3 ways nonprofits can boost their social interaction

Guest post by Jim Belosic

For nonprofits, money and resources are often tight, but social media is free to use and can be a very effective fundraising and volunteer-recruiting aid.

Facebook in particular is one of the most powerful online resources a nonprofit organization can use. Those who choose to fully leverage the platform are at major advantage because it’s the perfect place to rally together sponsors, supporters and volunteers.

Facebook apps can be created for little to no cost by using third-party applications. Third party applications — which is what we make at ShortStack — also save organizations a lot of time and stress.

To boost engagement and Likes for your nonprofit’s page, here are three effective and simple ways to use Facebook apps.

Use an app to inspire volunteering

As many nonprofits know, there are lots of people who are motivated to help. They just need an invitation, some encouragement and some direction.

To recruit time donations, try creating an app to display volunteer information, directions, volunteer site locations, and most importantly, sharing features so people can invite their friends and family on Facebook to volunteer with them.

A Facebook app like this can also be designed to collect volunteer information. Have an entry form for app visitors to submit their email addresses so that your nonprofit can send them volunteer information later via email.

Always remember that volunteering makes people feel good and it can be a lot of fun! Your Facebook app should communicate that.

Ask sponsors to match your nonprofit’s efforts

If you’re a nonprofit, set a goal and ask sponsors to match a target dollar amount.

To use Facebook to raise your nonprofit’s portion of the donation, try creating a simple contest app. The user who shares your nonprofit’s app with the largest number of Facebook friends wins a donation made in their name to your organization.

Your nonprofit can even take a cue from the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s Movember efforts. Use your app to inspire users to take your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts into their own hands.

Encourage sponsors to use a Like-Drive

What’s more powerful than having the backing of your sponsor? The answer: having the backing of your sponsor’s community

Team up with your sponsor to host a Facebook app on your sponsor’s Facebook Page. Use the app to either display information about your nonprofit or use it as an opportunity to pull from your sponsor’s community to enhance your fundraising efforts.

Last year ShortStack created an app using the Like-Drive template to help a family in need. The Like-Drive template is special because it allowed us to drive and track new Page Likes while earning money for a really important cause. For every new Facebook Like we earned, we donated a dollar.

What boosts engagement with your Facebook Page?

The post Boost engagement and likes on Facebook appeared first on Socialbrite.

To get the most out of volunteers, start with plan

Target audience: Cause organizations, nonprofits, NGOs, volunteer centers, social enterprises.

Guest post by Susannah Vila

If you’ve completed some successful social actions, chances are you have an opportunity to bring some new people onto your campaign or into your program.

Begin recruiting volunteers, but remember how important it is to have a plan for managing them.

Assess your needs

1First, take some time to assess the needs of your organization and how you could use the help of volunteers. What type of support are you looking for?

Direct-service volunteers provide hands-on services such as general office support, serving as translators, helping with events and soliciting donations. Skilled pro-bono volunteers are individuals or company employees volunteering their professional skills like Web design, accounting and marketing.

Decide on a length of engagement

2What type of commitment would you like volunteers to make. One time only? Ongoing? Draft a post and an email calling for volunteers and include a description of your organization or campaign and what the volunteer’s responsibilities would be, as well as the specific skills and time commitment needed. You can then use this post in various channels and social media outlets to recruit volunteers.

Inform people about your opportunities

3Check out the different tools and platforms available for sharing volunteer opportunities:

• Add your organization to Idealist and post listings for volunteer opportunities. Idealist is a well-established and respected platform “where people and organizations can exchange resources and ideas, locate opportunities and supporters, and take steps toward building a better world.”
• Create a profile on GOOD, which recently merged with Jumo.
• If you are in the United States, set up a profile on VolunteerMatch.
• Other sites that may be useful:

– Causecast
– Care2
– Do Something
– Changents
– All For Good
– Socialbrite’s directory of Cause organizations

Play around and see what sites you find easy to navigate and would best help and be most useful to your organization.

