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Social Impact conducted an interesting survey of 200 nonprofit executives to explore how their organizations are using social media and the value they derive from these efforts.

They summarized their key results as:

• 88% percent of nonprofits are widely experimenting with social media, but only half (51%) are active users.
• 79% are uncertain of how to demonstrate social media’s value for their organizations.
• 92% of executives say their online presence raises awareness of their organization, keeps external audiences engaged (86%) and reduces costs relative to traditional media (77%).

Here is a slide show with their key findings:

While they sound overall optimistic, going over the results, I am still surprised about the lack of the overall acceptance, understanding and engagement in social media. Allow me to comment on some of the findings.

How much do nonprofits really use social media?

If you look at these figures, you can consider the glass as half full or as half empty. It is surprising 48% does not engage at all or very little. Sure enough, 51% are qualified as “active users of social media”, but how engaging and committing is “experimenting a lot with social media” really?

The moment an organisation commits to a blog, to start Twittering, or putting up a Facebook presence, then this needs to be an engagement more than an experiment if fruits are to be bared. You can not start a blog -with all the start up costs in learning a tool, finding the right platform,…- to drop it all after a few months. Nor is it about setting up a Twitter account merely to Twitterfeed your main website’s RSS feed… Social media is all about indulging yourself in the social aspect, creating a community around you of actively engaged and enthusiastic followers and participants. That needs time, and requires efforts.

Sure enough, experimentation might be a foreplay for the real thing, and could turn into a real use of social media, but I am afraid all too many organisations leave it at half-assed experimenting.

My advise: Engage!

Which audience does your social media efforts reach?

This is a real interesting aspect of social media for nonprofit organisations: Say your organisation has its established quorum of donors and supporters. You start your blog, Twitter, Facebook, social bookmarking and YouTube channel. How much of these outlets reach your current target? You will surely reach a much broader public, but in how far is “John Doe” in Wisconsin stumbling accidentally upon your blog really impact your organisation’s advocacy reach and fundraising?
In the same breath, we need to consider that public awareness is a given must for any nonprofit, but are the 2,000 visitors a month to your blog really making an impact? Versus the efforts you are putting into it?

The survey confirms that doubt: 67% of nonproft executives believe social media had a positive impact on communications with their external audiences, but are less certain about narrower categories of stakeholders, such as donors (45%), media (39%), and policy makers (31%). Most believe traditional media is still more effective in supporting fundraising efforts (67%) than social media (22%).

This needs to be put into perspective of what your donor community looks like. Are you mainly working with governments and institutional donors, or are your targeting donations from “the masses”? While I would doubt the effect on donations social media has for the former, the latter will be able to capitalize on their social media efforts much faster. Where would Kiva be without social media? Or Amnesty International?

The question can also be more fundamental: Should your organisation continue to focus on governments and institutional donors, or is crowdsourced fundraising and advocacy not the future? More and more large nonprofits who embraced the social media wholesomely, now reap the benefits. Take the UN’s World Food Programme as an example. They engaged in social media since a year, and made it an active part of the public relations and fundraising approach. Their latest campaign, A Billion for a Billion featured a YouTube Video which went viral with over 600,000 views. The donation benefits of the campaign largely outweighed the cost to run it, marking a turn in their fundraising approach.

My advise: If your nonprofit is mostly dependent on donations from individuals, don’t think twice before making social media a core part of your advocacy and fundraising. If you are a largely institutionally-funded organisation, you need to engage with a well structured and resourced social media strategy ensuring you can take full benefits from the crowdsourcing effect.

Do nonprofit organisations have the resources and expertise to engage in social media?

“NO”, says the survey: nonprofits do not currently have the infrastructure, staff nor expertise to take full advantage of social media’s potential.
38% struggle with the implementation approach, and 78% wish they had more expertise in social media. About half of the organisations claim they don’t have enough staff to manage even their current social media program. 65%  don’t even have enough communications staff overall. To make it worse, in these hard economic times, 70% will have a smaller communications budgets in 2010.

My advise: Social media is all about crowdsourcing: crowdsource your expertise, crowdsource your advocacy, crowdsource your workforce.
Social media allows you to build a community easily, but not only for fundraising and advocacy, but also a community of people who will work for you and with you. Firefox, one of the best web browsers, is not built by a company, but built through crowdsourced development by people who are not paid to do the work. So is Drupal, one of the most popular Content Management Systems.
In context: there are millions out there with sufficient social media knowledge -proficient bloggers, Twitterers, Facebook fanatics-. And.. there are many people out there who are more than willing to contribute some of their spare time in volunteering for a good cause. So don’t tell me you can’t organise a few dozens to help you with your social media work! Don’t tell me you can’t find the volunteering expertise out there to help you work out your social media strategy. All it takes is a conscientious commitment and some key people to guide it all in the right direction.

Do nonprofit organisations see real value in social media?

Graph courtesy Social Impact

Aaah.. here we come to the core of the problem… If 78% of the executives are still unconvinced of the value social media offers to their nonprofit organisations, then you can offer all the expertise you want, nothing will happen.

Two years ago, a nonprofit organisation asked me to write a paper on the potential of social media for their work. When I talked about Twitter and blogging, I only got blank stares back. They did not understand. I only caught a glimpse of recognition when I talked about Facebook, as they recognized the term from breakfast conversations amongst their kids. Two years later, they are considered as one of the leading nonprofits in the social media scene. Why? They committed and engaged with the full support of their senior management.

Convincing a manager of new ways, certainly if it involves decentralization or crowdsourcing, is a slow process. Certainly if it involves sensitive areas such as advocacy, public relations, image building, fundraising. “Will I not lose control?” is the obvious reaction.

History provides sufficient examples of the success stories in using social media for nonprofit. Are there any social media campaigns that went haywire and had to be aborted?

Social media for nonprofits: it is not all about the money

The survey concentrated mostly on advocacy and fundraising, but social media can do much more for your organisation. How about building a project community with peers within and beyond your organisation? How about building a social dynamic, a sense of unity, within your organisation with distributed locations? Why not use social media to bridge the gab between a headquarters and field offices, between senior managers and staff on the ground? How about using Twitter for crowdsourced recruitment, for technical feedback on some of your core activities, as a source of information?

Remember my post What will you blog about? Social media is not just about Ze Moooney!