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Local nonprofits test out social media

December 2, 2009

By J.B. Wogan

By J.B. Wogan
Cary Young was the first to take the plunge. She looked around at her colleagues in the City Hall meeting room, other representatives from local nonprofits in Sammamish, and confessed: She isn’t all that comfortable using social media.
“I’m too old and stodgy to do this right,” said Young, the executive director of the SAMMI Awards. Young’s solution is to bring on student interns familiar with sites like Facebook to help her organization connect with more people on the Web.
Her organization holds an awards ceremony each year that celebrates unselfish contributions to community. They have a Web site and a YouTube video, but no Facebook page, no MySpace page and no blog.
One communications expert at a nonprofit in Seattle thinks that kind of online outreach setup is going to become antiquated.
“Social networking is how people are going to interact in the future,” said Toby Crittenden, communications director for the Washington Bus. Crittenden’s job involves monitoring his group’s Facebook page and Twitter account, and contributing to a Bus blog.
“In 1996, a Web site is brilliant. But if you’re talking 2009, a Web site is just a piece of a much larger spectrum of online tools,” Crittenden said, adding that sites like Twitter and Facebook allow users to grab content and make it their own, reposting blog postings on their own Facebook pages or Twitter accounts. Social networking allows for a nonprofit’s message to go viral, he explained.
Crittenden is part of a Seattle-based organization that seeks to engage youth voters. It also canvasses on behalf of candidates and causes it has identified as progressive.
The Bus uses social media as a way to educate users about the organization, as a way to notify people about important election dates, and to make requests for donations, volunteers and political action.
Crittenden said he has found that Facebook is better than MySpace for his nonprofit’s purpose, in part because it’s designed to organize for events. He also advised that nonprofits that are exploring Facebook should make a “group” page, rather than a “fan” page, because “group” pages update its members about new events.
Dawn Sanders, volunteer coordinator for the city of Sammamish, works with local nonprofits and said there’s a lot of interest in using social media. She referenced a meeting she hosted in September where 55 nonprofit representatives attended to hear a presentation on using social media.
“I think they all want to use them and are trying to figure out exactly how they fit in,” Sanders said. “It’s something that’s changing so quickly. We want to make sure we’re doing it the right way.”
Karissa Sams said it was likely that at least one social media tool would be useful to an organization.
Sams works for Weber Shandwick, an international public relations company with a Seattle office.
Sams said each nonprofit should consider its target audience and what resources are available to engage that audience. She added that her company is seeing nonprofits use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Ning.
Some Sammamish nonprofits are already becoming more Internet social.
Faith in Action, a nonprofit that supports senior independence, has a Facebook “cause” page, with the hope that it will drive traffic to its Web site, according to Executive Director Claire Petersky.
With added traffic, the organization hopes to find more volunteers and receive more donations, Petersky said. Faith in Action has volunteers who go into Issaquah, Sammamish, and some surrounding parts of unincorporated King County. The volunteers help seniors with trips to the grocery store and the doctor’s office, plus yard work and housework.
Petersky pointed out that the average client-base is 83, not a “Web-savvy crew,” but social media might connect Faith in Action with potential volunteers and contributors.
Faith in Action’s staff size is about one and half people, with 100 volunteers and about 158 clients, she said. She pointed out that Faith in Action doesn’t have enough paid staffers to monitor a Twitter account or Facebook page.
The Rotary Club of Sammamish has waded into the world of Twitter, and successfully so, according to Norm Bottenberg, the club’s president.
The club organized a week-long Halloween event, Nightmare at Beaver Lake, and set up a Twitter account to drum up interest.
Readers could see the string of Twitter postings by going to Twitter.com and typing in “:NABL” in the search engine.
“It’s not part of our normal communicative style,” Bottenberg said, adding that he hoped people who visit Nightmare at Beaver Lake would then post about their experiences.
“The question is just staying on top of the current technology and making sure you’re using it right,” he said, adding that it was especially tricky for an older generation that didn’t grow up with online social media. “How do you drag the people who are not accustomed to that, kicking and screaming into the new century?”
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

Cary Young was the first to take the plunge. She looked around at her colleagues in the City Hall meeting room, other representatives from local nonprofits in Sammamish, and confessed: She isn’t all that comfortable using social media.

