Predictions are a tricky thing. They’re mostly comprised of strong currents of the present, past habits and a big dose of educated guessing. When it comes to nonprofits, there’s also an element of hopefulness that’s thrown in, at least in my list of predictions for 2016.

2015 has seen much innovation in technology and communication. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were recently approved and organizations and countries have started working towards the newly revamped goals. We’ve also seen the world change dramatically – terrorism in all its new iterations is ever present, and we’ll be seeing how nonprofits and global development and relief organizations respond to the current challenges on and off the ground. Here are my predictions for 2016 that reflect our changing global dynamics and expectations.

Social Media – Both large and small social good organizations will be capitalizing on hashtags in much more proactive and creative ways. We’ll be seeing more organizations use mainstream hashtags that aren’t necessarily exclusive to the nonprofit sector, such as #finance #innovation and #smallbiz to inject themselves into digital conversations that are related to their causes. We’re also going to be seeing the hashtags #globalgoals and #SDGS become increasingly popular unifying hashtags as social good organizations and countries come together to work on the newly approved United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We’re also starting to see nonprofits dip their toes into social livestreaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat, and the capacity it has to take us to places and share experiences largely unseen by supporters and donors.

Global Development – As the world continues to counter terrorism, war and violent conflict, and natural disasters, we’ll be seeing governments and mainstream media work much more closely with both large and small NGOs, in an effort to tap into local knowledge and expertise. We’ll see nonprofits respond cautiously but proactively in their new role, and invest more resources into communications and messaging.

Intrapreneurship – As social entrepreneurship continues to rise in the social good sector, more and more nonprofits are looking at the model that incorporates not only profit-making capacities, but also relies strongly on innovation and an ability to pivot quickly when needed, as potential new ways forward. Intrapreneurship, often led by solution and innovation-focused staff members, will continue to pick up speed as nonprofits start looking at new ways of creating revenue, exploring new partnerships and collaborations, and expanding their ability to sustain themselves beyond their present fundraising strategies.

Transparency & Accountability – Nonprofits will continue to make greater investments and improvements in monitoring and evaluation methodologies and staffing, improve on their impact storytelling, specifically using data visualization and graphics. We’ll see more nonprofit websites, social channels and blog posts that speak to us ways in ways we better understand, with more institutional knowledge and opinion shared, as more “fortress” nonprofits embrace communication and openness.

Content Marketing – As blogging continues to be the most rewarding content marketing tool for nonprofits, we’ll see more nonprofits train and encourage program and other staff members to share their field stories and expertise. Traditionally in the hands of communications staff members, we’ll also see more CEOs and Executive Directors creating more content on various platforms, in an effort to increase their organization’s visibility, positioning, and thought leadership.

The challenge for nonprofits in the new year, as it is every year, is finding the internal staffing and financial resources (and often the organizational will because of limited capacity) to move forward on new initiatives that help move the ‘mission needle’ forward. It will be exciting to see how nonprofits take on their various challenges and show us that the social good sector is innovating and moving forward in the most meaningful ways.

This post was originally published on The Huffington Post.

The post 5 Nonprofit Predictions for 2016 appeared first on Socialbrite.

Tell stories of impact, use humor & cultivate relationships for more powerful email marketing

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, journalists, general public.

Are you looking to breathe new life into your nonprofit’s e-mail marketing?

If so, you will love these tips three from my peers:

Tell stories about your impact

Rachel Hope Allison, Senior Strategist at Big Duck:

The most exciting opportunities for smaller nonprofits are around the stories they tell with their campaign. Being small, they are in more direct, personal contact with their community, and they can tell stories about how the organization is responding to needs within its community.

Supporter stories and signers for these campaigns generated not only gifts but enthusiastic anecdotal responses from their communities.

2. Use humor to humanize your message

Annie Lynsen, Director of Awesomeness at SmallAct:

The campaigns I find most intriguing are the ones that make good use of humor!

Yes, humor must be handled carefully in your nonprofit communications: you don’t want the humor to be at the expense of the organization or the cause. But when handled well, humor can both humanize your cause and your organization AND get people’s attention, compelling them to donate.

3. Cultivate relationships first

Pamela Grow of Simple Development Systems:

I don’t think “campaigns” so much as building relationships via email.

