August 2008

Are you Master of your domain?

My days were out of control.  I felt as though I was a married to my inbox.  Something had to be done so that I could regain control and have time to just breathe at the end of a long day.  So, about a month ago, I took a class called the Effective Edge .  And, oh, was it effective.

As a sort of continuum of Robin’s Obey My Blog, here is my story. 

What wasn’t working for me was my constant obsession with checking my e-mail.  It ran my day and made it hard to give one project my full attention.  I tried closing Outlook for a couple of hours at a time to see if that helped.  But, it didn’t work in my case.  I just always felt like I was missing something, so I’d find myself constantly opening and closing it – and that just took up a lot of time.

I had high hopes for the class I was enrolled in and I showed up completely ready to learn a new way of doing things.  Here are some of the main takeaway points that have helped me:

• Start your day off with a Mind Sweep – take a minute to brainstorm about all of the actions items that you need to take care of and write it out.  This helps you get it out of your mind
• Use your task list to help manage the action items that need to be accomplished. Create these tasks when you are doing your Mind Sweep.
• Keep your task list open and not always your inbox.
• Turn off that annoying pop up box that alerts you when you have an e-mail – it only serves as a distraction
• Organize your inbox – to make it easier to find certain e-mails when you do need to go back to reference something
• Take breaks to clear your head for a few minutes

I’ve been following this mantra now for a little while and it has made a huge difference in my stress level and my productivity.  I get more sleep at night, my inbox and I give each other our space and I’m getting things done faster.  I have regained control.  I am Master of my domain. 

SXSW Interactive is the mother of all interactive, social media conferences. The information shared here by some of the most renowned thought leaders in the interactive space is always insightful and sets the tone for the following year of online trends and best practices for any number of industries.

But what's more exciting, is that nonprofits are slowly creating a presence at this mega-event. Last year’s conference touted a handful of sessions revolving around nonprofits, online marketing and social media for social change, and this year there are even more nptech sessions on the panel picker to choose from.

Voting closes tomorrow, so make sure and vote as soon as possible to ensure an even greater NP presence in Austin this March!

Here are the submissions pertaining to nonprofits and social change. Thanks to Beth Kanter for skimming through the more than 1200 submissions to create this list and providing abstracts of each and directions for voting on her blog !

Social and Nonprofits ROI: Case Study Slam> submitted by Beth Kanter

THIS is Iron Chef … Battle Non Profit submitted by Beth Kanter

Social Change Behind the FireWall submitted by Holly Ross

Social Media for NonProfit Rockstars submitted by Ed Schipul

Real Time Representation - How Social Media is Changing the Face of Government submitted by Erica O'Grady

Understanding Social Networks, Beyond the Graph submitted by Ruby Sinreich

Lessons in Local Tech: Sustainable Food 2.0 submitted by Rachel Weidinger, Common Knowledge

Open Source Disability Gadgets: DIY for PWD submitted by Liz Henry, Blogher

Convergence of Social Health Media With Youth Culture submitted by Matthew Zachary 

Non-Profit Technology Work: How You Can Do Good submitted by Fred Benenson, Creative Commons

How to Save the World with Firefox Extensions! submitted by Joe Solomon

Nonprofit RockStars: Using Video to Share Your Message by David King

Social Networking Lessons from Nonprofits Jeff Patrick, Common Knowledge

The Mobile Web for Good submitted by Katrin Verclas

My Life With NF in Web 2.0 submitted by Reggie Bibbs

Using Microformats to Save the World, or at Least Try submitted by Ruby Sinreich

Breaking Through the Digital Ceiling Allyson Kapin, Women Who Tech and Rad Campaign

Non-Profit Communications in the 2.0 World by Ted Fickes, The Wilderness Society

ACLU-WA's Drupal redesign! submitted by Sarah Davie

Get your nonprofit panel vote on before leaving for the Labor Day weekend!

