MARCH 2007

INTRO: Online Communities Redux: Why They Matter to You FEATURE: Online Communities: What Works and What Doesn't RANT: Will Change.org change....well, anything? NTEN SPOTLIGHT: Connect at the NTC HOW TO: Build Online Communities THINGS WE LIKE COMMUNITY BUZZ

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ONLINE COMMUNITIES REDUX: WHY THEY MATTER TO YOU

Katrin Verclas, NTEN

Social networks are mushrooming and nonprofits are flocking to them. MySpace is the 3rd most popular website in the United States and Facebook is the 7th, according to Alexa as 3/19/07. Care2, a social network of activists, boasts six million users. Senator Barack Obama unveiled My.BarackObama.com, a social network created for his presidential campaign, and there is even a Club Penguin, a brand-new social network "in braces," catering to the 8 to 12-year-old crowd. Even the CIA has launched a (albeit closed) social network similar to Wikipedia - Intellipedia - to allow analysts to collaborate across agencies and build a collective body of intelligence information. Social networks are clearly hot.

At first is was old-fashioned blogs that created communities of their own. Lateral connections among blogs via cross-linking and RSS syndication feeds create loose sets of like-minded social communities. And these communities have influence. Blogs are playing a similar role to satellite and cable TV shows in the late 70s and early 80s, when these shows gave the religious right - a then-marginal group - the power to form a public identity, attract others, and later develop its own cultural agenda and political institutions.

Nonprofits naturally go to where people hang out in the hope to recruit supporters, donors, and activists. There are more than 20,000 nonprofit and philanthropic groups on MySpace alone. With more than half of MySpace visitors 35 or older, they are on to something.

FEATURE: ONLINE COMMUNITIES: WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN'T

Some online communities have revolutionized people's online activities and conversations, and many others have had little impact at all. Below you'll find analyses of several online communities and what features work for them and which don't.

NpTech Tagging Community

Beth Kanter, Beth's Blog
Marnie Webb, CompuMentor

Tagging blog posts and other online content facilitates the sharing of information among members of a distributed community, and it can also help form or catalyze a community. In some respects the NpTech tag, used to indicate content focused on nonprofit technology, serves as a beacon to attract people interested in sharing resources on nonprofit technology and makes it easier to form connections and relationships with new people. The NpTech tag is also easy to use - the services are free, and many people have already incorporated services like del.icio.us and Flickr into their knowledge management practices. Furthermore, many tagging services encourage connections and conversations around particular tags via embedded social networking features. For more on this, see Marnie's Blog, and Beth's NpTech Tag presentation.

Progressive Exchange Listserv

Jed Miller, ACLU

Web communities are occasional stop-bys for most users, but a listserv community like Progressive Exchange lives in your inbox. It's a regular presence and a good resource, as long as you're not one of those crazies who's compelled to read every single message.

Progressive Exchange is worth the extra mail: a network of NPO tech staff, consultants, strategists and vendors more focused on problem-solving than self-promotion (though there's certainly some of the latter).

Topics range from one-off announcements of jobs, seminars, and semi-formal gatherings (mostly in D.C.), to calls for referrals, to roundtable discussions of news and innovations, some of these becoming pretty serious group analysis.

Second Life

Andrew Hoppin, NASA Ames Research Center and YearlyKos Convention/Bloggerpower.org
Excerpted from Corante with permission

Second Life's greatest utility, to me, is that it better mimics the experience of being offline in the same room together than any other online medium. The experience of interacting there is vastly more social and immersive than, say, an online blogging community. High trust relationships are built quickly. Think Meetup, except that you don't need 40 people to be in the same place on the planet to have an effective Meetup.

Second Life is also a rich medium for content creation that can be "surfaced" to the Web for broader exposure. More than 100 people participated in an anti-war "virtual march on virtual Capital Hill" that we organized between CodePink and RootsCamp in Second Life recently, and one of our volunteers made a video of the event that went mildly viral with over 50,000 views. The cost of creating it was $0.

2People.org

Nathan Rosquist, The Interra Project
Reprinted from WorldChanging with permission

2people.org, a social networking site in the works by West Seattle transplant Phil Mitchell, is what he calls the "MySpace of climate action." What sets it apart, however, from other social-networking sites (Be Green, Idealist.org, and Change.org) is its focus on action and commitment.

"We're an online citizen network committed to closing the gap between what's scientifically necessary and what's politically possible. If you're looking for ways to get involved and people and projects to connect with, you can find them here."

When joining 2people, you first agree to expand the 2people network by literally two people. You then have the option to make commitments to support policy solutions, examples include buy clean electric power, buy or build green things, drive a greener car, drive less, and much more.