An organization will think they’re going to raise big money with email through some magic campaign, when the reality is that haven’t taken that first step of growing their list and cultivating those relationships through warm, consistent messaging.

Growing your list takes commitment. Commit to one or two list-building activities a year. Commit to consistent (and frequent), real email communications. For campaigns, repetition, focus and integration is key.

What now?

If you are ready have a strategy for how you use e-mail, congratulations! If not, developing a plan that might be a good start. Here’s some recommended reading:

• Five Places to Capture Emails on Your Website
• Four Human Factors That Increase Email Open Rates
• Nine Powerfully Simple Ways to Build Your Email List

The post 3 powerful email marketing examples from the pros appeared first on Socialbrite.

Sincerity & technology help express gratitude to supporters

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, marketers, Facebook administrators.

It’s easy to think about thanking your Facebook fans as something that’s nice to do – if you have the time and are in the mood. But saying thanks is a vital part of your success on Facebook, and everywhere else.

How do you thank your Facebook fans in ways that are sincere and meaningful? Below are five ways to say thanks that they’ll notice.

With cover photos

1Check out the Facebook cover Dogs Trust created to thank their supports. You can also switch things up by thanking specific fans in a cover photo and even tell them why you appreciate them (a la charity:water)!

With video

2Nothing conveys sincerity more than video. And iPhones and Androids make videos more easy to create than ever.

One of my favorite apps is the video camera from i4software. This app allows you to create hi-def videos at 1280 x 720 resolution with your iPhone.

A few tips to make your video more personal:

• Look directly into the camera lens but imagine that you’re looking into the eyes of a specific donor.
• Talk about your supporters – not you or your organization. Tell them what they’ve done by supporting your organization.
• Shoot in a room well lit with natural light if possible.

With Facebook ads

3Facebook ads allow you to target specific donor segments. For example, you could run a campaign that displays an ad thanking first time donors (in addition to sending them a thank you email and/or calling them on the phone. Read this post for more on targeting emails with Facebook ads.

With a hand-written card

4If you’ve acquired emails and donors from your Facebook Page, you have the ability to create a list of names and addresses. This gets easier and more meaningful with tools like Profile Builder from Small Act.

Take an hour each week to send a hand-written card to a few people who’ve commented on some of your latest Page updates. You might even take a screen grab of the post and include it in your note of thanks!

With your heart

5Bottom line with any of these approaches is the sincerity of the gesture. Always go back to this prime point regardless of how fancy you get with tactics and sparkly gifts.

Finally, check out Amy Eisenstein’s Sample Stewardship Plan to help make thanking your donors a reality.

How are you thanking your Facebook fans?

The post Five creative ways to thank your Facebook fans appeared first on Socialbrite.

Free series will help you kick-start your social enterprise

This is Earth Week, and Green Marketing TV is putting on the first Green Business Entrepreneurs Success Summit, aimed at uniting purpose and profit for a sustainable planet. Socialbrite founder J.D. Lasica is participating Thursday at 11 am ET, 8 am PT.

Guest post by Lorna Li
Founder, Green Marketing TV

Are you a green business owner or social entrepreneur who believes you can make a positive impact in the world without going broke? Have you always longed to start a sustainable business, but you’re not quite sure how to do it or don’t know what you want to sell?

Whether you’re an aspiring social entrepreneur or already have a sustainable business you want to take to the next level, you’ll get valuable information just by attending this free virtual event series.

The Green Business Entrepreneurs Success Summit

The Green Business Entrepreneurs Success Summit is a free virtual week-long series (let’s call it an alternative Green MBA), featuring the visionary leaders who are defining the green economy and ethical marketplace, plus marketing gurus who will help you take your business to the next level.

Here are the details:

When: April 16-20 (Monday to Friday), 2012

Cost: Free. Brought to you by Green Marketing TV

Registration: To get access to the calls, please register

Who should attend

• Established green business owners and green business professionals
• Mission-driven entrepreneurs who believe in sustainability
• Green marketers & green product designers
• Forward-thinking intrapraneurs driving corporate sustainability initiatives
• Early-stage green startup entrepreneurs
• Aspiring green and social entrepreneurs researching innovative business ideas
• Change-makers seeking to unite purpose, passion and profit

What you’ll learn

• Evaluating the marketplace & identifying your niche
• Developing your visionary business idea
• Raising capital through business plan competitions, crowdfunding & VC investment
• Growing your business without going crazy
• Marketing your business on a bootstrap budget

Panel topics for the summit

Monday April 16 | Track 1 – The Growth of the Green Economy & Ethical Markets

Here we cover the state of the sustainable economy and socially responsible markets. We’re going to look at the size of the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) market and uncover the hottest market opportunities. We will discover extraordinary companies that are solving the world’s most pressing concerns, and learn how they succeeded.

