By Caroline Avakian / Photo above courtesy of Facebook

It was just a few hours after I found out about the devastating Nepal earthquake that I noticed an alert on my Facebook feed that I hadn’t seen before. My colleague who works in Nepal had been marked “Safe” in Facebook’s new “Safety Check” feature, that instantly let me know how many of my Facebook friends were in the “affected area”, how many had been “marked safe”, and also allowed me to mark myself safe in the event I was in the “affected area”.

The Safety Check feature was quickly followed up by a “Donate” feature, so if you log into Facebook today, you’ll notice a message at the top of your news feed that lets you donate to International Medical Corps, a humanitarian organization Facebook has partnered with to provide emergency aid. Facebook is also providing matching funds of up to two million to provide immediate and ongoing relief. The IMCs emergency response teams are operating mobile medical units in Nepal, India and Bangladesh, to deliver critically needed medical care and medicines to the regions hardest-hit by the earthquake. They’re distributing hygiene kits, water purification tablets and other supplies to the most devastated areas.

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5 organizations with apps worth downloading

Guest post by Kerry Butters

There is an app for pretty much everything these days, whether you want help with yoga, looking at the stars, getting to sleep or maybe you just need to keep all your affairs in order.

However, not every app is in it for the money. There are nonprofit apps out there that are worth more than a passing glance. With this in mind, we’ve put together a list of some of the best nonprofit apps available today.

First Aid App by American Red Cross
1I don’t know about you, but when it comes to first aid, I’m clueless. Anything that involves more than a Band-Aid and I have to look online for advice. This cool app can help you along the way by teaching you first aid, giving you quizzes to improve your knowledge. With its built-in content, you won’t have to worry about finding a signal in a moment of peril. iTunes and Android

UN Foundation

3The United Nations is constantly working to improve the health and well-being of people across the world. With this great app you can now be a part of that. Whether you want to send messages to those doing good works, read about the great things the UN is doing across the globe, or just simply donate when you see someone that needs your help, then this is the app for you. iTunes and Android

Movember Mobile

4This charity app goes hand in hand with the charity event held annually for prostate cancer. Are you considering growing a mustache and doing your bit later this year? Even if you’re not, download this app and get sucked into the cause. iTunes and Android

PETA (People for the ethical treatment of animals)

5Whether you just want to make a donation, keep up with the good work or get directly involved, then download this be-kind-to-animals app to get started. You can even get points and badges if you want to add a little healthy competition to the app. iTunes and Android

As the mobile app world becomes more ruthless — with Android and Apple vying for supremacy and Windows jumping into the fold — it’s refreshing to know that not everyone is in it for what they can get. If you’re currently shopping around for apps to install on your smartphone, iPad or tablet and are looking for some helpful apps to go with it, these are certainly worth a look.

What are your favorite nonprofit apps? Please add them in the comments!

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Social fundraising tool for nonprofits turns messages into donations

Guest post by Ehren Foss
CEO, HelpAttack!

Nonprofits may be interested in what HelpAttack! brings to the social fundraising party. When a donor uses HelpAttack!, each tweet or Facebook update can be a donation, with no need to tag, re-post or change your habits as a donor. It’s a way to seamlessly add giving to your online life.

HelpAttack! was the brainchild of Sarah Vela, David J. Neff and myself. Everybody was asking Sarah to donate, and before long she was saturated with asks. What if, she thought, the message itself – the tweet, the donation link, the uploaded photo of a proto-mustache – was the donation?

Her idea was simple: a penny a tweet could be donated to your favorite nonprofit or cause, no matter what the tweet is about. No need to tag, retweet or change your social media habits in any way. And a more harmonious, slightly less spammy Twitterverse.

Since its initial rollout, HelpAtack! has expanded on that original idea. HelpAttack! has added Facebook pledges and features for cause organizations to create their own page and messaging. Recently, we added a few additional types of pledges: You can now give when someone else tweets or when hashtags and other terms appear on Twitter. Simply decide which organization will receive your donations, assign a donation amount per tweet or Facebook update (or assigned hashtag or term), a maximum donation amount and tweet or update, away.

