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First published in the January issue of Nonprofit Business Advisor, available electronically to current subscribers in December.

Social media platforms are increasingly important conduits that nonprofits are using to engage constituents, raise funds, and communicate their missions to a broader audience. But as organizations have delved deeper into the use of these tools, they have confronted a new challenge: negative social media comments.

Carie Lewis, director of Emerging Media at The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), said her organization receives negative social media comments on a daily basis, and it inspired her to write the blog entry “Haters Gonna Hate: Dealing with Negative Feedback in the Social World.” She recently spoke with Nonprofit Business Advisor about the phenomenon.

“We were an early adopter of social media … and we have strong opposition that is socially savvy,” Lewis said. “A lot of what we do today is correcting misinformation.”

The director said that the organization is heavily focused on Facebook—where they have two full-time staff members devoted to managing the page—and Twitter—where they have one full-time staff person managing the page. HSUS focuses most of its efforts on these two platforms, she said, because it is where their constituents are and/or where people are talking about the organization.

Complaints to HSUS social platforms range from critiques of commercials and direct mail pieces, to misspelled names on address labels, to more malicious comments about controversial issues, the director said, such as HSUS’s decision to work with Michael Vick, or HSUS’s stand on exotic pet ownership.

“Our policy is that we respond to everybody who asks us a question—and that’s not an invitation to step out of bounds, by the way. Questions range from positive, to negative, to really, really angry,” said Lewis. “People are passionate about animals, and no one here forgets that for a moment.”

To determine how to respond to negative comments made on HSUS social media platforms, the director said the organization looks for three things:

• Tone. If the person is extremely angry and makes it clear that he or she does not like the organization, if such a person has made it clear he/she isn’t going to listen, then the director said it usually isn’t a good use of time to try to communicate. However, if HSUS sees a comment from someone who has never posted before, and he seems to be confused or on the fence, then the organization tries to explain its side of the story to the user. “We will share our side of the story, correct any misinformation, and tell him what we do,” Lewis said.
• Influence. While the director said that the number of followers a commenter has isn’t the only factor to consider when determining how to respond, she said it does have to be taken into account. “If somebody has a huge fan base, and we know his or her message is going to be spread out, we want to make an effort to give our side of the story and then let him or her make a decision,” Lewis said. “It could be a blogger or a news reporter, so we may want to try to build a relationship, because people are listening.”
• Frequency. “If someone is flooding our feed with hate spam and sounding off on us,” Lewis said, “we’ll be less likely to try to share our side, but if someone writes once or twice, then he or she may be more willing to listen to our side.”

Other strategies the director said organizations should take—especially those that work around controversial missions—include:

• Create a commenting policy. The policy doesn’t have to be complicated, but it should cover basic issues such as profanity and personal attacks against employees or constituents and should state that such actions will not be tolerated.
• Adhere to the policy. If someone violates the policy, delete the post and reply in the thread, explaining why the post was deleted, the director said. Explain that if the policy is violated again, the commenter will be removed from the page. Be sure to send a link to the policy in your response. “Deleting someone happens every day; it’s a part of community management,” Lewis said, “but it has kept our community a fun and safe place for people, and it helps us grow.”
• Listen, then monitor. This is a critical step in managing a social media page, the director said. Develop monitoring tools and use them to learn who is talking about your organization and which platforms they are using. Start by becoming a user yourself so you can understand how people talk. HSUS uses an iGoogle page with RSS feeds to listen to what others are saying about them, she said.
• Welcome differences of opinion/feedback. Don’t be afraid when people disagree with you, because the combination of positive and negative feedback generates conversation. “We had a situation where people complained and [the organization] changed the way it operated, because we take feedback seriously,” Lewis said.
• Keep it professional. Do not take negative comments personally. “It can be hard not to,” Lewis said, “when you love your organization and mission, but you can’t, because if you do, you’ll feel a need to respond in a brash way, and you can’t let your emotions get to you when leading an official social media presence.”

Take these best practices into account the next time you notice a not-so-nice comment on your page and develop a comment policy for your organization if it doesn’t have one, the director said.

“It’s a hot topic because these platforms are where people communicate, but it’s so new, it’s hard to know how to do this effectively,” said Lewis.

For more information

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) works to reduce suffering and improve the lives of all animals by advocating for better laws; investigating animal cruelty; conducting campaigns to reform industries; providing animal rescue and emergency response; and caring for animals through its sanctuaries, emergency shelters, wildlife rehabilitation centers, and clinics. To learn more, visit www.humanesociety.org/; www.facebook.com
/humanesociety; or http://twitter.com/#!
/HumaneSociety. To read the HSUS social media guidelines/comments policy, visit www.facebook.com
/humanesociety?sk=info.