• What will it take to co-create a green economy?
• The greening of mainstream business in non-green markets
• Ways sustainable business is going global & improving social conditions
• Hottest opportunities in the $290 billion US LOHAS market
• Making green sexy: Guerrilla marketing tactics for small green businesses

Register now

Tuesday April 17 | Track 2 – From Visionary Business Idea…

This series will help you identify your unique genius, leave your day job, create a business plan, and embark on your journey to financial freedom. From business plan competitions, to online fundraising tools and social venture funding, we also look at some funding options for social entrepreneurs and what it takes to attract investors.

• Keys to manifesting entrepreneurial success using the law of attraction
• Hacking social enterprise business plan competitions
• How to attract VC investors to fund your social enterprise
• Who’s funding what in the social capital marketplace
• The art of defining your niche & attracting your perfect-fit clients
• How to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign

Register now

Wednesday April 18 | Track 3 – …To Thriving Green Enterprise

Once you’ve launched your sustainable social venture, what does it take to reach your target audience and scale your business, without going crazy? In this track, experts talk to us about what it takes to succeed as an emerging entrepreneur. Plus, we’ll cover some high impact green businesses that are coming out with innovative products to feed your creative mind and keep you inspired.

• The new rules of green marketing: What green entrepreneurs need to know now
• Small companies creating cool green products
• How to power-network your way to a more sustainable world
• Online productivity tools every small business should know about
• Innovative social entrepreneurs who are creating scalable solutions

Register now

Thursday April 19 | Track 4 – Grow Your Good Business With Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a powerful and free way to grow your business, expand your reach, and create a community of fans around your business who will promote you and buy from you over and over again. But many small businesses don’t see the ROI in social media and have a hard time getting it to work for them. In this track, we will show you what you are doing wrong, and how to do social media right.

• Your small business social media command central
• Cracking the code to profitable social media marketing as a small business
• Your social media launch blueprint & advanced strategies for savvy marketers
• Facebook – From social time suck to lead generation machine
• What it takes to build a 6 figure business for good blogging empire
• From green blog to green business – creative blog monetization strategies

Register now

Friday April 20 | Track 5 – Bootstrap Internet Marketing for Green & Socially Responsible Business

Small businesses have smaller marketing budgets, but this doesn’t mean you can’t compete with big brands, and even out market them. As an SMB, you have the advantage of strategic agility, while big businesses often take months to execute on a simple web strategy because of the politics and bureaucracy. This track focuses on your optimizing your website and content marketing strategies that drive organic web traffic.

• Creating your first small business website on a bootstrap budget
• WordPress SEO strategies for time-strapped small businesses
• The art of turning website visitors into adoring customers
• Why local SEO matters for your small green business
• Grow your sustainable business with green affiliate marketing

Register now

28 speakers

Here’s the speaker lineup. Speakers include:

Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director Green America & Green Festivals
Andrea Vahl, Social Media Consultant and author of, “Facebook Marketing All-In-One For Dummies”
Bob Doyle, CEO Boundless Living & Wealth Beyond Reason, Law of Attraction and “The Secret”
Daan Elffers, Founder ELCAMEDIA Cradle to Cradle Marketing Agency
David Mihm, Co-Founder of GetListed.org & Local SEO Consultant
Elena Christopoulos, Interim President Green Chamber of Commerce
George Kao, Holistic Marketing Coach
Greg Wendt, CFP and Founder of Green Economy Think Tank and Co-Founder of Green Business Networking
Jacquie Ottman, Author of The New Rules of Green Marketing
JD Lasica, Founder of Socialbrite.org & Socialmedia.biz
Joey Shepp, Founder Earthsite and Sustainable Programs Director of Dominican University of CA School of Business and Leadership
Joost de Valk, Founder Yoast.com & Creator of WordPress SEO Plugin
Karen Lee, Founder EcoKaren and Eco Etsy Team Captain
Katrina Heppler, Founder 77webstudio
Kriss Bergethon, Founder Solar Sphere
KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, CEO & Founder of Sustainable Life Media & Sustainable Brands Conference
Kyle Rutkin, Author and Founder of Palooza Press
Lorna Li, Founder Green Marketing TV
Morgan Morris, Co-Founder Inspire Green
Nick Aster, Founder Triple Pundit, Co-Founder TreeHugger
Nikki Pava, Co-Founder EcoTuesday
Rich Brooks, President Flyte New Media
Scott Cooney, Founder GreenBusinessOwner.com
Shawn Berry, Co-Founder LIFT Business Coaching
Shel Horowitz, Author of “Guerilla Marketing Goes Green”
Tyler Gage, Co-Founder Runa Amazon Guayusa Tea Company
Tad Hargrave, Founder Marketing for Hippies
Warren Fligg, Founder Performance-Based Green Affiliate Network

Register Now

Related

• 4 ways nonprofits can learn from social entrepreneurs (by Lorna Li on Socialbrite)

The post A Success Summit for green business entrepreneurs appeared first on Socialbrite.

Have you considered asking the community to support your new enterprise?

Target audience: Social enterprises, nonprofits, volunteer groups, sustainable businesses, community organizations.

Guest post by Kerry Given
Green Marketing TV

Finding funding can be one of the biggest challenges for social entrepreneurs. Fortunately, there is a growing number of options for social entrepreneurs and founders looking for capital to start or expand their social enterprise, startup or nonprofit organization and do more good in the world.

One non-traditional funding opportunity that has seen exponential growth in recent years is the phenomenon of “crowdfunding.” Family and friends have been one of the most common sources of venture funding capital for centuries. Crowdfunding takes this age-old source of venture funding and brings it into the digital age.

Thanks to social media and other forms of modern technology, entrepreneurs are able to build networks of friends, colleagues and like-minded individuals more easily and effectively than ever before. Crowdfunding websites allow entrepreneurs or project leaders to leverage these networks to gain funding.

Typically, entrepreneurs post a request for funding on a crowdfunding site with a detailed project description. Depending on the site, funding may be provided as a loan or a donation. Once the funding request is posted, the entrepreneurs use their networks to spread the word about their project to potential donors through word of mouth, email, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Crowdfunding is not for everyone. The majority of crowdfunding sites fund entrepreneurs on an all-or-nothing basis. If the project is fully funded when the deadline arrives, the money is given to the entrepreneur. If it is not fully funded, it is returned to the donors to keep or donate to another project. So it’s important to have a compelling project or story and to be a skillful marketer and networker to ensure that word about your project reaches enough potential donors to fully fund the project before the deadline. If you’re confident that your social enterprise has what it takes to become a crowdfunding success story, you may find crowdfunding to be the perfect option for your fundraising efforts.

The following is a list of crowdfunding websites that can help your social enterprise, sustainable business or nonprofit organization get off the ground:

33 Needs: Connecting microinvestors & social enterpreneurs

133needs is a recent crowdfunding startup that connects microinvestors with social entrepreneurs who have big ideas in categories such as sustainable food, health, education and the environment. Investors can earn a percentage of revenue in exchange for their support.

AppBackr: Offset app development costs

2A specialty crowdfunding site that may be useful to some social enterprises, AppBackr allows Apple developers to get funding upfront for iPhone, iPod and iPad apps in the concept stage by selling the app wholesale to backers, who receive a percentage of the profits for the apps they have purchased. Many app buyers also assist developers with marketing and promoting their apps to ensure that their investment is fully recouped. With a growing number of social enterprises tapping into the explosive apps market to raise awareness and sell products or services, AppBackr may be a useful tool to help offset app development costs, and even gain some extra promotional help.

Buzzbnk: Supporting a wide range of fields

3Buzzbnk is a crowdfunding platform especially for social enterprises that allow funders to donate either money or time to support social enterprises working in a wide variety of fields. Though based in the UK, it is open to social ventures operating anywhere in the world. Social enterprises must submit their project proposal to Buzzbnk and the Buzzbnk team will work with the social enterprise to help develop appropriate fundraising targets and benefits or rewards to offer funders.