A simple process to begin raising funds for your cause

HelpAttack! has 7,195 nonprofits for people to choose from in our database, and as of today, 163 distinct nonprofits have received donations, totaling $15,510. We currently have about 900 users. To get started, there’s a simple sign-up process:

• Go to helpattack.com.
• Add the HelpAttack! Twitter or Facebook app via the giant buttons.
• Choose a cause (or ask us to add your favorite).
• Set a limit for your giving and an amount per update.
• We’ll email you a couple times to let you know how it’s going.  That’s it!

Does it make you tweet or Facebook less? HelpAttack! donors frequently tell us they make more updates rather than fewer, hoping to reach a certain level of giving (“three more tweets to $25!”). In addition, many donors choose to share their pledges with their networks on Twitter and Facebook. For example, from 35 original pledges, the American Red Cross has grown to more than 500 total pledges and more than $12,300 pledged through its fan base sharing and donating. You can read more in our April case study, and also one with the Best Friends Animal Society.

The Arthritis Foundation, DonorsChoose, U.S. Fund for UNICEF and other causes have also tried HelpAttack! and found success within their communities. HelpAttack! partners with First Giving to process the donations, and a total of 8.25% goes toward credit card fees, our partners and running our service. HelpAttack! priced it this way – with no fees per sign-up, no monthly cost or transaction fee – so that our goals (donations, awareness, effectiveness) align with those of the nonprofit.

Tips on how to best use the service

Here are some quick tips on how to best use the platform:

• If you only have a few hundred supporters on Twitter and Facebook, work to build and strengthen those communities first.
• Also, if you haven’t ever posted a link to your regular donation page on social media, give that a whirl!  People want to give.  Ask them and make it easy.
• Sign up and make one tweet or Facebook update about HelpAttack! It’s free, try it! Rather than spending a month crafting a campaign, just see how your community responds, measure, iterate and go from there.

What else could be more social than giving by just tweeting or updating your Facebook status? If you’re curious, have questions or are interested in mixing it up with matching funds, cause marketing, employee giving or anything at all, just let us know!

Fundraising series on Socialbrite

• What social fundraising means for your nonprofit

• Social fundraising tools: Our top 5 picks

• Fundly: Tap into your supporters’ social networks

• GoodThreads: Custom T-shirts as a fundraising tool

• HelpAttack!: Unleash the charitable power of social media

• Rally: Raise money for your favorite cause

• Mobile: The next frontier of nonprofit fundraising

• 10 tips for a successful fundraising event

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Integrate social components into your site’s design and function

By Debra Askanase, Socialbrite
and Seth Giammanco, Minds On Design Lab

If you’re considering revamping your website to include social elements like the Facebook Like button, streaming from YouTube, or adding information from a social site through its API, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. There are many ways to “get social,” and so many reasons for doing so. Primarily, it’s about creating a fundamentally engaging experience for the website visitor that brings them closer to your organization.

The process of considering how to get social starts with considering goals.

Why integrate social into your website?

Ask yourself: what do you want to accomplish for your organization using social media? Having a goal seeks to address why you might want to make your website social. By thinking first about the goals, you clear a path for the decisions around which tools you’ll use to get there.

There are five main reasons for integrating social media with your website:

1. To build followers within the nonprofit’s social media spaces
2. Create on-site engagement
3. Develop a sense of community on the website
4. Raise funds
5. Create a call to action

In our review of many social websites, we noticed that some websites have at least two primary goals for placing social media on their website. Think about separating your goals into “priority” and “lesser priority.” Don’t be afraid to begin with one or two primary goals, while testing frequently at the outset to see whether or not your goals are being achieved. Gradually, you can add more social media integrations as your initial goals are achieved.

