A story not so often heard about social media is how it can be a tool used by those who don’t wish to make a profit but rather by those who want to make a change in today’s society. This past week I was lucky enough to get myself out to see how some great people are looking to use social media tools for the better good and was able to lend my albeit limited knowledge to help out one organization in effectively using social media tools to reach their goals.
What was this? It was Net Change week described on their website as a week to connect Toronto’s digital natives with the city’s social change organizations. Held at MaRs discovery district with the backing of both for and non profit organizations the week looked like it was a great success. Now where did I come in? I had the pleasure of volunteering my time as one of the social media ‘experts’ in a one day session with a charity to analyze their current operations and develop strategies to implement social media in their work.
I had the opportunity to work with a good friend of mine Dan Hocking a partner in a digital agency. We were paired with Pencils for Kids a small charity based out of Markham who’s goal is to see all children with the tools needed to have an education. Currently they have projects in a community in Niger where they have worked to help provide the school supplies and facilities needed for an education. Overall an organization that despite only having one full time (unpaid) staff person has been doing great things to create social change.
While Pencils for Kids is doing some great things offline, Dan and I felt that building a stronger social media presence would work well in expanding their fund-raising efforts. Here’s a bit of what we were able to discuss in our meeting:
Telling their story: The founder of this organization , Robin Mednic who is in the thick of things when it comes to this organization’s projects has an uncanny ability to just grab you into the cause. By telling her experience with the organization and the changes Pencils for Kids has made she almost immediately sold me on the charity. We felt this strong message needed to be found on their website as well. By better integrating the photos they already had on flickr and placing the content amassed in her travels on the site in either blog or in web page form we felt Pencils for Kids could represent themselves as the amazing change creating organization that they are.
Fund-raising: We also got into the development of a fund-raising campaign with a strong on line component. Focused around the idea of providing every child in the community they support with text books Pencils for Kids would actively engage supporters in this campaign . Relying heavily on visual imagery ( X amount of money = X% of a child’s text books) Pencils for kids through its offline work could drive on line donations to its site. Through this campaign they would be able to directly demonstrate the effect an individual ‘s donation would have to the cause and they would appeal to literacy groups, schools and the general public in reaching their goal.
Awareness: Pencils are a strong source of imagery for the organization and Pencils for Kids uses it as a initial topic for discussion about their organization. To build stronger feelings for this organization it was felt that Pencils for Kids could engage the public by encouraging them to create content around this key item. Some suggested mediums were photos, drawings, and videos and these would be posted on the Pencils for Kids website where viewers could vote and comment on these pieces of work potentially with prizing to follow for the most votes.
Overall this was a great experience and I was happy to have been brought aboard. I think I took away something from this experience as well. In the social media realm a lot of people with knowledge feel that organizations should be on all the major tools and they will then seem to have this major success. I’ve learned that certain tools aren’t for every organization. Really I think that goes back to basic marketing. What tools will meet the organizations needs and goals? We didn’t go very heavy on a social media tool set in our ideas during the session because we knew that the volunteers of Pencils for Kids would be overwhelmed or not put in the large amount of effort needed to see what would probably be limited success. Instead we stuck to basics and worked on Pencils for Kids strengths.
PS: Remember how I said I was sold on this organization, after the session Dan and I put our names down for working with Pencils for Kids in the future.
Have any questions/comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message .