4 Ways Social Media is Changing the Non-Profit World

Beth Kanter has a great post on how non-profits are successfully using social media to further their causes. She illustrates her points with some real-life examples from March of Dimes and the Red Cross as well as lesser known non-profits.

This brings to mind a conversation I had this morning with a friend, about the distinction between communities and organizations. Organizations, by nature, try to control. People build organizations, thinking that it's a way to spread ideas and change the world.

In contrast, communities are uncontrollable. But they are excellent at taking ideas and making them bigger.  Social media is one way for non-profits to return to an emphasis on community and to remember that organizations are in service to the cause, not the other way around. 

Yes, I'm cynical about non-profits. And I think social media is one way to re-calibrate top down efforts with bottom up grassroots.

Photo by bobby-james

Comments

[Beth Kanter]

I think that the key for organizations is start working more like "clouds" than "towers" - not sure if you read Mark Pesce's essay on it - but I found it very insightful and helped me think about the changes.

[Carol Ross]

Just found your post about Mark Pesce's thoughts on clouds vs. towers: http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/05/mark-pesce-at-cua09-think-like-a-cloud-make-a-storm-kill-the-tower.html

Fabulous piece! Really enjoyed the question of how a cloud interfaces with a tower. Also agree that communities are concentric circles of involvement and intrigued by what keeps the cloud together is love of what the cloud is about. Beautifully expressed.

Thanks, Beth, for your stories and insights about using social media for social causes.

[Dan Padilla]

Thanks for a great post. Your comments seem very timely for those of us in the Honolulu Symphony. We seem to continually be asking for "community support" these days. I agree that things work much better the other way around.

[Carol Ross]

Thanks for stopping by, Dan. I *abhor* the charity model, that goes after the "big give." In these times, the drawback to that model is painfully exposed. I hope that it's an opening for a model based on "value in the marketplace."