CauseVox: Fundraising pages for nonprofits

4CauseVox offers nonprofit organizations a fully customizable fundraising page that makes collecting money from supporters easy. Supporters can also create their own personalized fundraising pages. Social media integration makes it easy to embed YouTube videos, Flickr slideshows and more.

ProFounder: Investors share in the profits

5ProFounder caters to entrepreneurs – social or otherwise – who are looking for alternative sources of venture capital. ProFounder provides a secure platform where entrepreneurs can raise money from family members, friends and other connections, who then receive a share of the profits when the business they have invested in succeeds. This revenue sharing system is good for investors and good for entrepreneurs, because it doesn’t commit entrepreneurs to making debt payments (potentially with high interest rates) during periods of bad business, only when the business is successful and profitable.

Kickstarter: Supporting a wealth of creative projects

6One of the best-known crowdfunding websites is Kickstarter, which rose to fame after the open source Facebook alternative Diaspora raised more than $200,000 on the site. Kickstarter funds creative projects such as independent films and music albums, books, software, citizen journalism, theatrical productions and more. Project creators are required to offer rewards to donors, such as bonus musical tracks, autographed books, signed prints, free performance tickets or something similar. Although Kickstarter cannot be used to fund social enterprise start-ups, it can be a great source of funding for social enterprises and nonprofits hoping to use creative projects to raise awareness of their cause, as well as for social-minded creative enterprises such as nonprofit theater companies and independent music producers. Other great crowdfunding sites focusing on creative projects include IndieGoGo, RocketHub, UK-based Crowdfunder and Australian-based Pozible.

ChipIn: Embed a widget, raise $

7ChipIn is a simple widget that can be posted on blogs, websites and many social media profiles. It allows individuals, private groups, non-profits and others to raise money easily online.

Crowdcube: Equity-based investment community

8UK-based Crowdcube bills itself as “the world’s first equity-based crowdfunding community dedicated to business investment.” In exchange for microinvestments of as little as £10, investors can fund worthy enterprises and in exchange gain a share of direct equity in the business. Crowdcube is currently available only to UK-based investors and entrepreneurs who have or can start a UK Limited Company, but hopes to expand to other regions in the future.

Give.fm: Create your own campaign

9Give.fm allows nonprofits and individuals to set up a campaign to raise money for causes ranging from local soccer teams to international efforts to fight poverty, hunger, disease, environmental degradation and more. The site works by allowing donors to set up recurring microdonations of as little as 10 cents per day.

Peerbackers: Raise funds from your peers

10Peerbackers offers entrepreneurs and nonprofits of all types the opportunity to raise funding for their idea from their friends, family and peers. Rather than receive financial returns or equity, backers receive rewards such as free or discounted versions of the products or services offered by the company.

FirstGiving: Raise funds for your favorite cause

11FirstGiving has helped more than 8,000 nonprofit organizations connect with more than 13 million donors and raise more than $1 billion to date, it reports. The site allows nonprofit supporters to create their own fundraising page to raise money for the cause of their choice.

Razoo: Simple, secure tools to raise funds

12Razoo is a crowdfunding platform for nonprofits and charities that allows individuals, organizations, corporations and foundations to set up a fundraising page to raise money for their own cause or their other cause of choice. Razoo also allows team campaigns.

Sponsume: Free fundraising platform

13Sponsume is a crowdfunding startup, launched in 2010, that allows both creative projects and social enterprises to raise funding on the site. Sponsume is currently free to use, but does plan to start charging fees in the future.

Spot.us: Funding citizen journalism

14Spot.us is a one-of-a-kind crowdfunding platform that supports citizen journalists by funding their investigations of specific topics. Spot.us can be a very useful tool for organizations seeking to raise awareness through hard-hitting investigative journalism, community reporting or similar means.

Start Some Good: New kid on the block

15Start Some Good is a new crowdfunding startup that launched in February with the goal of connecting social entrepreneurs with crowdfunded venture capital. Start Some Good allows both for-profit and nonprofit social enterprises to post fundraising campaigns to the site. Team members will help review the campaign’s goals and rewards to ensure they’re a good match for Start Some Good’s philosophy.

Have we left any crowdfunding websites off this list? Please leave a comment below!

