April Dunford published a great post this week

Taking the money away often takes away all of the really obvious options. And that’s exactly where the magic happens. So we can’t just spend more to acquire new customers. Now what? Well, we could figure out ways to engage them to send more business our way, we could figure out ways to sell more to the customers we have, we could figure out ways to improve our customer retention. There are always a thousand things you can do with a small budget.

As someone who has spent his marketing career working for nonprofits and small, scrappy startups, I can definitely say I love the challenge of having to do a lot with a little. Necessity truly becomes the mother of invention.

Do yourself a favor and read April’s whole post.

An individual with little-to-no “big brand” professional experience isn’t able to be effective in a large corporate environment.

To which I can only say, “Bullshit!” It’s pure crap and constructed from at least five myths. Let’s take a look at each one that unfairly stigmatizes the hard work of professionals in small and medium enterprises (I’m including nonprofits here with SMEs):

Myth #1: You can’t cope with complexity.
Yes, I get it. Your megasized multinational company is an elaborate, convoluted leviathan that defies the laws of reason. Guess what? Someone who has built a career within an SME also understands complexity. That’s because – unlike in Big Brand – we don’t have the luxury of specialization. We can’t and that’s honestly to our benefit. We wear two, three, sometimes four hats because that’s what is needed to complete the project and make the customer happy. We’re experts at creativity, constantly doing more with increasingly fewer resources. We can cope with complexity because we live it every single working day.

Myth #2: You can’t handle pressure.
Want to know what pressure is? When Big Brand has a bad quarter, looks like Wall Street won’t be happy. If an SME has a bad quarter, it could mean the end of the company. Now which one seems more pressure-intensive to you? And because SMEs are typically closer to their customers, there’s a tremendous amount of pressure to keep them satisfied. If they’re unhappy and tell others, there goes a potentially huge chunk of business.

Myth #3: You don’t know how to communicate with executives.
As if multinational corporate executives are some strange race of aliens that require knowledge of a special language only learned by toiling through the hierarchy of Big Brand. Communications skills are universal. If you know how to get your point across successfully to your SME’s senior leaders or Board of Directors, I guarantee the communication capability translates fine to the CEO or CMO of Big Brand.

Myth #4: Your skillset (feel free to plug in expertise, knowledge, etc) doesn’t scale.
This one drives me batshit. We’re not talking about going from CEO of a two-person office to the CEO of Big Brand (though you might argue that the CEO of an SME could run a company like aol., BP, Lehman Brothers just as well as their current counterparts). Just because you have experience within Big Brand doesn’t necessarily mean you’re any more qualified to do work at another Big Brand. I’m further convinced this myth is a smokescreen because you’ll never know if it does actually scale. You’ve already cast your judgment and you’ve already missed the talent in front of your nose. Good luck with that.

Myth #5: You don’t really know about business.
The coup de grâce. Let’s face it, this is what’s really being said every single time the charge of not having enough Big Brand experience is leveled toward a candidate. There’s a sense perpetuated by those within Big Brand that business is only truly conducted at the multinational level. SMEs are small potatoes where the real lessons of managing P&L, budgets, employees, customer relations, and executive expectations still mean little in comparison. Really? Sorry but I strongly disagree with that small-mindedness.

For my parting shot, I’m going to go out on a limb with my own hypothesis for what’s to blame (at least partially). If we’re honest, there’s some posturing going on – particularly when it comes to consulting agencies who work with Big Brand. The desire to fill the stables with people from a well-known, Fortune 500 corporation isn’t so much about their ability or expertise as it is about their prestige (“Oooh, he worked for Big Brand, he must be smart. And that’ll look great on our website’s About Us page.”) There’s a mystique that people like to attach to work done at Big Brands. Some of it is truly well-deserved and to be respected. Some of it is unspectacular but lauded because Big Brands get attention. And quite a bit of it is built on non-creative, safe, ineffective adherence to not rocking the Big Brand boat. In reality, work done within a Big Brand isn’t any better or worse than work done within an SME. So let’s stop with all this shallow Big Brand Blindness where candidates get overlooked not because of the quality of their past or potential of their future work, but just because of for whom their past work was done.

So, let’s hear it. If you’re currently working inside a big brand, what’s your take? And if you’ve been passed over due to big brand blindness, what have you done to heal this unfortunate affliction? Lay it down in the comments.

photo credit: spoinknet (via Flickr)

Do your supporters know how to most effectively support you and your campaign? Sure, maybe those key individuals who have been with your campaign for a while know how to do it. But what about new supporters? Have you made it easy for them?

