I read a great blog article today on http://www.change.org/ entitled "Establishing a Culture of Generosity." It is part of a series on undergraduate social entrepreneurship. I was fascinated first by the inherent inclusion of charitable giving in the overall concept of social entrepreneurship. I very much like the idea that young people are philanthropically motivated and it appears that with the advent of social media, giving something back to the community, even the global community, is easier than ever.
The article implies that students are in an environment where they want to help one another. Greek organizations help each other and are duty-bound to give to charities. Student organizations have leveraged the desire to want to do something to make social change works well by mobilizing others to donate to a cause. Microgiving is the new trend, when a student simply needs to text in a code to make a $5 or $10 donation.
I am inspired by colleges and universities that encourage students to volunteer and to donate. In creating a culture of generosity, one needs to make sure to include all aspects of how someone can give. That includes gifts of manhours, skills, and money (the proverbial "time, talent and treasure"). I am inspired even more when parents begin to cultivate a philanthropic spirit in children. Parents can set an example by their own volunteer support, charitable attitude, and donations. My favorite gifts to receive at Dayton Children's are those from kids who saved their birthday money or asked for donations to help sick kids rather than ask for presents for themselves at birthday time.
Last year, we had an eight-year old girl, Allison, donate $250 to the NICU at Dayton Children's. She said, "I already have enough toys. I wanted to do something for the hospital because they saved my life when I was a baby." From a stewardship perspective, our NICU staff did everything right. When Allison came to make her donation, the entire staff came out to thank her and take pictures with her. They asked a new mom to bring her baby to the window so Allison could see how small she was at her own birth. The nurses presented Allison and her five-year old sister with tiny baby diapers for their dolls. We then invited the entire family to share their story on the annual Children's Miracle Network Telethon. There is little doubt in my mind that this made a positive impression on Allison and she'll likely donate again and again because it made her feel good and important. And she was.
The Peter Pan Children's Fund is an amazing organization that encourages children' to give to pediatric hospitals. By participating in the Peter Pan Birthday Fund Club and collecting donations, the Peter Pan Children's Fund will match those gifts with an additional $100.
Churches can teach children about generosity by having kids participate in offerings. When I was growing up, we had our own tiny offering envelopes. My brothers and sisters and I would put in a quarter of fifty cents and these donations would be collected during Sunday School.
I participated in Blue Birds and then Camp Fire USA growing up. These organizations, like Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, instilled a sense of importance for volunteering. My dad was extremely active as a founding member of his Lions Club and we went to dozens of fundraisers and community service projects. For years, my mom was the epitome of a community volunteer. She and a friend managed a Storytime Workshop at the local library (my mom is an artist and she would illustrate stories as her friend told them...magical!). She was active in the church, a professional sorority, SPURS, and our school PTA. I hope parents are setting the same kind of example mine did about the importance of volunteering and donating time and resources.
Microgiving is the rage now with the ability to text donations. Mobile applications are being developed at lightening speed. Facebook Causes offer all types of innovative ways to mobilize donations. There are hundreds of examples of how people have raised money using Twitter. Charitable giving is fun and a cool thing to do, especially for college students. Philanthropy is an affordable thing to do.
The definition of philanthropy means caring for mankind. It is a myth that philanthropists are wealthy individuals capable of giving millions. Yes, those wonderful people do exist, but millions of people became philanthropists during the last few weeks following the earthquake in Haiti. It's not so much the amount of the gift but rather that you made a gift at all that makes you a philanthropist.
The visibility of giving is helping create a culture of generosity. It has people asking themselves, "What can I do?" It is setting the example for children to understand they have a moral obligation to help others in need. I encourage parents to help their kids find a cause to believe in and then find a way for them to volunteer or save their allowance or holiday gift money to make a donation. Whether that is animal welfare, the environment, sick children, global hunger is irrelevant. Something touches children and their first instinct is to want to help. By fostering that caring nature, you'll be creating a culture of generosity that can only grow as kids mature. When they reach college, that attitude to want to help, to want to make a change, to want to make a diference for others should be well entrenched. Colleges won't have to establish a culture of generosity. It will be just a natural part of the experience.
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Monday, February 1, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Killer Brownie Bites and Social Media: You Can't Just Eat One
Last week, I mentioned that I was being asked to do a social media presentation for the Dayton Children's Foundation Board and was given five minutes on the agenda. I decided to give the board just a delectable taste of what Dayton Children's is doing with social media, or as I liked to call it, the "Killer Brownie Bite" presentation.
Killer Brownie Bites are just about what they sound like -- a delicious, addicting nugget of a Dorothy Lane Market Killer Brownie. These melt in your mouth leaving you wanting more. It's impossible (really, I have tried) to eat just one Killer Brownie Bite. The are sinfully rich, but you can't help yourself to at least having two of them.
Without trying to sound too cocky, my presentation had a similar effect. I left the board wanting more. They were so intrigued by what we are doing that they asked exceptionally good questions. Our only problem was running out of time. Just like it's impossible to eat just one Killer Brownie Bite, it's impossible to do a five minute presentation without the audience wanting more. And that's a very good thing (and way less fattening).