Related

• 24 tools for fundraising with social media (Socialbrite)

• 9 Web platforms to help you change the world (Socialbrite)

• 12 awesome platforms for social good (Socialbrite)

• Ideavibes: A new way to do crowdsourcing & crowdfunding campaigns (Socialbrite)

The post 15 ways to crowdfund your startup or project appeared first on Socialbrite.

At Sustainatopia in Miami, take charge of new social technologies for your nonprofit, social enterprise or social cause

Today we’re announcing a new bootcamp for nonprofits and social entrepreneurs and other change-makers: Move the Needle! How to Mobilize Your Supporters to Take Action. We’re pretty excited about it — while I’ve put on a few social media bootcamps, and so has my Socialbrite colleague Sloane Berrent, this is our first combined effort.

Sloane and I hope you’ll pass along the word to your colleagues, especially those looking to use social media to activate their supporters. Here are the details:

What

Whether you want to grow your membership, raise funds or loans, recruit more followers, gather petition signatures, find volunteers for your cause or connect with your community, Move the Needle! How to Mobilize Your Supporters to Take Action will offer guidance that will help your organization create impact for years to come.

This special 3-hour workshop will dive deeply into strategy, tactics and tools available to social entrepreneurs and nonprofit change agents. Minutes later, Sustainatopia will rev up with the second annual Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference (SVC/SE – Miami).

Don’t be intimidated by social tools! Learn how to formulate a strategy, then put the right tools to use in this power-packed interactive workshop.

When & where

Monday, April 4, 9 am to noon
Miami Beach Convention Center

How much

$99 (email us for a 15% discount code for nonprofits)

Who should come

• Nonprofit managers and executives
• Representatives of foundations and NGOs
• Community managers
• Change agents and representatives of social cause organizations
• Social enterprise executives, managers & aspiring entrepreneurs
• VCs, investors and philanthropists
• Political reformers, journalists and educators
• Activists, advocates and those who want to make the world a better place

Speakers

J.D. Lasica is a social media strategist, consultant and author who is considered one of the world’s leading experts on the social Web. He is founder of Socialbrite.org, a learning hub & global consultancy that works with nonprofits and social enterprises, and Socialmedia.biz, which works with major brands. A blogger since 2001, J.D. co-founded Ourmedia.org, the first free video hosting site, a month before YouTube.

He has spoken at or given workshops at Harvard’s Berkman Center, Stanford, MIT, NYU, SXSW, the Cannes Film Festival and at events in Paris, Milan and Seoul. J.D. was named one of the Top 40 Silicon Valley Influencers and one of CNET’s Top 100 Media Bloggers. Follow him on Twitter at @jdlasica.

Sloane Berrent is a digital strategist focused on campaigns in social innovation and corporate social responsibility. She runs Answer With Action, a digital communications and marketing strategy consultancy that creates campaigns and events with immediate impact for businesses, and she is a partner in Socialbrite.

A former Kiva Fellow, she is the co-creator of Cause It’s My Birthday, a nationwide malaria prevention campaign. In January 2010 Sloane attended the World Economic Forum (Davos) as the citizen journalist for MySpace and The Wall Street Journal and in February 2011 she traveled to Haiti. She is a nationally recognized speaker on community building and “cause-filled living” and writes on her blog, The Causemopolitan. Follow her on Twitter at @sloane.

Agenda

This workshop will focus chiefly on practical, down-to-earth tactics and strategies that busy professionals can immediately take to engage supporters. The emphasis is on actionable takeaways. You’ll be introduced to several examples of social enterprises, nonprofits and organizations that are moving the needle — with real-world examples you can learn from.

We encourage interaction and questions during our sessions! If your social enterprise or nonprofits has “lessons learned” that you’d like to share, email us and we’ll call on you during the session.

Some of the questions we’ll cover:

• What strategies & tactics will motivate supporters and newcomers to take specific actions on behalf of my organization or cause?
• What are the essential elements of a successful advocacy campaign?
• How can I successfully use social tools to mobilize my organization’s members, spread awareness, enlist supporters, raise funds and drive action?
• How can storytelling and video advance the mission of my social enterprise?
• Which organizations are moving the needle, and what are they doing right?
• What are some of the cutting-edge tools and resources available for change agents looking to make a difference?
• What do you want to know? Email us in advance.