Categories of integration

Categories of integration address what you might do to meet your goals, and how you would do it. While reviewing websites, we specifically looked at the different types of social media that organizations were integrating into their websites. We categorized the (almost limitless) social media integration possibilities into six categories:

1. Show
2. Share
3. Interact
4. Co-create
5. Authenticate
6. Open source

Each category is exhibited by different tools, technology, and/or approaches. Here are some examples of categories and how they might be implemented within a website:

1. Show – Recent Tweets, Likes, Comments
2. Share – Like & Tweet Button, E-Card, Fwd to Friend
3. Interact – FB Live Stream, Hashtag (Tweet Chat), Comments
4. Co-Create – Shared Content: Mapping, Mosaic, Wiki, Links, Games
5. Authenticate – FB Login, Twitter OAuth
6. Open Source – API

Some of the items above are simple widgets and plug-and-play doodads that allow one to take a little snippet of code and incorporate it onto a Web page. With services like Disqus, even complicated features like comments can be added to a page in literally minutes.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are uses of technology to create unique “co-create” opportunities, if not open opportunities, where content can be made available through APIs and syndication for others to use. Check out the Brooklyn Museum’s API documentation for some pretty advanced tech sharing.

The graphic below illustrates the intensity of resources required for each category.

Examples of sites that integrate social resources

Here are a few social websites that offer different levels of resource integration.

HandsOn Network: America’s Sunday Supper

1This was a Livestream-powered event billed as “America’s Sunday Supper” in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., which was part of a national event to inspire giving and local leadership. HandsOn created a page on their site to showcase the livestreamed panel discussion on volunteering and leadership, and encouraged online participation through its live Twitter and Facebook streams on the website.

• Goals: develop a sense of community, create on-site engagement
• Categories: show, share, interact
• Implementation: livestreaming, Facebook event plugin, Twitter feed

American Red Cross: Why should I give?

2The site presents, one reason at a time, why one should give to the Red Cross. Each reason is clearly presented with no more text than you might put on a PowerPoint slide. The reasons are sourced from blogs, news, or case study posts from a network of American Red Cross sites. These posts are linked to if a visitor chooses to read more about the reason shared. For each reason you view, the site ticks up your donation counter one buck, and if you decide to give, the resulting donate screen defaults to the amount of your donation counter and number of reasons you needed to be “convinced.”

The primary goal of the site is to fund-raise and build followers. The social aspects of the site rest in the use of Facebook and Twitter social plugins and widgets for sharing, as well as liking the campaign.

• Goals: raise funds, create on-site engagement, create a call to action
• Categories: Show, Share
• Implementation: Tweet Button, Facebook Like Button

VolunteerMatch: Live Map

3VolunteerMatch has created an up-to-the-minute live map on its website, offering information about the total number of searches and different categories of referrals indicating when a user has responded to a volunteer opportunity. The map pinpoints where the referrals were made throughout the United States, with the goal of showcasing individual activity collectively to illustrate the social impact of volunteerism. VolunteerMatch also utilizes social authentication to allow Facebook account holders to login using their Facebook accounts. VolunteerMatch also has placed a Facebook activity widget on the home page to highlight users whom have recommended (liked) content on the site.

• Goals: create a call to action, develop a sense of community on the site
• Categories: show, authentication
• Implementation: Custom mash-up of site specific volunteer activity with geo data to map via Google Maps.

It’s an exciting time, where strategy begets technology solutions and in turn technology inspires new strategic opportunities. It’s critical that all of us crafting engagement keep learning, and keep seeking out new tools and inspiration from our peers. Each day, new tools are announced and someone is doing something cool with it to create connections and do some good. Having a framework to organize your goals and to categorize the types of technology integration available can help you make quick sense of a social site.

NTEN webinar on how to socialize your site

Please join us online on Sept. 13, 1 pm Eastern (10 am Pacific) for our NTEN webinar The Social Website: Integrating Social Media into Website Design and Function to look at additional examples of sites getting social. If you have a social site to share or are curious about other examples to check out, please visit the Get Social blog.

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