Yesterday, Lacey wrote about how to engage folks who are interested in volunteering for organizations. It's a great segue into another area that I find lacking in most nonprofit websites: staff and organizational employees. What do they both have in common? Your volunteers and paid staff are part of a diverse community within your organization. However, it's this diversity in community that is often neglected.

Frequently, staff can get left aside in the community. Why? Is it because they are paid members of the community? Are their roles separate from the community that includes folks like donors, volunteers, Board members? If you're thinking 'yes' to either of these questions, I would argue that these ideas can't work in today's world where employee engagement is a true key to strong organizational health. It's time to bring your staff more fully into your organization's community.

Here are some ideas that can help you better integrate your own staff into your organization's community:

Let your staff tell their stories. Why they work for your nonprofit. What they enjoy in life. Let their unique characters come out so donors and other external folks who are passionate about your cause can connect with them. Don't sequester them to mere names, phone numbers, and email addresses on your Contact Us page. For instance, here at Convio, we have this blog as one way to allow us employees to share ourselves and what we know with our community.

Don't settle for stock employee photos when you have real pictures. I'm not a big fan of stock photos of shiny happy people. They just don't connect with me. Instead, consider using real pictures of your staff doing the work that matters to your cause. Put these in relevant spots on your website. Your donors and activists want to see staff passionately serving their cause.

Engage your staff as ambassadors. I wrote in more detail about this last month. Again, if you're committed to creating a work environment that focuses on employee engagement, then help your staff find ways to speak openly and enthusiastically about their work. Feature this work prominently on your website. Guide your staff into talking about and sharing their successes and best practices at conferences. For more ideas on employee engagement, visit http://www.baileyworkplay.com/?s=employee+engagement.

I'm not advocating that you make your website completely staff-focused, just more balanced to reflect the true community that your organization creates daily. Nonprofit work is demanding. And while it can also be rewarding, every individual wants to know they are seen and valued for the work they do. Donors, advocates, and other folks on the outside of the organization don't often know and appreciate the work that goes on inside. Don't be afraid to shine a spotlight on your own staff and what they do every day.

"Feedback is a gift!"

I have some feedback for whoever came up with that little pearl of wisdom. Although it's true; "Feedback is a gift" often gets the same reaction as "Eat your vegetables!" And like vegetables, everyone's favorite form of feedback is, of course, unsolicited. However, I am not going to suggest you take feedback from constituents and come up
with an elaborate scheme so you can hide the feedback in a napkin and give it to the dog under the table. The importance of handling feedback and supporting constituents is proportionally equal to the degree of relationship the non-profit has with their constituents. Visitors to a non-profit site are looking for some level of transaction (information, donation, advocacy action) and relationship (trust, connection, emotion). Often the relations drive further transactions so knowing the visitor's needs is essential to responding and catering to them. I'm resisting the urge here to fly off on tangents of measuring needs, demographics, user experience design, etc. and focusing on feedback and relations. Like relations, feedback can be direct or perceived. For non-profits looking to meet needs, foster relations and therefore increase transactions, handling various forms of feedback should be carefully considered.

"Mind your peas and stews."

Yes, back to vegetable analogies! Ok not really, I had no where to go with them. Direct feedback can take the form of a "contact us" survey, an escalation of an issue, praise, or direct involvement. Perceived feedback generally needs to be inferred by analyzing data (site traffic, visitor behavior), A/B splits and escalation trends. This perceived or indirect feedback is arguably more important because it is what constituents do rather than what they say. Unfortunately it's often given less weight or even ignored because it can be difficult to measure and properly analyze. A good way to begin exploring the indirect feedback is by starting with the direct. Escalations on difficulties with a site (navigating, donating, registering, taking action etc.) often come in as anecdotal data that can be verified and measured over time. Here is an example of anecdotal data turning into empirical: an organization was receiving several different complaints from constituents participating in a walk event. The complaints ranged from difficulties getting friends and family to donate to them, trouble finding their personal, customized participant center page, donations ending up in a general fund instead of where they were intended and various other complaints from participants who had been to prior events. Looking at the common threads and walking through the user experiences of several of the participants reporting problems it was discovered that the root cause was the user experience itself, mainly that there was no obvious login nor visual cues that they were logged in or out. In my next post I'd like to discuss some of the systems several organizations use to track issues and feedback. There are tools to make it more efficient to handle issues and create a feedback loop so areas of improvement can be found.

