“How much a company spends on innovation doesn’t matter, because what’s important is what the company spends on real breakthroughs rather than sustaining ideas.”–Better, Faster, Cheaper is Not Innovation

This quote referenced Kodak’s (and many other companies) investment in R&D that improves existing technology, rather than disruptive technology.

It also applies to why many efforts of ministries and non-profits to “innovate” on social or digital media fall flat. I’ve seen upwards of 100 iPhone apps designed by ministries or non-profits without a strategy or purpose other than to “be innovative.” I’ve also seen individual fundraisers create short, personal, and powerful YouTube videos for their donors that transform the relationship between them.

For some communication tactics there is a linear relationships where one can be substituted for the other: A text message can replace a phone call, a Facebook update can replace a verbal announcement at a large meeting, etc. The goal behind this is general awareness.

But when the goal becomes to empower more volunteers, raise significantly more money, recruit or train hundreds/thousands of more people than the year(s) before, there is not a linear relationship. Most of us have learned that creating a Facebook page will not suddenly give us access to 800 million people around the world, even though it’s technically possible.

When you start thinking about significantly changing your methods for accomplishing your goals and stop thinking about switching out traditional media solutions for digital, you will start getting close to significant breakthroughs.

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“Make them love the kingdom, not the king. The best $$ I ever made was when other people thought it was their idea.” @chrisbrogan #MRUshift

— Alexandra Rutley (@AlexandraRutley) May 10, 2012

I discovered this tweet yesterday and it resonated with a key shift that many ministries need to make. Many ministries have a top down structure, and communicate from a “me first, you second” position. The King is the starting and ending point, and communications seek to make him stand out amongst the rest.

I’ve noticed that the most innovative and powerful communications happening on social media between ministries and their audiences are ones that invert this paradigm to “you first, me second.” The kingdom–the staff, volunteers, and the interested but not yet empowered are the focus, and the King releases people and resources in ways that make them more famous than him.

If your ministry is the hero of the story chances the content you are sharing is not resonating as powerfully as it could if the volunteers and new people were the hero.

Some words to watch for that signal a “me first” paradigm: 

• Come
• I/I’m/We
• Our
• Join
• Check out
• Don’t forget

Consider replacing or integrating words such as these into your online conversations:

• Thank you
• Hope you/your
• Any chance
• Good luck
• Your
• What/why/how
• Great job/idea/question/link

I looked through @redbull’s Tweets and found they do a fantastic job of balancing their content and making their fans/the kingdom feel unique, heard, and encouraged. It could be a great place to compare your current content with their and finds some new ways to engage your audience.

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“Overwhelmed…”

…is the word I hear most when talking to ministry leaders about social media. Many ministries and non-profits have less than one full-time person assigned to leading their social media efforts (by that I mean most do something else besides social media). Or if there is a full-time position, that person often reports to multiple people, making it difficult to see significant progress in any area.

The Non-Profit Life Raft is a weekly email to help you keep your head above water. It’s not everything that’s going on, but the key trends, reports, infographics, and blog posts related to using social media effectively for ministries and non-profits.

My goal is to save you time and provide you with just enough information to be empowered and lead the changes you know need to happen for your ministry to stay relevant.

Click here to sign up.

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“Successful social business leaders recognize that engagement at scale is only realized when the company is able to move beyond mere fan acquisition tactics and actually cultivate a core community of advocates.”–Advocacy, Dachis Group

A social media specialist or community manager are critical to a ministry’s social media strategy, but unleashing staff and volunteers to engage on social media on behalf of your ministry or non-profit will achieve greater results.

Strategy and tactics to capture fans and followers often come before training and educating staff. Sandy Carter, IBM’s VP of Social, notes that Germany is the global leader in deploying social media effectively. Their secret? Deploy a program for encouraging social media use internally among employees.

Although a dedicated team or community manager can set the strategy, provide the guidelines, and share best practices, the staff and volunteers have the potential to absorb the increasing demand to communicate personally with donors and constituents.

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You want 5 quick things to make your blogging better?

1. Brevity. Cut posts to sub-500 words.
2. Structure. Write something others can USE.
3. Simplicity. Big words are pretty. Help people understand the point, instead.
4. Positivity. Writing angrily only works if you want to attract angry people.
5. Outward-facing. Write more about others than you ever do about yourself.

–via Chris Brogan

GIVING GETS US HIGH. REALLY. OUR BRAIN KICKS OUT CHEMICALS THAT MAKE US FEEL GOOD WHEN WE GIVE.” Mike Zserdin, The Generosity Manifesto

I have to acknowledge as someone who has raised funds for 10 years that much of my focus was on transactions, and automated, impersonal communications. These actions came more from an industrial mindset, with ministry as the “product,” and giving as the “input.”

From the help of a mentor I have shifted to a focus on relationships, and personal, tailored communications. This matches the shift that our culture has made from scarcity to abundance. Dave Gray’s “Everything is a Service” describes the transition to an ’Age of Abundance:’

“The material abundance we all enjoy was made possible by an industrial economy that focused primarily mass-producing material goods. The philosophy of mass production was based on Henry Ford’s big idea: If you could produce great volumes of a product at a low cost, the market for that product would be virtually unlimited. In the early days his idea held true, but eventually, every market gets saturated and it gets more and more difficult to sell them more stuff. By 1960, 70% of families owned their own homes, 85% had a TV, and 75% had a car.”