My majority of my professional background was spent in nonprofit association membership management. For my association to be successful, we had to be adept at quickly engaging prospects and helping them go from curious prospect to new member to passionate advocate. The cost of not engaging these individuals at their first exposure to the association could have dire consequences for the long-term success of the organization. It’s very much the same for your campaign. If you want to create a welcoming environment that helps turn a curious potential supporter into a passionately vocal advocate, here are a few ideas you can implement on your website and Facebook page:

Create a Volunteer 101 page. Don’t assume that everyone knows how to volunteer for a campaign or what they should expect from the experience. You likely find that many folks are getting involved in supporting a political candidate for the first time. Go beyond the all-too-typical Be A Volunteer/How I Can Help web form and post information like…

• a volunteer FAQ answering typical first-timer questions
• descriptions of volunteer activities with anticipated time commitments
• profiles of volunteers with their testimonials

Have your passionate volunteers serve as welcome committee. Go to almost any church and you’ll see a good model for how to welcome new folks to your campaign. As important as he or she is, it’s not the minister who does the bulk of the welcoming – its the passionately excited members of the congregation. Figure out who your most faithful are and prep them to reach out to prospects and new volunteers.

Show videos of other volunteers in action. Take away some of the mystery of volunteering by showing your volunteers canvassing door-to-door or making phone calls or hosting house parties. Create a documentary as volunteers share their experiences, what works, what doesn’t work and why they feel their volunteering for your campaign is so important.

It all starts with using a simple but effective branding model:
1. Consistency
2. Focus
3. Trust
4. Partnership

Based on this branding model, the five keys to developing your nonprofit’s brand ambassador program are:
Key 1: Create an internal strategy first
Key 2: Create a recruitment plan
Key 3: Create a wide engagement plan
Key 4: Make telling their story easy
Key 5: Create a recognition plan
Plus…there’s a final bonus key

Hope you enjoy the video and get some useful ideas and inspiration. If you’re interested in having this topic presented live to your staff or group, give me a call at 512.394.3598 or send me an email at chris@gravit8.com.

Okay, one of these characters is me and this is a scene from my life roughly six years ago. After graduating from college with a liberal arts education, I fell into the nonprofit association membership profession purely by accident. And after doing membership work for five years, I was concerned that few of the skills and experiences from that work would be appreciated outside of my narrow niche.

Let’s fast forward to today. Do I still think the skills, experiences and insight gained from a membership career is unappreciated outside of associations and not viable in the corporate space? Nope…quite the opposite. In today’s business reality, this unique experience translates incredibly well to the needs of social media, most specifically to the role of online community management.

Drawing on a recommended community manager job description posted by Connie Bensen, here are the parallels to membership management:

• Creatively and proactively assist customers.
• Serve as the initial point of contact for inbound requests from online company properties and the web at large.
• Monitor online conversations and participate in them to build brand visibility and thought leadership.
• Author blog posts, articles, podcasts, videos and screencasts – whatever media you want to use – to creatively communicate product uses.
Association membership development is about attracting prospective members and retaining current ones. That means knowing how to communicate well, building strong relationships with members, helping them get more out of their membership, and assisting them with thorny issues. Membership pros are multifunctional in role and serve as customer service, product management, marketing, and corporate communications.

• Identify and analyze issues, patterns and trends in customer requests and product performance.
• Transfer the information to the appropriate departments so that they can respond accordingly.
• Proactively escalate issues, observations, opportunities, and insights to the executive team.
• Communicate issues, opportunities and insights to the company at large.
Membership professionals serve on the front line, listening to members and determining whether their issues are problems needing resolution or opportunities needing to be addressed. Membership professionals must then be able to influence key stakeholders to effect changes on behalf of the audiences they serve.

• Identify and engage advocates.
Membership professionals must connect with their organization’s volunteers and help them put their enthusiasm to good use. Knowing how to find and then successfully guide passionate supporters is a must, particularly since most associations need these volunteers to help put initiatives into action.

• Stay up to date on new social media tools, best practices and how other organizations and companies are using them, so that the company can continue to be an early adopter of these technologies.
• Participate in professional networking by interacting with peers and influencers and attending events.
Membership professionals must explore the latest technology, leverage networks and resources, and plot a strategic path that will provide the most beneficial products and services to their association’s members. It requires a curious and creative individual who enjoys collaborating with people.

I write this post for a couple of reasons. One, I hope it gives a closer look at who I am and why my current work in social media and online communities is simply a natural extension of the work I’ve done since I first started my career. Two, maybe it offers membership professionals a roadmap to guide them toward other career possibilities and emphasize that their expertise is valuable beyond associations.

If your company is seeking its next great community manager or chief community officer, consider expanding your search to individuals beyond the corporate world and include nonprofit association membership professionals.

