suzuki Foundation) gives a demo of a free (for charities) application that helps manage volunteers and their hours, and creates forms to allow volunteer and job signup on your website.
Learn more:
An overview of the software: http://groundwire.org/labs/volunteers-for-salesforce
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZm7osRj3lY
21 volunteer management systems compared: http://www.idealware.org/volunteer_management
Do you need an integrated database? http://www.idealware.org/tips/tracking_volunteers
But technology can’t solve your problems. It just makes you more efficient!
The secret to a strong relationship is a hot three-way. Sweet love betwen you, the volunteer AND the organization. Sound tricky? Sometimes it can be. That’s why Net Tuesday is bringing in Trina Isakson, a consultant with both professional and academic expertise in volunteers.
ITEM: Trina Isakson on how technology can help or hinder effective volunteer engagement
Trina Isakson recently completed masters research that examines effective leadership of volunteers, and is excited to discuss how technology can help or hinder good volunteer engagement. She is passionate about non-profit capacity, engaged citizenship, community development and education. Through volunteer activities and consulting and training work with 27 Shift, she helps non-profit organizations and universities strategically engage their next generation of employees, volunteers and donors.
Says Trina:
For the research, I interviewed a series of nonprofit staff/board members who had been identified as effectively engaging volunteers. None of the orgs had any problems (or even made much effort) recruiting volunteers, and more likely had to restrict the number of volunteers.
While the final results of my paper focused on leadership, the themes that arose from analyzing the interview transcripts I think are most interesting. Examples include:
- volunteers were seen as peers and professionals, not subordinates
- volunteer engagement was seen as everyone’s role in the organiztion (i.e. not just for a ‘volunteer coordinator’)
- the organizations and individuals had a strong culture of learning and change
- while they had volunteers that had to leave their roles/didn’t show to meetings etc., interviewees accepted this as a reality of the volunteers’ busy lives and adapted their volunteer engagement practices/scheduling to plan for this
OUR SPONSOR
They’re giving the event a home, and allow the meetup to be free. Plus they make awesome videos.
Pull Focus Film School
On Facebook and Twitter!
306 Abbott St (near Cordova)
Vancouver, BC V6B 2K9
See you on Tuesday!
—
Eli
Net Tuesday Vancouver
I’ve won a scholarship to participate in Australia’s Connecting Up conference this June.
Whooo!
NTEN is pleased to announce the winners of our mutual scholarship program with Connecting Up to share nonprofit technology knowledge across the Pacific. Through an application process, two NTEN Members were chosen to attend the Connecting Up Conference (CU11) in Melbourne, Australia, June 1-3, 2011 on a full scholarship!
The lucky folks are Elijah van der Giessen of David Suzuki Foundation and Tatiana Marshall of Oceana. We look forward to hearing about their nonprofit technology adventures down under!
The conference focuses on nonprofit marketing and technology, and my role in Vancouver’s Net Tuesday was key to my successful application, because one of the application questions was “How will you share what you learned when you get back home?” Yay NetSquared and Net Tuesday!
Did your favorite nonprofit group send you an email over the holiday campaign season inviting you to buy a calendar, a t-shirt, or baby onesie? I certainly did.
As nonprofits struggle to adapt to changing donation patterns organizations like CPAWS, WWF and Pivot Legal are diversifying their revenue streams by selling merchandise to their supporters. But merchandise programs bring with them a host of new challenges, including inventory management, distraction from the core mission, and the potential to divert donors to a gift stream with lower net revenue.
But merchandise sales also bring lots of potential benefits. Join a panel of experts at Net Tuesday February and learn if selling merchandise is right for your organization.
Issues tackled:
What makes for a successful sales program?It’s gonna be an awesome evening, so please RSVP.
Date: Tuesday, February 1
Doors: 5:30pm
Duration: 6:00 – 7:30pm
Venue: W2 Storyeum, 151 W Cordova
PANELISTS
RSVP
Have you recently “checked-in” or fought for “mayorship” at your favourite restaurant or retail location? With Facebook recently launching its Facebook Places and Foursquare partnering with (RED), location-based services are definitely one of the trending topics in social media right now.
The topic for March is location-based services and how organizations can leverage the technology for social-change. We’re still in the process of curating speakers, so if you know anyone who is knowledgeable about these topics, please let us know at melody.yy.ma@gmail.com
Date: Tuesday, March 1
Doors: 5:30pm
Duration: 6:00 – 7:30pm
Venue: W2 Storyeum, 151 W Cordova
Special thanks to Melody Ma for volunteering to be this month’s event producer.