1. You are now pretty good at using digital marketing techniques to push your charity’s own content tactically, but what are you doing to bridge the social divide between digital marketing and something that looks more genuinely like a commitment to meaningfully participate in the networks that are already out there?
2. More charities are finding they can reach more people to talk about what they do. But by the same measure, more people are also discovering they can make a difference without you. So how can you address this using social media when people have less attention than ever?
3. Social media provides a platform for you to earn trust by telling specific and impactful stories that are shared in the moment through online and offline networks to fuel action. The deeper value lies right there. Do you agree?
4. Be prepared and engage your detractors. Not all of them, but where this is merited; Remember, a networked world is not always fun. Is your organisation engaging at this deeper level?
5. The world is changing faster than we can reorganise. How comfortable is your culture with stopping trying to get all its ducks in a row and embracing the messiness of the social web – and does this matter to you?
6. Don’t build thicker walls between career silos. We all ‘communicate’. We all have it within us to be fundraisers. Especially those not on the payroll. Is a new kind of volunteering on the horizon that can recognise and reward good people wherever they are?
7. People mistake the fundraising potential of the web with the sea-change it is bringing to peoples’ expectations of relationships and communication. But charities are still structured for ‘transactions’ rather than for participation – yet less than 1 per cent of time online is spent transacting. How does this fit in with your charity’s operating plan?
8. I am not at all sure that in the future, people will share the same affinity and allegiance to big charity ‘brands’ as my generation has shown with sustained loyalty. Our focus now should be on finding alternatives that tap the power of networks such as ‘crowd-funding’, which not only bring in money, but it also power community. Will this have implications for charities as we know them today?
9. ‘Donors’ can only give of their money. New online tools are offering people the ability to mobilise their social networks around peer-to-peer portfolio lending and other forms of contribution. I can foresee how groups of people will engage around a portfolio of small, tangible, impactful interests rather than direct debits. What could this spell out for the way charities do things?
10. What does your campaign celebrate? Are you setting up a culture that celebrates sharing, collaboration, collective action and trust? Or are you celebrating donations, staff size, media attention and individual credit? What are your metrics?
11. The tools are not useful unless people adopt the social behaviours to go with them. Is there evidence that social media is changing the language and tone of your communications to accelerate the delivery of your mission? How much should communications be geared to incoming communication, as well as measuring column inches? And how might this affect the shape of your communications department?
12. Breakthroughs in giving are now just as likely to evolve from multi-layered gaming technology as from within your fundraising department. If the charity sector is truly innovating – why aren’t we seeing roles being created that couldn’t have existed five or ten years ago? Are you ready to reallocate resources and budgets, and grow people into new roles?
13. How much can we avoid silos? We need to accept that it’s OK to make a noise about the work you do, to use your own networks to reach out and make connections with anyone, anywhere, and uncover people who may be looking for an opportunity and who share the same goals. Just as we must break down silos within charities (and re-organise into smaller units), we must also link arms across ‘sectors’.
14. Do you hang your passion up with your coat every morning? What can charities do to foster passion in their cause socially?
15. What are the barriers? What’s holding you back? Take the initiative. Today. You will get pushed back, but find the guts to do what you need to do. Are you ready to shape the future of your organisation… or is it going to be down to someone else to do it?

What do you think?

It needs to be said that ‘digital’, and all the new stuff that we call ‘social media’, isn’t really the point; relationships are the point. Same as it ever was.

And yet so much has changed. Charities now need to reach out to people in a way that isn’t just ‘marketing’ and catch people ‘in motion’ – when they are ‘goal-orientated’; meeting people where they are, in real-time (or near real-time), around what is interesting to them. It is no longer a question of simply delivering content to people; it’s about your convening power to help people discover each other to help make the change you both want.

The trouble is, by treating social media as just another ‘channel’, in-house departments are often completely unprepared when people ‘answer back’, and struggle to make the required change in tone and posture. With a few exceptions, our sector does not have a great track record when it comes to distributing trust to staff and many organisations have created a bottleneck as communication is funnelled via a handful of staff. Social media has become just another silo.

We really need a much broader (and deeper) organisational alignment around supporters. I want everyone who works for a charity to be seen more as assets and advocates than as cost streams to be subsidised. This seems to me to be even more sensible as we are challenged to do more with less; charity leaders have a passionate community right under their noses: their own staff.

I agree with Will McInnes who is convinced that eventually…

every member of staff [will] need to have some level of responding power and be empowered to use social media to communicate and build relationships with the people around them.

I think that this is inevitable and irresistible, but is your charity ready to create new roles, re-train, and reallocate resources and budgets?