If your answer is “no” or any variation of “sorta,” don’t worry; it’s actually a rather complex question that’s going to be quite unique to each nonprofit. You might want to bring in a business anthropologist (I do happen to know one) to help you sort through all of the people and policy issues. But there are a few key domains to consider as you mull this question:

Relationship
What kinds of relationships do you want to form with your volunteers? After working with volunteers for nearly 10 years, I’ve come to believe in one certain truth: there is no such thing as “managing” volunteers. Management changes the interpersonal dynamic making volunteerism a transaction rather than a relationship. Plus, your volunteers don’t need or want to be managed.

This raises an inevitable question: how do you get your volunteers to do what you want them to do? It’s actually the wrong question to ask if you’re trying to cultivate strong volunteer engagement. I would suggest this one: How do you guide your volunteers to give their best talents, expertise, and energy in ways that are meaningful to both themselves and the nonprofit? Individuals give most freely when they see and feel the personal connection to their work.

Value
What’s the value of the work being done by your volunteers? Most nonprofits that I’ve worked with don’t have a firm idea of the value of their volunteer work activities. If volunteers put together an event, what would the price be if done by a paid contractor? It’s not a question designed to make you shout, “Wow! Look at all the money we’re saving using free labor!” Instead, take some time to realize that individuals are giving their effort and that it does have an economic value. Then, calculate in the emotional value that comes from the passion behind the effort.

Social Marketing Potential
What kind of word-of-mouth marketing are you getting from your volunteers? Here’s where that emotional value pays off. If your volunteers are emotionally invested in your nonprofit’s cause, they’re going to tell others about their work. They’re going to have stories to share with their friends, family, coworkers, and other folks they see on a daily basis. And these stories can have a significant impact on your organization’s brand, fundraising movements and advocacy appeals. Engage your volunteers in meaningful work and they will spread the word in ways you may never have imagined.

This was just a broad look at volunteer engagement. It really does need some deeper probing. To do this, Aaron Bramley (blog :: twitter) and I are doing an email dialogue exchange over the next week so we can drill down into this topic. When we finish, we’ll post the results so everyone can benefit. Neither of us know what it’ll look like so you’ll just have to subscribe and see what happens. And if you have thoughts or questions, post them below and we’ll weave them into our dialogue.

Instead, let’s talk about what social media really is and what it can do. Let’s talk about conversation. Let’s talk about collaboration. Let’s talk about outreach. For nonprofits and companies, these are the things that matter, that are going to diversify your constituent or customer base, that are going to lead to long-term vitality. Social media is just a tool to help you achieve these things.

On February 12 at noon CST, I’ll be collaborating with Small World Labs on a webinar titled Top 3 Social Solutions for Acquiring and Retaining Members in 2009. We’ll be addressing how nonprofit associations can use social solutions can successfully use tools that are out there to better engage in conversation, facilitate collaboration, and promote outreach. And while the audience is geared toward the association executive, there will be plenty of advice on how to bring these ideas into other nonprofits and forprofit companies.

Make this the year that you engage in social media in a new way. You can register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/443369303

Yeah, but what does this have to do with non-profits…or maybe more importantly, how does this help you achieve your organizational mission? I’d like to argue that your own staff is the critical, yet underdeveloped, edge you need to meeting your fundraising, advocacy, and other goals. You have powerful resources that extend far outside of your own marketing department. Here are five steps in figuring out how to use them.

1. Know your internal broadcasters.
Your staff can be roughly divided into two groups: consumers and broadcasters. Consumers take in content through various channels like newspapers, blogs, and websites. Broadcasters do all of this and also create the content. They’re your bloggers, Twitterers, Facebookers, Plurkers, etc. They’re the ones who are connecting with others far outside your particular marketing focus. They’re the ones you want to build your employee brand ambassador program around.

2. Reward your broadcasters.
Broadcasters live for information. They want to know all the cool and worthy initiatives that are going on in your organization and be able to share that information with others. Don’t be shy about opening access and sharing this valuable information. And ask for their input and insight into how to penetrate your organization’s messages deeper into your target communities and wider into new areas.

3. Allow for creativity.
The social media space and branding world evolve at a rapid pace, which means that your dedicated and passionate broadcasters tend to live at the cutting edge. Don’t make the mistake of binding them or restricting their platforms. Innovative social media broadcasters are always finding new ways to use current tools. And for every one of today’s Twitters and Facebooks, there are several undeveloped tools waiting to be created and used.

