Sustainability and Philanthropy—Can Walmart Show Us the Way
Sometimes things crystallize all at once.
The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Rosenblum writes this week that Walmart, the behemoth retailer whose ethical, environmental and worker treatment record has been so poor that it will now require its manufacturers supplying goods to its stores to adhere to stricter ethical and environmental standards. This is big news.
If Walmart is capable of raising its bar I am hopeful that our ethically and morally strong but often-slow-to adopt-change community will soon make some headway here as well.
Forecasting the Jewish Future: 2019
I just connected to a very intriguing Web 2.0 forecasting game. Launched on September 22nd and only alive for three more weeks until November 13th, Superstructgame, is the brainchild of The Institute for the Future (IFTF), an independent nonprofit research group founded in 1968 by Rand Corporation researchers with a Ford Foundation grant to build understanding of the future.
The forecasting game, Superstruct invites players (you can play) to imagine, forecast and plan for a brave new world of 2019 by focusing on a unique set of “future parameters” that are presented in rather sobering videos. The five video superstructure scenarios trigger your interest and encourage you to select one of them as your primary play area. Then you add your own stories, strategize with other players and create a possible future structure. The areas are defined as:
- Quarantine, where you learn “homemade bombs kill 75 people in Birmingham as fear, anger and unemployment drive unrest…”
- Ravenous, where “abandoned supermarkets have become temporary village squares in many parts of Amsterdam…”
- Power Struggle, where you are told “Masdar City’s 500,000 inhabitants match energy consumption of a U.S. suburb of 20,000..”
- Outlaw Planet, where “grieving and hacking attacks disrupt Superstruct after the issuance of its Extinction Report..”
- Generation Exile, which presents a scenario of “displaced people in Minnesota now numbering over 100,000 and facing a tough winter…”
So, I wondered if anyone in the Jewish community world was playing and/or if Superstructgame might spark interest in creating a version for our future. Could be very interesting to get some engaged Jewish people gaming about continuity, Jewish education, social responsibility, the future of Israel…and???? Anyone game to play?
How Much Time Does Web 2.0 Take?
In the work we do with various organizations, we constantly come across staff not properly understanding the time factor involved to both have and properly maintain a social media presence. We first posted about this in August, in Don’t Underestimate the Staff Factor. As the economy moves ever southward, it is even more important to maintain a handle on expenses.
Here’s a great image we came across to help re-enforce the time commitment needed for various levels of social media involvement along with a link to lessons learned by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum through their projects.
source: Beth Kanter, How Much Time Does It Take To Do Social Media?
Managing Negative PR in the Web 2.0 World
Negative pr has always been a thorn in the side of those of us who work hard building and protecting the reputations of Jewish organizations that do good work and put a high value on maintaining the trust of their constituents.
Yet, from time to time, even the most highly respected organization is faced with a situation that has the potential to seriously damage its reputation. I know because I have had to handle my share of negative pr situations over the course of my career. It’s never fun, difficult to get through and yet, if you follow the time-tested protocols for dealing with a pr “crisis,” you will get beyond the storm. The best “crisis pr” advice I ever heard was from Howard Rubenstein, the venerable crisis pr maven, who always started with “be prepared before a crisis strikes and always tell the truth as quickly as possible.”
So with the blogsphere now a legitimate, mainstream source of information, what must organizations do to be sure those writing about them get it right and how does an organization stay on top of the blog world to know what is being said?
Here are a few thoughts, but please add yours to the conversation.
Rosh Hashanah Musings
My email inbox is filled with Rosh Hashanah e-cards from colleagues and friends wishing me a sweet and healthy New Year. Some are quite clever and all very lovely. There are lots of e-greetings using video and animation and a couple that have taken humorous, sharp pokes at the U.S. presidential political scene. I even received a few old-school, snail-mailed holiday greetings. All these wish are nice, albeit not terribly inspiring and leave me feeling flat.
So, Monday morning as I was putting the finishing touches on the noodle kugel, I figured out what was bothering me. It’s that this is a time of reflection and hopefully a chance to focus on doing things better next year. None of the messages I got from Jewish organizations inspired me or offered me anything of substance or value.
Creating an Online Buzz
The proper use of viral marketing can help your message spread rapidly. Take your message online and there’s no telling how many potential supporters you will reach. According to Steve MacLaughlin, Interactive practice manager at Blackbaud in Charleston, S.C., the success of any viral marketing strategy is in the “pass it on” rate.
“Response rates increase dramatically when users can see that a message is coming from a friend, family member, or co-worker,” he said. “People must be encouraged to pass a message along-don’t rely on them to think of this themselves.