Care2

Allison Fine, Demos: A Network of Ideas and Action

What would happen if you mashed up Friendster, Change.org, Digg.com, and the Green Directory? You would get Care2, a vast one-stop shop for informing and engaging people in social change efforts. Started way back in 1998, the site boasts over six million members today. Fundamentally the mission of Care2 is to involve people in learning more about and donating to social causes, with a particular emphasis on "green lifestyle" and animal causes.

The site is an amalgam of almost every possible way that people use the web. It has news, social networking, shopping, petitions, donations to causes, and even e-cards. Care2 experienced a surge in activity and membership last year as green consumerism took off. And no wonder - the site is easy to navigate, membership is free, there is a vast array of personal networks, services, news, and jobs to be had as well as access to green products and causes.

RANT: WILL CHANGE.ORG CHANGE....WELL, ANYTHING?

Sonny Cloward, Vermont Nonprofit CommunIT

A little over a month ago, social good networking site Change.org launched with exposure few startups, much less nonprofits (which Change.org is not), could dream of - they got Techcrunched. Lots of do-gooders like me jumped on the site and were presented with the audacious yet simple question: what do you want to change in the world? The premise is pretty straightforward - connect people with one another and organizations to push forward common causes (i.e. changes). I perused the site, thought it was a great idea, didn't dig very deeply, felt a moment of kumbaya with my fellow do-gooders, and then quickly forgot about it. And based on Change.org's Alexa traffic rankings, I wasn't alone.

So is Change.org just another fly-by-night project of some well meaning people with a good concept - just badly planned and executed - awaiting a slow descent into the dead pool? The site has a nicely streamlined and accessible UI, so it's obvious someone put some thought and resources into it. Yet it has nothing in the way of features that hook me and keep me engaged and active in issues and people that matter to me (via dashboard, email, or RSS).

NTEN SPOTLIGHT: CONNECTING AT THE NTC

We've talked a lot about building communities online, but offline community matters too. Face-to-face interaction is essential in building trust and improving collaboration in all relationships.

With more than 1,000 people attending this year's Nonprofit Technology Conference, it will be impossible to meet everyone. But we're making it easy for you to get to know the people who will be able to help you the most.

Here are some ways you can connect at the NTC:

> Meet with people who share your interests in Affinity Group Meetings.

> Join a lunch discussion table and talk about a topic close to your heart over a sandwich.

> Meet the people behind some of the most innovative tech projects being undertaken by nonprofits in the Innovation Plaza.

> Get to know your colleagues and explore the tastes of DC by going out to a small group dinner.

> Mingle with other members and celebrate excellent work done by the community at the Member Reception.

> Sign up for text alerts on your mobile phone for conference updates and news. Text the keyword NTC to 75528!

> Sign up for Twitter and let everyone at the NTC know what you're up to.

> Share a ride or a room with a peer - you're sure to get to know each other!

> See who's coming to the NTC and plan ahead for the connections you want to make.

THINGS WE LIKE

COMMUNITY BUZZ

News and buzz from people and organizations in the nonprofit tech sector. Read our posts on our blog.

VOTE FOR THE BEST NONPROFIT VIDEO
We've selected the finalist videos in the NTC Video Contest, and now it's time or you to pick the winner! Go to DoGooderTV to watch the finalist videos and vote for your favorite online or via text message.

DIGG YOUR FAVORITE NPTECH ARTICLES
Digg your favorite nonprofit tech articles and watch them move to the homepage of the nonprofit dig site, Kikono.

NEW RESOURCE FOR FUNDRAISING INFORMATION
The Integrator is a new blog on fundraising with posts written by and for those in the nonprofit community.

GET HONOR AND PRESTIGE
Nominate a technology project you admire to receive a Tech Museum Award. The submission deadline is March 26.

SALSA THE DAY AWAY
NTEN Member Democracy in Action has released its new user interface - Salsa.

REGISTER FOR THE NTC

It's not too late to register for the Nonprofit Technology Conference. More than 1,000 people in the NP tech field will converge in Washington, DC, April 4 - 6. Don't miss out!

UPCOMING WEBINAR

FREE! Making Online Communities Thrive
Thursday, April 19
10:00 am PT / 1:00 pm ET
Presented by Dale McGrew from GoLightly

BECOME A MEMBER

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RESEARCH

In late 2006 we surveyed technology providers across the country to help us understand what technology assistance means for nonprofits. The results are in.

NETWORK ONLINE

Meet people who share your interests and talk to them online. No, NTEN doesn't have a dating service (yet), but we do have Affinity Groups!

Find one that is right for you.