Format, food & drinks

Where possible, we’ll use a roundtable approach and a short small-group breakout session that encourages dialogue and interaction. We’ll also try to include an appearance by a local social entrepreneur who’ll provide an account of how their enterprise is moving the needle as well as a Q&A.

Series

This is part of Socialbrite’s nationwide series of social media bootcamps. At Personal Democracy Forum, we presented to 50 social activists & nonprofits (at $199 per person — twice the price of Miami).

Hear what Jeff Pfaff, founder & CEO of mtbMobile, said about taking the bootcamp in this 60-second audio:

Bonus materials!

In addition to this 3-hour live training, during the bootcamp you’ll also be access to download these full-color handouts and guides at no additional cost:

1. 12 Steps to Mobilize Your Cause — Summary of all the action items you need to conduct a successful campaign.
2. Team Collaboration — Tools to help you work with other organizations or your own team members in multiple locations.
3. 15 Best Practices for the Social Web — High-level principles to help you succeed in social media.
4. 12 Social Action Hubs — Selectively plug into some of these online communities and crowdsource platforms to promote a social cause.
5. 40 Hashtags for Social Good — Use these Twitter hashtags as you tweet for your cause to gain wider visibility and viral help from the community.
6. 10 Mobile Apps for Social Good — Apps for your iPhone or Android.
7. 6 Twitter Tips for Change-Makers — A series of tips to help your organization use Twitter more strategically.

The post New bootcamp: Move the needle for your nonprofit! appeared first on Socialbrite.

Jane Slusser: Connecting nonprofits & volunteers from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

At the Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp held Aug. 21 in Berkeley, Calif., I met tons of cool people, but none were more interesting than Jane Slusser, chief service officer of Catchafire.

Catchafire is a new online marketplace that connects professionals who want to volunteer their skills with nonprofits and social enterprises that need their help. Nonprofits and social businesses register on the site and tell which projects they need help with.

“People expect a lot more of the volunteer experience now,” says Jane, who came to Catchafire by way of the Obama campaign, where she mobilized volunteers to travel to key states during the primaries.

Watch, download or embed the video on Vimeo

Catchafire helps professionals offer their talents for worthy organizations they find an affinity with. Social enterprises can register on the site through the same portal as nonprofits. To prevent against volunteers spinning their wheels, Catchafire makes sure that both nonprofits and social enterprises have skin in the game by having internal resources and staff members dedicated to work on the project.

The start-up held a big event in New York on June 28 for the 50 Project Kickoff with speakers from charity:water, Drop.io, Pepsi Refresh and other organizations.

While a number of promising Web 2.0 start-ups have launched in the social good space in the past year, Catchafire is one to watch.

• See Catchafire’s blog

• See Catchafire’s Facebook Page

• Follow Catchafire/founder Rachael Chong on Twitter

Update: Jane also points to these key pages:

• Professionals can sign up to volunteer on the volunteer page.

• Nonprofits & social enterprises can register on the nonprofit page.

The post Catchafire: Connecting nonprofits & professionals appeared first on Socialbrite.

The debut of The Hoop Fund from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Social enterprise offers virtuous circle around loans, production, connections in a ‘fair trade ecosystem’

Last night I got a first-hand look at the debut of The Hoop Fund, a new social enterprise (tagline: Lend. Produce. Enjoy.) with a terrific pedigree and promising future.

In short, The Hoop Fund enables participants to meet the makers of products we buy, invest in their businesses and become part of the prosperity of their communities.

More than 150 people packed into The Hub San Francisco last night for the “friends and family” debut of The Hoop Fund, founded by entrepreneur (and former journalist) Kevin Doyle Jones, the impresario behind the Social Capital Markets conference coming up Oct. 4-6 in San Francisco. Lots of familiar faces there — Gary Bolles, Sarah Kennon, Shannon Clark, Arabella Santiago — and I got to meet two of the principals behind The Hoop Fund: CEO Patrick Donohue and operations chief Maia Hirschbein.

The Hoop Fund is one of those ideas that you have to see in action to really appreciate. A slide presentation showing how it’s already making a difference in villages in Peru really drove home its message of entrepreneurial opportunities in the developing world. With the Hoop, you can support producers through a loan (I just made a $50 loan to Indigenous Designs), purchasing their fair trade products through a partnering brand, and then spreading the word to your own networks and community. Jones calls it a “fair trade ecosystem.”