“I’m too old and stodgy to do this right,” said Young, the executive director of the SAMMI Awards. Young’s solution is to bring on student interns familiar with sites like Facebook to help her organization connect with more people on the Web.

Her organization holds an awards ceremony each year that celebrates unselfish contributions to community. The SAMMI awards have a Web site and a YouTube video, but no Facebook page, no MySpace page and no blog.

One communications expert at a nonprofit in Seattle thinks that kind of online outreach setup is going to become antiquated.

“Social networking is how people are going to interact in the future,” said Toby Crittenden, communications director for the Washington Bus. Crittenden’s job involves monitoring his group’s Facebook page and Twitter account, and contributing to a Bus blog.

“In 1996, a Web site is brilliant. But if you’re talking 2009, a Web site is just a piece of a much larger spectrum of online tools,” Crittenden said, adding that sites like Twitter and Facebook allow users to grab content and make it their own, reposting blog postings on their own Facebook pages or Twitter accounts. Social networking allows for a nonprofit’s message to go viral, he explained.

Crittenden is part of a Seattle-based organization that seeks to engage youth voters. It also canvasses on behalf of candidates and causes it has identified as progressive.

The Bus uses social media as a way to educate users about the organization, as a way to notify people about important election dates, and to make requests for donations, volunteers and political action.

Crittenden said he has found that Facebook is better than MySpace for his nonprofit’s purpose, in part because it’s designed to organize for events. He also advised that nonprofits that are exploring Facebook should make a “group” page, rather than a “fan” page, because “group” pages update its members about new events.

Dawn Sanders, volunteer coordinator for the city of Sammamish, works with local nonprofits and said there’s a lot of interest in using social media. She referenced a meeting she hosted in September where 55 nonprofit representatives attended to hear a presentation on using social media.

“I think they all want to use them and are trying to figure out exactly how they fit in,” Sanders said. “It’s something that’s changing so quickly. We want to make sure we’re doing it the right way.”

Karissa Sams said it was likely that at least one social media tool would be useful to an organization.

Sams works for Weber Shandwick, an international public relations company with a Seattle office.

Sams said each nonprofit should consider its target audience and what resources are available to engage that audience. She added that her company is seeing nonprofits use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Ning.

Some Sammamish nonprofits are already becoming more Internet social.

Faith in Action, a nonprofit that supports senior independence, has a Facebook “cause” page, with the hope that it will drive traffic to its Web site, according to Executive Director Claire Petersky.

With added traffic, the organization hopes to find more volunteers and receive more donations, Petersky said. Faith in Action has volunteers who go into Issaquah, Sammamish, and some surrounding parts of unincorporated King County. The volunteers help seniors with trips to the grocery store and the doctor’s office, plus yard work and housework.

Petersky pointed out that the average client-base is 83, not a “Web-savvy crew,” but social media might connect Faith in Action with potential volunteers and contributors.

Faith in Action’s staff size is about one and half people, with 100 volunteers and about 158 clients, she said. She pointed out that Faith in Action doesn’t have enough paid staffers to monitor a Twitter account or Facebook page.

The Rotary Club of Sammamish has waded into the world of Twitter, and successfully so, according to Norm Bottenberg, the club’s president.

The club organized a week-long Halloween event, Nightmare at Beaver Lake, and set up a Twitter account to drum up interest.

Readers could see the string of Twitter postings by going to Twitter.com and typing in “:NABL” in the search engine.

“It’s not part of our normal communicative style,” Bottenberg said, adding that he hoped people who visit Nightmare at Beaver Lake would then post about their experiences.

“The question is just staying on top of the current technology and making sure you’re using it right,” he said, adding that it was especially tricky for an older generation that didn’t grow up with online social media. “How do you drag the people who are not accustomed to that, kicking and screaming into the new century?”

Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

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Written by J.B. Wogan · Filed Under Local News 

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