"Chocolate is a vegetable"

It's true, sort of... it comes from a bean. And if I'm sticking to this feedback is a vegetable analogy for some reason then, like chocolate, feedback is bittersweet. I'm sorry I just really like chocolate so I had to work it in here. I'm hoping this all ends up tricking someone into giving me chocolate instead of feedback some day!

I welcome any feedback (or chocolate) you may have.  

A few weeks ago, I posted about my lackluster search for volunteer opportunities on the web and promised to follow up with a guide to great volunteer sections. So, without further ado – please enjoy…

The problem that I've seen with so many non-profit volunteer sections is that they try to pack too much information onto one page. Maybe it’s that engaging volunteers is really a secondary goal to engaging donors, so you don’t want to spend too much time planning content for this area. Or, maybe you think that volunteers want the information all in one place. Well, I’m proposing more of a step-by-step approach since that’s typically how a volunteer program works.

Step One. Find out what volunteering for your organization is all about and make sure I've come to the right place. (I, being the volunteer)
Step Two. Browse your volunteer opportunities. This step can be as simple as looking at a list of a few different types of volunteer opportunities or as complex as selecting from a set of menus to narrow down numerous options until I find the right one.
Step Three. Complete an application. Again, depending on your organization, this step varies. You may require that I sign up for an orientation online, complete an online application, or schedule a phone screen. This is the step where I've determined I'm interested and am committed to moving forward. Your main goal here should be to capture my contact information so you can keep in touch with me since I'm a potential volunteer.

Connecticut Humane Society does a great job of following the step-by-step approach in their volunteer section.

Users can link to each step directly from this box to get started in becoming a volunteer. Also, there are additional pathways for users to access the steps – via the left navigation and promotional call-outs in the right column – which is great for repeat visitors that may not want to go through all three steps.

DePelchin Children’s Center isn’t as explicit with the step-by-step approach, but all three steps are clearly defined. Also, the site makes step two – finding a volunteer opportunity – very easy, especially considering the wide variety of options they offer. They start off by asking the user to select which group they fall into, Individual, Group or Youth, then they list out all of the options available for each segment. The user can then click to register for Volunteer Orientation, which is step three for DePelchin. Another thing this site does well is that it includes a Donate button throughout the Volunteer section (and throughout the site as well). Often times, your volunteers are your most loyal visitors, so giving them a quick opportunity to donate is definitely a good strategy.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation also takes a less explicit approach to the three steps of becoming a volunteer. They have the challenge of covering a wider geographical area so they’ve taken the approach of using an events calendar to display their specific opportunities. Before listing the specifics, they group their different types of opportunities by Hands-on, Outreach and Education, and Advocacy so that users can easily identify with one group. Once the user has identified which opportunities they may be interested in, Chesapeake Bay has a step three of completing an online sign-up, which is a necessary component of any great volunteer section. While your users are engaged and reading about your volunteer options, why not collect their contact information so you can begin an online relationship with them?

So, in summary, some quick rules of thumb…

1. Your volunteer section should guide users through the three steps of becoming a volunteer and should keep the process very simple.
2. Since there are essentially three steps to becoming a volunteer, your volunteer section should not include more than three pages: a landing page describing the process and what it’s like to be a volunteer, a page listing specific volunteer opportunities, and an application page or page for users to register as volunteers. There are exceptions to this rule depending on your organization, but this is a good starting point.
3. Consider providing a quick way for users to donate within your volunteer section.
4. Be sure you’re collecting your users’ contact information in your volunteer section so you can get in touch with them and stay in touch.

Have I missed anything? Are there features or content that you’ve seen on other volunteer sections or on your own that you’d like to share? If so, please do so in the comments.