The Commons

Bring up social media in a group of nonprofit leaders, and the conversation stops.

There’s often a long silence — the kind that makes presenters wince — and then someone raises a hand and asks, “How?” Not how to do it, not how to figure out what to say, but how can we possibly do that, too? In other words, how can we staff this?

That’s pretty much what happened during the Innovation session at the  Greater DC Care’s 2009 Business and Nonprofit Philanthropy Summit and Awards conference. The question came from a small nonprofit, and everyone in the room started nodding.

There isn’t a single, easy, comfortable answer. So, I offered three uncomfortable ones.

Once you’ve decided that channels such as blogs, Twitter, or Facebook really could be important components of your marketing, you may have to court that special staff member who has an incredible and personable voice and is willing to take on the extra responsibility. That staff member could be anyone, including the executive director. That’s the case for a small Chicago nonprofit called Sit, Stay, Read, which uses dogs to help kids learn to read. The executive director is very much the voice of the organization on Facebook and other tools. Mary Ellen Schneider’s style is so distinctive; you can literally hear her voice when you read her entries.

Or you may want to ask a volunteer with a similarly distinctive voice and a passion for the organization. This is controversial. Some fear that activating volunteers means a dangerous loss of control. Others, such as New Tactics in Human Rights, have forged ahead with multiple volunteer bloggers.

In higher ed and larger organizations, the answer may be an uncomfortable four-letter word: hire. Of course that’s tough to do in these economic times. As a result, the answer may be reallocating staff duties, so that real time is available to the person tasked with tracking and participating in online conversations, writing and recruiting others to write for blogs and other channels, and lending social media strategies to the communications mix.

But one thing is clear: a long, deadening silence probably isn’t the solution.

- Lee Reilly, Vice President, Interactive

Tags: blogging, media strategy, nonprofit communications, nonprofit marketing, resources, social media, trends, twitter, web 2.0