08/25/10 – Social Media Insights, Tactics for Nonprofits and Foundation Support

by Sabine Kortals

Senior Communications Officer

To learn how to effectively use social media to engage people – from raising awareness of social issues to organizing communities to act on a cause, to advocating for reform and policy changes – some 300 members of Colorado's nonprofit community gathered at the University of Denver yesterday for an intensive master class and workshops.

Led by social media expert and trainer Beth Kanter, CEO of Zoetica and co-author of The Networked Nonprofit, along with a cadre of local social media specialists, we explored best practices of social media from nonprofits and foundations, including staffing requirements, adoption strategies, analyzing the return on investment and methods for learning from pilots.

Making good use of the gathering, one clever participant suggested that perhaps The Colorado Trust would consider accepting progress reports via Tweets in the future. Another suggested The Trust provide more hands-on technical assistance to grantees to "get them going" with social media. What are your thoughts about social media, how it could help your work and our shared goal of achieving access to health, and how might The Colorado Trust best assist you with this? We would love to hear your thoughts!

We also encourage you to look over the materials from the training, which includes a host of related resources (visit the Zoetica training wiki).

In addition to the terrific information shared by Kanter, Jen Caltrider and Alan Franklin of ProgressNow Colorado presented a workshop on blogging. The discussion drove home the need to develop a purpose, plan and schedule for your blog, and to make it easy to share blog posts via email and other social networks. Franklin also mentioned the importance of contributing to others' blogs as a way to build a following of your own, re-posting others' blog posts to your website, and techniques for getting more people to comment on your blog posts – including posing questions and being willing to tackle controversial topics.

Another workshop focused on digital storytelling as a means to achieve outreach, education and advocacy. Daniel Weinshenker of the Center for Digital Storytelling described how to quickly and easily design and produce three- to five-minute video stories – also comprising still images and music - that engage audiences in compelling, first-person narratives.

Other breakout sessions focused on listening and engagement techniques, and Twitter and Facebook for nonprofits – including a discussion on pages, events and apps.

The meeting was hosted by the Colorado Nonprofit Association and the Colorado Association of Funders, with support from The Colorado Trust, Gill Foundation, Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado and the Colorado Health Foundation.

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