Tip! When adding pertinent information to your listing, it’s very important to add keywords because this is how people searching for opportunities will find your listing.

Examine your existing networks

4Before you join a slew of social networking platforms to post opportunities, look at your existing networks, online presence and Web strategy.

• Ask your friends and acquaintances. Personal requests are far more effective than anything else.
• Leverage existing Twitter and Facebook accounts to address your needs.

Your requests should be direct and clear about what type of volunteer help you need, such as “Looking for volunteers to help us at our upcoming event [about this cause] on [this date]. Can you help? E-mail us at [contact info]” or “Can you help us spread the word about our petition?”

Tip! Tap networks like church groups and unions, etc., to see if they want to do what you’re doing.

Craft an email marketing message

5Remember that e-mail blasts to your list of supporters are a great way to reach out and find volunteers. Check out our how-to guide on e-mail organizing for some best practices. Remember to craft a subject line and e-mail body that is clear and uses language encouraging recipients to take action (and volunteer). Make it clear that you are not soliciting for donations but rather that you are looking for your supporters’ help and expertise.

Promptly respond to inquiries

6Hopefully, people will see your postings and respond that they would like to volunteer with your group. Respond promptly to volunteer requests and provide additional information and details. Any time someone says they’ll help out, ask them if they’ve got any friends who might want to join too.

Screen volunteers

7Take the time to carefully interview and screen potential volunteers. Volunteers take up a lot of time for the coordinators, so have a careful screening process to help weed out the ones that aren’t likely to stay for long. If someone wants to volunteer, begin by meeting with them for 15-30 minutes to talk about the organization, learn what kinds of things they are interested in doing and determining if there is a good fit. The interview also gives you an opportunity to assess the needs of the volunteer and whether they might be more work than they are worth.

After the interview, send them away with a packet of information and ask them to call back soon if they are still interested in volunteering. This may select some out the people who would be poor fits out of the process.

Train your volunteers

8Once you have selected volunteers:

• Explain the vision, the plans and how they’ll be part of the team.
• Give volunteers new and greater responsibilities as they prove themselves over time.
• Have a plan in place for how you will train them.

Enlist a volunteer coordinator

9Devise a plan for who will be responsible for supervising volunteers and working on volunteer retention. This position is usually called a volunteer coordinator. Also invest in your best (capable and faithful) volunteers by rewarding them with extra amounts of training.

Don’t be afraid to ask someone to leave when they become significantly more work compared with what they contribute.

Image of volunteers at SF Goodwill by Greg Habiby (CC BY NC image).

Manage your volunteer base

10A key skill for any youth organization is to manage a high turnover of volunteers. This boils down to essentially good organization and records.

Many NGOs that are fortunate enough to have an office staffed by volunteers, keep a log of some sort by the reception/volunteer desk. The log is used as an ongoing record of who has phoned, what follow-up is required and what action has been taken. It is also used to take notes about what other jobs are in process and what still needs to be done. You can do this using Google Drive.

Make sure to include a column indicating who will do what and another to check off when a job has been completed. Along with the log, you should also maintain a manual for volunteers, complete with a series of relevant volunteer job descriptions. Written communications and good record-keeping can go a long way in keeping every volunteer informed about the latest developments and steering them in the right direction when they are wondering what needs to be done.

Clearly define volunteer roles

11It’s a good idea to assign each volunteer to a team and a clearly defined role. Job descriptions should include at minimum the following:

• Title
• Purpose
• Responsibilities (including reporting)
• Skills and knowledge required
• Required time commitment per week or month, location, benefits and a good job description

Sometimes additional resources are useful to attach to the job description, such as postering locations, message scripts, etc.

Bring volunteers together

12Hold events and gatherings for your volunteers. This way they meet the others, build friendships and feel part of a larger team.