If you are sending “great volumes” of mass information to your donors then now is the time to learn and adopt practices that match this new reality. Mike Zserdin’s Generosity Manifesto clearly captures the shift our culture has made and the opportunities to transform people and communities by optimizing around generosity and abundance instead of efficiency and scarcity.

For ministry leaders this ebook is a must-read that will provide insight and inspiration to change communication and fundraising strategies that no longer resonate with many people, particularly Gen-Y.

It’s also a great resource for any Christian seeking to live out their faith more intentionally, especially in the area of finances.

Click here to download the ebook.

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Create unique and meaningful (to your audience) content.

Every day it becomes easier to design an online strategy. Chris Brogan’s homebase/outpost/passport framework works well for for an organization of any size. Social Business By Design provides an advanced and clear framework for medium to large organizations.

Yet every day the amount of unique, meaningful, and web-optimized content produced by many ministries relatively stagnant. Looking through the posts of those I follow today it’s mostly general announcements and RT’s. This kind of content is necessary to buy attention and maintain a presence.

Turning this attention into action that accomplishes your organization’s mission, vision, and values requires more.

Perhaps the most underestimated form of unique content is replies–@ replies and Direct Messages on Twitter, likes/comments/shares on Facebook, Repins, Likes, and Comments on Pinterest. Although these do not scale as well as outbound posting the potential effect they have on your audience is much higher. Interestingly enough replies are perceived as more personal than updates (besides the Auto-DM, which needs to be eliminated anyway).

Before you design or redefine your online strategy consider an audit of your existing content, and determine the percentage of unique content relative to all of what you are sharing. Soon nearly every non-profit will adopt an online strategy and share content on a regular basis–but few will have committed to being unique and personal, and dedicating people, money, and time to producing quality content.

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If your ministry or non-profit is more than 10 years old chances are it’s not adequately prepared for Generation-C, the connected customer.

Transactional focused fundraising, outdated websites, impersonal and anonymous messaging, or an unwillingness to adopt new methods are all bridges that must be crossed to have an impact and live out your organization’s mission in the future.

For some leading this change means helping others understand that the gap between current reality and potential effectiveness is greater than they think. It requires quantifying existing efforts in ways that make sense to both decision makers and implementers. For others it’s empowering those that do understand the future but lack the title, experiences, or current skills to courageously experiment with new tools and strategies.

“This is important as without understanding what’s important to them and why, without learning their behavior or decision making cycles, or without empathy, we cannot reverse engineer nor create a meaningful and engaging journey. We cannot create bridges from where they are to us nor can we expect them to use them.”–Brian Solis, Meet Generation C

Have you identified the bridge your organization needs to cross? If there are more than one bridge, which one will lead to the most significant results? 

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…Authenticity

‘The world demands excellence and has the ability to exile the average with a one-star review.’–Jason Calacins

When you build an iPhone app for your non-profit it’s being compared by your audience to apps they USE, not apps that are similar. That means Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to name a few.

When you post a video on YouTube it’s being compared to your audience’s favorite videos, which often have hundreds of thousands of views.

Most non-profits do not have the resources to build Instagram or produce KONY 2012, but every non-profit can communicate with authenticity.

For me it looks like hand-written thank-you cards, and 1 minute thank you videos in front of my webcam for those that volunteer or donate to my non-profit. It’s also figuring out the ways in which my audience prefers to receive information from me, and making them the subject of all communications. I can be excellent at these tasks since they match the resources I have.

Non-profits of all sizes must rethink excellence in relation to authenticity, particularly the transparency digital and social media brings. Otherwise we risk investing time, money, and people in projects and communications that we may think are excellent but our audience considers contrived or irrelevant.

The easiest first step is to start by genuinely saying thanks. Charity: Water leads the way:

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“Therefore real success comes less from controlling people that report to you, and more from the ability to align stakeholders who surround you.”–Your Career Needs to Be Horizontal

Social media multiplies effort beyond a local team and provides access to anyone in the organization with an online profile. The urgent or reactive response is to send the same message on every social media channel, but the strategic response is to increase and strengthen the connections between people in ways that will lead to greater alignment, informed decision making, and saved resources.

Most ministries and non-profits have functioned more like a network than a hierarchy, but social media has accentuated & illuminated the networks. The assumption has been that the senior most leader leads the greatest change, but I believe social media can reveal small but powerful hubs of people that have greater impact than any one person.

Respond By Increasing Access

Those new to a networked environment need to use social media to build relationships with senior leaders by sharing interesting content and personal information that increases trust. Just a few years ago it would have taken years to gain access to a senior leader from a different section of an organization (especially if they were located elsewhere), but now it can be as easy as an @ reply or a Facebook friend request.

Senior leaders need to not only sign up for every social media profile they can get (even if the purpose is to “squat” on the profile and control one’s online reference points), but also regularly show up on the ones their constituents use most. Many assumptions are made about those that do not have a Facebook or Twitter account–most are negative.

I have great hope for organizations that use social media to harness the informal but powerful networks to maximize their resources.

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