MacLaughlin shares with us 10 tips for creating an online buzz:
- Provide for effortless transfer to others — keep the message simple and easy to share Read more
Bookmark:
Troubled Times
It’s proving to be yet another economically stormy September and the philanthropic community is not immune to its wrath. The damage caused by the failure of some of the most venerable financial institutions in the U.S. is still not fully known but it is clear that it has already reached around the globe and is causing lots of people and many nonprofits worry about how to weather the storm.
Well, here are few thoughts—some tried and true but worth repeating and some new—all to help you get through these tough times and maybe even find a little something good from the experience. (You know the adage—what doesn’t kill you makes you strong.)
10 Ways to Market in an Economic Storm
- Stay focused on a message of real need and how donors’ can help—especially in difficult times.
Brand Sharing 2.0
Since Web 2.0 created an entirely new way of communicating and getting information, organizations have been scrambling to figure out how to use the new tools to build their brands and find more people online who want to join them. Some organizations have been jumping into the pool with an attitude that a quick plunge is invigorating and can be a great experience, while others, especially Jewish organizations, have stayed poolside waiting for someone to tell them the water is fine.
Now even an organization with a tired, lackluster or little known brand can take advantage of the low cost of entry to the Web 2.0 marketing world and build brand awareness if it is willing to play by Web 2.0 rules. That means giving up a little control over their “sacred” organizational identities and allowing their strongest supporters to use these organizational brands as an extension of their own personal online branding efforts. It means trying out some new approaches that may not immediately deliver big dollars but can start to build a much bigger list of friends who might give you their philanthropic support later on.
How Do You Measure Success
Last night was the First Annual (?) International Jewish Bloggers Convention.
Some 200 of us showed up to this Nefesh B’Nefesh sponsored event; and according to their communications director, an additional 1230 participated through the Webcast.
Was it successful? The numbers alone certainly make it so. But a careful reading of all the many posts around today gives it mixed reviews. (note to NBN: in evaluating last night’s program, be certain to check them and the public comments out).
Of course, it would be helpful to know what NBN’s goals were for the evening.
To help ‘motivate’ bloggers to deliver an Aliyah or Hasbara message? Quite frankly, even to blogs like eJP who do not generally address Aliyah, NBN was preaching to the choir. A friend told me that out of the 200 in attendance, there were three native-born Hebrew speakers. I doubt the crowd who came does not champion Aliyah.
If the event was a purely social and networking evening it should certainly be deemed a success.
However, the audience was so diverse with how and why they use the blog-o-sphere, the panelists were almost uniformly off-topic and many were clearly unprepared, and we were bogged down with a very basic and tedious marketing presentation by the MFA (where NO Web 2.0 strategies were even mentioned), it was hard to follow the evening flow.
As to all the comments about the make-up of the panel, the agenda being very “right” oriented, I’ll mostly stay away from that. Except to say, I was told by NBN everyone was welcome. I have no doubt. But where this event was promoted here in Israel guaranteed a certain audience and the absence of others (including all the incredible native Hebrew bloggers).
Anyway, just a few suggestions as to missing pieces I would like to see, because after all, professional conferences should also be educational. And as bloggers, we are professionals.
Discuss “tachlis”. Some ideas:
- how do you increase readership beyond the obvious linking and comments
- what are the pros and cons of the various blogging platforms
- are advertisements, Google AdWords, links to Amazon, etc right for your blog
- should social networks be used to reinforce your blog; with some of the people in attendance last night this alone would have made for an informative and lively evening.
All in all, I think it was truly a great beginning and hope NBN goes forward with this endeavor. I’ll certainly come and support it.
The Today and Tomorrow of Fundraising
Last week saw the Big Apple host the 2008 version of the New York Nonprofit Conference.
Here, from Fundraising Success Magazine, is a keynote snapshot:
Every fundraiser’s task for the next few years is to navigate a path between traditional and emerging fundraising strategies.
So says Frank O’Brien, president of the Washington, D.C.-based consultancy OMP, who gave the keynote presentation, “The Six Dynamics Shaping the Future of Fundraising“.
- Building lists isn’t just about finding donors — it’s about making yourself “findable.”
- The charitable experience is shifting from a tight circle of donors to a looser circle of engagement.
- People move fluidly back and forth across channels and up and down in their level of engagement.
- There is a generational and technological shift from obligation to excitement.
- What happens today in commercial direct marketing will happen tomorrow in nonprofit fundraising.
- There’s an urgent need to have an easily expressed, emotionally powerful identity.
Read the complete article here.
