StreetSmart Australia announced their 2009-2010 results on Monday – an impressive $351,400 now funding 84 grassroots projects to help the homeless.
I’m really impressed with how open and transparent StreetSmart are about where the money goes. In addition to providing details of recipients by year, state and amount, StreetSmart are ahead of the curve when it comes to nonprofit mapping in Australia – see their map demonstrating where StreetSmart grants have been distributed.
When I started this blog, the idea was to create a resource for Australian nonprofit workers just getting their feet wet with social media and wider nptech. However, there’s so many nptech bloggers that cover this, quite frequently and in-depth every time. Why reinvent the wheel?
Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the next iteration of Geeking For Good, which takes the podcast idea I floated late last year and twists it into blog form. Would you, dear reader, be interested in reading all about campaigns and other initiatives happening in the Australian social media for social good space? I imagine I’d still throw in a how-to from time to time, but the focus would be on the great things our Australian nptech community is doing.
So, is this a good idea? Would you read the blog if I took this direction? Let me know in the comments.
***UPDATE*** Unfortunately, a personal issue has arisen that has upset my plans to attend 10NTC. The wonderful people who were so generous in helping me have received full refunds, an explanatory email and my eternal gratitude!
Today, thanks to the generosity of the NTEN community, 57 lucky people (including me – woohoo!) have been granted scholarships to the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference to be held in Atlanta on April 8-10. The scholarship covers the cost of our individual conference tickets.
In the interest of practising what I preach, I’d like to share with you a project I’ve implemented at work involving Foursquare.
RSPCA Australia has a scheme called Choose Wisely:
Choose Wisely businesses serve humanely produced eggs, chicken or pork (or all three) at a Gold, Silver or Bronze level, depending on whether they use them in all or some of their products.
As the participating businesses are restaurants and cafes, I thought it was a perfect way we could experiment with location-based services.
If you’re in Australia, you can search for “rspca choose wisely” in Foursquare and find the nearest businesses near you that participate. I’ve put in a request with Foursquare to see if we can have a special badge for venue check-ins, but I haven’t heard back yet.
So – community feedback time – what do you think?
Today I’d like to highlight a few projects created by some social changemakers doing good for the Australian community.
Riding4acause is a project by to raise awareness for male depression by 3 guys riding motorcycles. Their goal is to raise male depression – which is suffered by 1 in 8 men worldwide. From their website:
They will embark on their first major ride in September 2010, from Sydney to Glen Helen Resort (see Rides page), joining Steve Andrews from Black Dog Ride, in an Australian wide initiative to educate the community about Male Depression.
One year later, in September 2011, the guys will ride across the USA, from Disneyland to Disneyworld, (the happiest places on earth, full route details here) leaving LA on the 25th of September 2011, arriving at Florida just in time for Biketoberfest.
The Perfect Gift For A Man is a book with 30 stories about reinventing manhood. The book includes some amazing stories by well-known Aussies in the social media space. While you can download the free e-book, you can also buy a physical copy, with profits going to the Inspire Foundation.
5CentTweet is a project I only learnt about today, but it looks very promising. The brainchild of @Glebe2037, the project is asking participants to donate 5 cents for every tweet they send during 2010, starting February. At the moment, there is a call for charity nominations to determine which organisation will get the funds.
I’d like to start profiling more campaigns like the one above, so if you are involved in any similar projects, please let me know.
When adding online and social media into the traditional communications and marketing mix, it’s easy to be swept up in the technology. Because online can provide us with so many metrics, it’s easy to forget you’re dealing with people, not numbers on a spreadsheet or fancy graphs in an analytics package.
Numbers are nice. But connecting with people is better – and more important.
I think if we can start our work with the mindset of “What behaviour do we want to create that people will want and need?” rather than “How do we do this thing that we’ve always done, but do it better digitally?”, we could more easily be creating these analog interactions in a digital world.
- Nic Hodges, “Uneven Distribution”
If your mindset is to do the same old thing in a new medium, you are selling your organisation short. It’s time to flip your thinking.
Rather than isolating people, the use of social media and other online technologies increases how well-connected people feel to each other and to the causes they love.
- Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog, “2010 Predictions: Number 1 is I’ll Keep Referring You to Beth”
How are you using social media to learn more about your supporters as people, and the stories they have to tell? How are you building a better community?
Without a doubt, Twitter was the service that had Australian nptechies really excited last year. I think this year, Foursquare may just be the “next big thing” as it has finally been made available everywhere. Here’s a few scenarios for how Foursquare could work for nonprofits:
Obviously, these scenarios are all dependent on getting Foursquare involved in creating badges for nonprofits. If any of these examples have got you thinking, why not contact Foursquare direct.
Are there any other examples you can think of? Leave a comment below!
Reading Trendwatching.com’s Top 10 Consumer Trends for 2010 got me thinking about how nonprofits could potentially be taking advantage of these this year.
The trend of Embedded Generosity, where “consumers will continue to respond well to products and services which have a charitable component” is a trend that many nonprofit marketing departments are already aware and taking advantage of in aligning their brands with relevant corporate entities.
But what of the other trends? Could your nonprofit take advantage of Mass Mingling and “facilitate real-world meetups from social networks in a way that promotes their brand”? Why not invite your Twitter followers to a tweetup? It’s a great way to meet your supporters, and strengthen the relationships you’ve created online.
TweetsGiving celebrations are kicking off next week – are you ready?
I just found out tonight that Sydney will also be holding a gratitude party – joining Melbourne and Canberra.
In terms of Canberra, our event is planned for December 1, to be held at The Front, Lyneham, after work. All CTUB, SMC Canberra and NetTuesday Canberra people and their friends are warmly invited to attend.
If you can’t attend the event, there’s plenty of other ways to get involved. During TweetsGiving there will be many opportunities on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and blogs to express your gratitude.
I had a bit of of a shock this morning when I discovered @TheEllenShow had started following me on Twitter. Why on earth would Ellen DeGeneres, comedian and talk show host, be following me? This piqued my interest, so I went to find out why.
At the time of writing, Ellen has over 3.6 million followers, and follows under 7,000 people. I checked her following list and discovered that the names of the most recent people followed are all non-profit and social good types. Now, I can only speculate as to why this is, and hopefully I’ll get to find out the real reason soon.
Here’s my theory: she’s following the social good and non-profit types to draw attention to them in some way. Perhaps she’ll be telling her Twitter followers and people who watch her show that those she does follow are making a difference in the world due to their work. I guess we’ll just have to wait to find out!