Hold a volunteer meeting, bringing a group of volunteers together to learn a specific set of skills. For your own sake, try to schedule the training of volunteers together rather than individually. Of course, some volunteers play a very specialized role in the organization and will require one on one attention.

Hold a work party, similar a volunteer meeting except the goal is to accomplish a certain task. This is a great way to provide time for having fun with the people who care about the same things and also getting things done.

Creative Commons image on Flickr via Susan G. Komen 

Recognize and reward

13Since they are not paid for their valuable contributions, recognition and rewards is an important aspect of volunteering for most people. Everyone wants to know that what they are doing is important, a critical component of the overall organizational goals, and it is the coordinator’s job to let them know. Always thank your volunteers. Again and again. Praise them when they do a good job. Write them nice thank-you notes. Whenever possible, thank them publicly — in your newsletter, on your web site, during your events. Give your volunteers titles. They’re free, they convey information about the volunteer’s role and they can be a source of pride for many volunteers.

Reward your volunteers when possible with small things like bus tickets, parking money, beautiful posters, T-shirts, presents and social events or parties.

Focus on recruitment

14Recruitment is an ongoing job for the volunteer coordinator – whenever someone expresses interest in your work, it’s an opportunity to recruit a volunteer. Other good places to recruit volunteers are at information tables, rallies, educational events, meetings and any time you’re speaking.

The sign-up sheet is a useful tool to use and should include at least a name, phone numbers, email address and interests.

Good luck with your volunteer program!

Related

• 7 tips to get more out of volunteering (BayAreaImpact.org)

The post How to recruit and manage volunteers appeared first on Socialbrite.

Noland Hoshino, who created the LinkInLog from SMO Books, shares three ways you can use the new LinkedIn Company Pages to bring out the human side of your nonprofit. Recently, LinkedIn has made some changes that allow your nonprofit to have more of a presence on LinkedIn. In the video above, Noland talks about the ways nonprofits can optimize their Company Page and bring more attention to their cause.

For starters, if you don’t have a Company Page that represents your nonprofit, you should create one. One of the newer features that you can use your Company Page for is to send out a message to your followers as your nonprofit organization. Previously, you had to send the message out as an individual who worked at the nonprofit. This allows you to have more of an organizational voice on LinkedIn.

Another way to strengthen your brand and build awareness for your organization is by encouraging your staff, members and volunteers to add the “Volunteer and Causes” field to their profile. Anyone on LinkedIn who indicates that they are involved with your nonprofit will also appear on your Company Page, which creates a greater sense of community around your cause. And, don’t forget about linking up your other social media accounts with your Company Page. By attaching your Twitter feed to your Page, you are providing your followers and people searching on LinkedIn with more ways of keeping up with your nonprofit.

In addition to these tips, Noland recently published the LinkedIn Log, a pocket-size guide book to help organizations get more out of LinkedIn.

Here are some of the topics you’ll find covered inside the LinkedIn Log:

• An easy-to-follow guide to identify your LinkedIn goals
• A simple action plan for building and connecting with your network
• How to Optimize Your Professional Profile
• How to Personalize Your Introductions
• How to Utilize Your Network Connections

How are you using LinkedIn?

Related

• Highlights of LinkedIn’s new program for nonprofits (Socialbrite)

• Nonprofit strategies for getting more out of LinkedIn (Socialbrite)

• 8 simple ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile (Socialbrite)

• Using Twitter & LinkedIn to promote your event (Socialbrite)

• How to use LinkedIn to promote your blog (Socialbrite)

• LinkedIn for Nonprofits

The post How to use LinkedIn pages for your nonprofit appeared first on Socialbrite.

This originally appeared as a guest post on VolunteerSpot’s Summer of Service blog series.

Iknow what many people say. They want to give back but they don’t know how. They want to get involved and volunteer in their community but they don’t know where to start. Well, we’re here to help!

In just one hour, you’ll have the ideas, tools, resources and motivation to get started. So let’s start this summer off with a new sense of how to give back.