First published in the December issue of Nonprofit Business Advisor, available electronically to current subscribers in November.


As nonprofits continue to develop their tech savvy, more and more organizations are looking to film and video to share their mission-driven stories with the community. Recognizing a need for such expertise within the nonprofit sector, one organization has jumped to the head of the pack to assist nonprofit organizations with their filmmaking efforts and to promote their finished products.

According to Aaron Bramley, co-founder and director of communications and education at Lights. Camera. Help. (LCH), co-founders David Neff and Rich Vazquez met with him in early 2009, when the trio decided to create a film festival dedicated to nonprofit films and video. The group was amazed by the response to their call for entries—140 films from three continents—and they realized that organizations were excited about getting their films up on the big screen, the director said.

“We think video has the power to develop community around your cause because you can show the difference you’re making in the world, and that drives people to be passionate about your organization,” said Bramley. “People are naturally inclined to storytelling. It’s the oldest form of entertainment and information sharing … we feel film and video have an unprecedented power because they include both the visual and audio. It creates community and helps raise funds.”

After their first successful film festival in the summer of 2009, the communications director said the trio realized that they could expand their efforts and create a full nonprofit. “People came to us for tips and tricks and were trying to get equipment recommendations,” said Bramley, “so it seemed there was a real hunger in the nonprofit community to figure out how to use film and video to get their messages out.”

In 2010, LCH hosted its second film festival, the director said, and LCH received 250 film entries from five continents, enabling them to expand the cash awards they provided into three distinct prizes: Best Public Service Announcement, Best Short Film, and Best Feature Film.

“We believe video is the most powerful way to show people what an organization is doing,” Bramley said, and today, the fully incorporated Lights. Camera. Help. offers educational programming to encourage nonprofits to use film and video to tell their stories.

Currently, LCH presents a variety of services to nonprofit organizations, Bramley said, including:

• The Learn with LCH Series: A full-day workshop—either at the nonprofit’s location or a location within the community—where interested nonprofits are taught by the LCH team how to create film and/or videos. The session includes recommendations and advice about how to choose the right equipment, tell a story, frame a shot and record, and how to edit and distribute videos.

“Nonprofits go away having the process of video demystified to the point where they can embark on it and figure out the best way to use it for their organizations,” said Bramley.

• Lights. Camera. Help. Presents: LCH is screening the festival’s winning films and videos around the country in cities such as Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Dedicated volunteers in each host city provide the staff, and LCH assists in finding venues.
• Film + Food + Focused on Good: At print time, this fall fundraiser was partnering filmmakers and urban farmers for an evening of film clips, presentations, and food tasting to encourage the consumption of locally grown and sustainable foods.
• Project Action: LCH is working on a web application that will allow filmmakers and nonprofits to create unique accounts. Once a member can be “matched up” to the other by software, nonprofit organizations can find assistance with projects or filmmakers can offer services pro bono or at a reduced rate.

The director admitted that nonprofits should be prepared to dedicate the resources and funding necessary for their film and video projects. He says nonprofits can choose to do it themselves, or have a professional consultant complete the project for them.

“Videos are like buying a car,” Bramley said. “You can get the Honda Civic or the Mercedes. It depends on the investment the organization is willing to make.”

For those nonprofits that want to get their feet wet, Bramley estimates it costs between $100 to $150 for a camera, $100 for a microphone, and $300 to $500 for editing software to get started. A full-day training session with the LCH series is $125, he said.

“We believe any video is a good video,” Bramley said. “So long as it’s done well, it’ll be a benefit to the organization. Of course, in an ideal world, we’d have every organization use a combination of professional videos and self-made films and videos.”

For more information

Lights. Camera. Help. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging other nonprofit and cause-driven organizations to use film and video to tell their stories. LCH accomplishes this through its education and volunteer match programs, screenings and annual film festival. To learn more, visit www.lightscamerahelp.org
/home; www.facebook.com
/lightscamerahelp, twitter.com/npfilm; or email Aaron Bramley at aaron@lightscamerahelp.org.

First published in the November issue of Nonprofit Business Advisor, available electronically to current subscribers in October.


Nonprofit organizations hoping to advance their missions and grow their spheres of influence would do well to engage their audiences—especially their funders—when seeking solutions to their plans or issues, said Bob Kovacevich, principal at Avatar Company.

When “best practices” became a nonprofit sector buzz phrase, Avatar Company began to consider how best to define the term, the consultant said, especially because no one could describe it uniformly. “Everyone had their own definition” Kovacevich said, “but we concluded that the nonprofit’s most vital audiences knew the definition—funders, members, subscribers, volunteers, grantors; all those that contribute time, energy, and money to the nonprofit.”