Here’s a quick 2-minute video with Maia taken at the event — incidentally, my first-ever video taken with my new iPhone 4:

Watch, download, embed or share the video on Vimeo
Follow JoinTheHoop on Twitter (44 followers so far); hashtag is #thehoop
Like The Hoop on Facebook (91 fans so far)

The Hoop goes beyond what Kiva does

The idea is: Pick a project on www.jointhehoop.com and make your first loan. (“We want to prove that the Hoop will change the world through meaningful and powerful connections. Help us do that!” Maia says.) Next, share your action with your friends and help build the Hoop community.

Among the projects now open for investment:

Alter Eco
Medicinal plants garden project
Amount: $2,500
Length: 2 years
Location: Alto Huayabama, San Martin, Peru

Indigenous Designs
Purchase of handloom knitting machine
Amount: $1,400
Length: 18 months
Location: Arequipa, Peru

You can contribute in small amounts if you’d like — say, $25.

Yes, it’s similar in some ways to the brilliantly successful Kiva.org. Co-founder Donohue told me the Hoop seeks to fill the virtuous circle by answering the question, After you make your loan, then what? The Hoop connects you with the very cool brands that the funded small business people and farmers create or work with, and then it provides the social tools to help you spread the word to your friends and colleagues.

Really, it’s an exciting idea, and I’m jazzed to do whatever small part I can to help it along.

The post The Hoop Fund makes its debut appeared first on Socialbrite.

And so it was earlier this evening when Sundeep Ahuja — a born connector and former marketing chief for Kiva who’s now on the executive team at RichRelevance.com — organized the second  awareness2action event at the Dragonbar in San Francisco’s North Beach. The event, attended by about 60 people involved with various social causes, featured an hour of socializing and an hour of panelists discussing social enterprises.

On the panel:

• Premal Shah, President of Kiva.org (here’s the video interview with Premal I published last week)

• Kevin Jones, Principal at Good Capital

• Steve Newcomb, serial entrepreneur & founder of Virgance.

No one videotaped the event, but here are a few snippets:

Kevin Jones mentioned the-hub.net, a co-working space for social entrepreneurs that began in London and has spread to about 8 locations in all. Good Capital is looking into opening a co-location space in San Francisco.

Steve Newcomb: "I’m on a hiring spree — I’m not paying anything, but I’m on a hiring spree." … "I don’t know how to replicate what the Barack Obama campaign did and apply it to business."

Premal Shah announced the first downturn in lending in Kiva’s history: a 10 percent drop from a year ago because of the economic downturn. The nonprofit has reduced its 2009 budget from $6 million to $4.4 million.

Premal said Kiva planned to release a developer platform with an open API in 2009 so that the community could create additional features and unlock more growth. Great news!

Premal also said Kiva should empower the 17-year-old in Boise, give him the Kiva Powerpoint presentation decks and publish it out on SlideShare. Even if volunteer evangelists got some of the facts wrong, just spreading the word is an enormous win.

Newcomb echoed the approach I’m taking with the upcoming launches of Social Media Camps and Socialbrite.org [this blog] by citing the "train the trainers" model. While many people thought the Obama campaign was a decentralized, democratically run effort, in truth the campaign used a hybrid model of command and control at the top facilitating grassroots efforts at the bottom — "managed empowerment," in Newcomb’s words.

Cool webite: Carrotmob. Carrotmob organizes consumers to make purchases that give financial rewards to those businesses that agree to make socially beneficial choices.

The post Activism and the social enterprise appeared first on Socialbrite.

Here’s a 4-minute interview I did with Kevin Jones, founder of a new conference called Social Capital Markets. The three-day gathering in San Francisco, with 650 attendees, focused on social enterprises, the blurring line between nonprofits and socially conscious for-profits, and the tidal wave of interest in organizations that promote the common good (especially in the wake of the stock market’s meltdown). VCs, entrepreneurs, foundations, aid agencies and journalists all attended.

Watch the video in Flash on Vimeo

Watch the video in H.264 QuickTime on Ourmedia
Download the original video from Archive.org

Cross-posted to Socialmedia.biz

The post SoCap: Advancing the social good appeared first on Socialbrite.