For a lot of people, they go online to volunteer websites and start scrolling through the options. Everything looks good, or nothing, or somewhere in between, and they’re not sure what to pick. This is the vortex of indecision, and not where you should start!

First, block an hour from your calendar when you won’t be distracted and can sit and focus on the task at hand. Sit in a comfortable place with a blank piece of paper or in front of a blank document on your computer (with your browser closed!) and follow along with the exercise below. You’ll be identifying the key components needed to finding a nonprofit right for you and then we’ll provide the resources where you can find that match. Ready? Let’s go!

Write down the names of nonprofits that interest you. These can be nonprofits you’ve donated to in the past — maybe you’ve participated in a walk or event or have read about a cause or charity and are interested in learning more. Geographic location doesn’t matter; just start making creating a list of those nonprofits.

Write down the type of nonprofits or causes that you’re passionate about. My list would look something like: economic development, grassroots environmental groups, women’s issues (specifically girls’ education and financial literacy), health issues (specifically malaria prevention and treatment) and poverty alleviation. For you maybe it’s children or pets or house building. There is no right number to write down, if the list gets longer than five, prioritize your list to make going back later and looking at it easier for you.

Write down the type of skills or environment you want to volunteer in. Are you looking to lend your current professional expertise like create a marketing plan for a small nonprofit or provide legal counsel in a pro bono setting, or are you looking to do something completely different like plant a garden in a school or walk dogs at shelter? Do you want an opportunity you can do at home like translation services for an international aid organization, or do you want to be around a group of people? Volunteer opportunities vary greatly as do the types of skills that they are looking for. Many nonprofits need volunteers to do critical items for them — phone banks and mailings to donors — but also offer other opportunities that aren’t as vital but may provide one-on-one interaction with the constituents they serve.

How much time do you have to give? Do you want to be a regular volunteer (once a week or once a month) or would you prefer to be called in as needed? Do you want to sign up for a commitment for a certain period of time? Do you want to volunteer at night, or on weekends or during the day? Are you looking for an opportunity for a specific period of time like two weeks in July or something ongoing? Do you want something local or are you looking for a destination volunteer opportunity? All of these questions help with the roadmap that is creating a filter system in advance to help you find the perfect match.

Many nonprofits could use pro bono services or in-kind gifts. Volunteering doesn’t have to be a silo — if you can offer a mix of services, go for it! For example, last year I helped a homeless shelter start an e-newsletter to their donors but also fed the homeless. While they needed my hardware skills, I also really wanted to do the software part and was very upfront with them and we created a schedule that let me do both.

Remember, volunteering is not always the best place to pick up a new skill! Reading to inner city kids or becoming a mentor often come with mandatory training, but a nonprofit’s resources are extremely limited and it’s hard on them to be teaching all new skills. If you really want to help a nonprofit in an area unfamiliar to you, do your research first and educate yourself and then go to them with your new skill set.

Hopefully, you now have a list in front of you that defines what causes you are passionate about, what interests you, how you are looking to give back and how often. Now all you have to do is find a place to volunteer! Reach out to people you know who are active in the community and be specific about what you’re looking for, use social media to tell your friends you’re looking to volunteer and asking them for help finding the right opportunity. Do your online research!

Volunteering is one of the most rewarding activities in my life; I hope this activity helps you find the same passion to create a cause-filled life of your own!

Resources to get started

• Idealist
• Volunteer Match
• Serve.gov
• AllforGood’s search tool on VolunteerSpot
• 10 volunteering sites to help you do good (Socialbrite)
• How nonprofits can use passionate volunteers (Socialbrite)
• 15 social tools for local impact (Socialbrite)

I’d like to dedicate this blog post to my friend, Micah Baldwin, who inspired me to think about to talk to people about getting involved which in turn, inspired this post.

VolunteerSpot’s free online coordination tool saves leaders time and makes it easy for more people to say YES to making a difference.

Related

The post How to get involved and give back this summer appeared first on Socialbrite.