4. Show them how to recruit other staff.
Broadcasters shouldn’t be an exclusive clique within your organization. Help them create more broadcasters and new brand ambassadors. Ask them to do “lunch and learns” about social media. Create knowledge sharing orientations to help them discuss their brand ambassador work when asked by others in your organization. The objective isn’t necessarily to get 100% of your staff involved in social media and branding…instead, show that every individual has an opportunity to contribute.

5. Keep an eye on the relationship.
I can imagine one objection or question that may be sitting at the tip of your tongue: how do we make sure that our broadcasters don’t put the organization or our formal branding work in jeopardy? The simple answer is that you can’t and the brutal truth is that you no longer have total control over the message. Sorry…those days are long gone, which is why #5 is so important.

It may seem obvious, but in order for your staff to speak openly, authentically, and enthusiastically about your organization, they need to be in a positive relationship with your organization. That means being focused on your staff’s level of engagement with their work and tapping into the pride your staff has working for your organization and it’s mission.

If your organization has had great results from cultivating organization-wide brand ambassadors, what’s your story? Share the wealth in the comments below.

From Bailey WorkPlay, first published July 28, 2008

Mixed in with the work that I do at Convio, I’m also pursuing a Master’s degree in business anthropology. If you’re like most folks, you may be wondering what that is exactly. This field is somewhat new even though anthropology as a social science has been around for long time. Basically, business anthropologists work with organizations to help them understand things like staff culture, customer relationships, and product design. That’s fairly broad but at it’s core, we study people and their patterns of behavior. What I most love about it is that we are trained to help non-profits and businesses understand the deeper meaning of what seemingly appears ordinary and everyday…then take what works and amplify it.

For an example, let’s apply a business anthropology approach to a common issue among non-profits: how to better engage constituents. Hopefully you have plenty of metrics showing your email open-rates, donor conversion rates, website flowthrough rates, etc. You may also have survey results and graphical analysis. (And if you haven’t recently done this type of quantitative data collection, no worries…hopefully this post will reinvigorate you.)

Now take it one step further. Most businesses and non-profits commit to collecting quantitative data but usually neglect the qualitative data. The reason for this often rests with some common misperceptions that collecting and analyzing qualitative data is difficult, unmeasurable, and overly time-consuming. But, the fact is that every organization that is committed to developing better relationships with its constituents needs to employ a balanced data collection plan. Strict number crunching usually fails to get at the heart of the things that matter most to non-profit organizations which are people and their emotional connection to your cause. It all comes back to understanding the deeper meaning of things which numbers can only hint at.

In addition to your quantitative measurements, what types of qualitative data collection techniques should you consider? It depends largely on what you’re trying to learn. Start with the big question you want to try to answer. Here are two familiar scenarios:

1. If you host events like walks, pet adoptions, or volunteer pledge drives and want to know why individuals are giving their time (always a highly prized commodity) to your organization, consider a participant-observation program. You’ll be actively participating alongside your constituents, learning about their passions and why they believe your cause matters. Your aim is to see your organization’s relationship through the eyes of others and find the commonalities that they share.

2. If you want to know what exactly will help convert individuals from one-time donors to recurring donors (an even more prized commodity in these economic times!), consider an interview program. This is not just a survey in a different form…think of it as a semi-structured conversation guided by your big question. You’re trying to dive deeper into understanding the major themes of the relationship between your constituents and your organization.

One significant caveat to note here…these qualitative approaches are only effective when performed with a curious objectivity. If you think you already know the answers to your questions, you might want to consider employing another impartial staff member to do them or hire a consultant (a business anthropologist, perhaps?).

This is just a thin, surface-level slice of what a balanced quantitative and qualitative approach can deliver to your organization. My hope is that it sparks some dialogue inside your organization about how to best discover significant patterns and meanings within your constituency; then use this knowledge to improve the effectiveness of your actions. If you’re interested in learning more about the field of business anthropology shoot me an email at cbailey@convio.com chris@chrisbaileyworks.com, leave a comment below, or follow the business anthropology tag on my own blog.

Yesterday, Lacey wrote about how to engage folks who are interested in volunteering for organizations. It’s a great segue into another area that I find lacking in most nonprofit websites: staff and organizational employees. What do they both have in common? Your volunteers and paid staff are part of a diverse community within your organization. However, it’s this diversity in community that is often neglected.

Frequently, staff can get left aside in the community. Why? Is it because they are paid members of the community? Are their roles separate from the community that includes folks like donors, volunteers, Board members? If you’re thinking ‘yes’ to either of these questions, I would argue that these ideas can’t work in today’s world where employee engagement is a true key to strong organizational health. It’s time to bring your staff more fully into your organization’s community.

Here are some ideas that can help you better integrate your own staff into your organization’s community:

Head on over to the cafe to Cafe to read the rest of the blogpost…