Avatar’s philosophy has always been that when a nonprofit is planning to grow or change, whether financially, strategically or programmatically, it should reach out to its most valuable resources—its audiences, the long-time speaker, consultant and facilitator said. Kovacevich said his company has been “chanting that mantra” since its inception, and those clients that subscribe to that behavior profit with greater public engagement. This compatibility between the nonprofit and audience results in increased loyalty.

“I think that someone who is volunteering their time, energy, and money to a nonprofit is a likely candidate to address and provide free counsel relative to nonprofit advancement, if given the chance to participate,” said Kovacevich, “much like what the for-profit sector has been doing so successfully before going to market with a new product or service. It develops a prototype and gives it to a select audience of users to objectively evaluate the service or product. Once done, it then uses the data to perfect the initial product or service, thereby eliminating the risks associated with ivory tower decision-making—nonprofits should be doing the same.”

A decade ago, Avatar began to contact annually nearly 600 nonprofit sector audiences such as funders—regular and major donors, program sponsors, and volunteers—and asked them a series of questions concerning what they considered a best practice, the consultant said.

After gathering the data for several years, Avatar compiled a list of 36 best practices, or a “Recipe for Funder Catnip,” according to the principal. Some of their significant findings, which can assist nonprofits in becoming more attractive to current and new contributors of time, energy, and funding include:

• Systematically monitoring and reporting organizational performance beyond financial outcomes. “People like to give money to nonprofits where they keep track of outcomes, and many organizations overlook this,” said Kovacevich. “Donors don’t want to give money or time to a black hole. Being able to monitor and report performance on mission attainment—not just the financials but nearly every aspect of the organization too—and say, ‘We put the money to good use, and it has improved certain aspects of our mission’ is important to vital audiences. Organizations need to publicly present how they are doing relative to their programs in a quantifiable, statistical way,” he said.
• Producing a strategic plan that includes a comprehensive fundraising plan for each goal. Kovacevich said Avatar discovered that most nonprofits go through a reasonably good process of defining their strategic goals, but they drop the ball and don’t quantify how much each of those goals will cost and then develop a fundraising plan to make each of those goals a reality. “More often,” he said, “an arbitrary price tag is affixed to a goal, and the development department’s goal is increased.” It then falls on the shoulders of the development department to raise more money using the same annual fundraising techniques they’ve always used, the consultants said, and goal realization usually falls short, causing the development department to lose credibility, the executive director to take heat from the board, and a stalled effort. “Funders like to see organizations that have a strategic plan and goal-specific fundraising mechanism,” Kovacevich said. “This practice is just good nonprofit management. Absent this procedure, this essential document ends up in a drawer to never see the light of day.”
• Developing a succession plan for key leadership. “This is a big deal, especially among foundation funders,” said Kovacevich, “because they have funded nonprofits where the key leadership became absent during the funding cycle, and their awarded funds were underused, abused or misused.” Philanthropists and foundations that provide major funding want to know what will happen—what plan is in place—to replace the executive director, chair, or other member of the board and are likely to deny funding unless the applicant can demonstrate that it has a succession plan in place, he said.
• Developing a contingency reserve or “rainy day fund” in case an emergency occurs. Funders are concerned about the ability of an organization to bounce back after a natural disaster or a challenging economic climate. “What happens if services are interrupted?” Kovacevich asked. “Is there a reserve to be able to sustain the nonprofit for a number of months so that it can get back on its feet after an emergency?” Funders refrain from awarding funds to a nonprofit that is hand-to-mouth, especially one that can’t demonstrate that there is a safety net in place, he said.

Collect stakeholder input

Many times when an organization determines that it needs to gather crucial input from its constituents, it then fails to select the most appropriate data collection method, Kovacevich said. One way, and the most efficient, is to use online surveys—board members, staff persons, consumers of services, donors, volunteers, funders, and other stakeholders—anonymously, he said. “Sometimes they don’t want to let you know who they are, so they can be candid with their evaluation,” Kovacevich said, “and that’s what you’re looking for. There is some risk involved in this process, but far less risk than implementing an untested and costly initiative.”

He recommended using any online survey service, which can be sent with no to relatively little start-up cost and provides anonymity if required by the participant.

“This is the ultimate acid test concerning whether people are behind you or not.” Kovacevich said. “You become a consummate best practices strategic planner because you have audience data to influence the nonprofit’s decision-making process.”

For more information

Bob Kovacevich is principal at the Avatar Company. To learn more, go to http://2n4e.zapd.co
/?device=browser. To contact Mr. Kovacevich, email avatarcompany@aol.com.