The feedback was very positive. The board, while not at all familiar with social media, is excited to see the exposure our efforts are bringing to the hospital. They were particularly impressed that Dayton Children's had received national attention from our Twitter posts - @daytonchildren. Both our marketing manager and I have been invited to do presentations, speak on panels, conduct webinars and consult with other nonprofits and hospitals about using social media. Dayton Children's has been featured on national blogs, most noticeably a blog article by Beth Kanter and compared to the Mayo Clinic in outstanding use of social media.
The big hit of the meeting was using Eric Qualman's "Is Social Media a Fad" YouTube video to bring attention to how social media is revolutionizing how we communicate, branding and marketing efforts, fundraising, advocacy, and inter-connectedness.
Following the meeting, the owner of the local Buffalo Wild Wings franchises, John Slaughenhaupt, came up to thank me for the presentation. He said our efforts inspired his own company's efforts to using social media. The Dayton Children's vice president of marketing and external relations, Vicki Giambrone, invited our social media team (Betsy Woods, Jessica Saunders and me) to do a similar presentation to the senior management and management team for the hospital. She felt is was important for the leaders of Dayton Children's to know how social media will play a role in our ongoing customer service efforts. She also, very kindly, sent me a nice note commending me on the presentation and cc'd my direct supervisor...a very first classs thing to do.
The vice chairman of the board asked if I do personal tutorials on how to use social media. She said, "I'm petrified of learning it but definitely want to get over that fear." This from a woman who teaches ski lessons all winter long in Colorado. Now, that is scary. This is not. I assured her that I would get her up and running and that she'd be hooked in no time.
This presentation was merely a snippet of what we do with social media but it served its purpose. It gave our Foundation board a taste for how we use social media and left them curious for wanting to learn more. Stay tuned when I serve up the full Killer Brownies!
As a very cool side note: when you shop at Dorothy Lane Market in Dayton and make a donation for the Haiti relief fund, they will match all donations for Oxfam International.
Killer Brownie Bites are just about what they sound like -- a delicious, addicting nugget of a Dorothy Lane Market Killer Brownie. These melt in your mouth leaving you wanting more. It's impossible (really, I have tried) to eat just one Killer Brownie Bite. The are sinfully rich, but you can't help yourself to at least having two of them.
Without trying to sound too cocky, my presentation had a similar effect. I left the board wanting more. They were so intrigued by what we are doing that they asked exceptionally good questions. Our only problem was running out of time. Just like it's impossible to eat just one Killer Brownie Bite, it's impossible to do a five minute presentation without the audience wanting more. And that's a very good thing (and way less fattening).
The feedback was very positive. The board, while not at all familiar with social media, is excited to see the exposure our efforts are bringing to the hospital. They were particularly impressed that Dayton Children's had received national attention from our Twitter posts - @daytonchildren. Both our marketing manager and I have been invited to do presentations, speak on panels, conduct webinars and consult with other nonprofits and hospitals about using social media. Dayton Children's has been featured on national blogs, most noticeably a blog article by Beth Kanter and compared to the Mayo Clinic in outstanding use of social media.
The big hit of the meeting was using Eric Qualman's "Is Social Media a Fad" YouTube video to bring attention to how social media is revolutionizing how we communicate, branding and marketing efforts, fundraising, advocacy, and inter-connectedness.
Following the meeting, the owner of the local Buffalo Wild Wings franchises, John Slaughenhaupt, came up to thank me for the presentation. He said our efforts inspired his own company's efforts to using social media. The Dayton Children's vice president of marketing and external relations, Vicki Giambrone, invited our social media team (Betsy Woods, Jessica Saunders and me) to do a similar presentation to the senior management and management team for the hospital. She felt is was important for the leaders of Dayton Children's to know how social media will play a role in our ongoing customer service efforts. She also, very kindly, sent me a nice note commending me on the presentation and cc'd my direct supervisor...a very first classs thing to do.
The vice chairman of the board asked if I do personal tutorials on how to use social media. She said, "I'm petrified of learning it but definitely want to get over that fear." This from a woman who teaches ski lessons all winter long in Colorado. Now, that is scary. This is not. I assured her that I would get her up and running and that she'd be hooked in no time.
This presentation was merely a snippet of what we do with social media but it served its purpose. It gave our Foundation board a taste for how we use social media and left them curious for wanting to learn more. Stay tuned when I serve up the full Killer Brownies!
As a very cool side note: when you shop at Dorothy Lane Market in Dayton and make a donation for the Haiti relief fund, they will match all donations for Oxfam International.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Where Hope for Haiti Now Failed: Blew It With Technology
Like millions of others, I watched the Hope for Haiti Now on Friday, January 22. I was moved by the stories and the video clips from Haiti. I was inspired to help, as I have been since this tragedy struck. I don't care where the earthquake struck. Tragedy is tragedy. Politics at a time like this does not matter. I was pleased I had the resources to be able to do something. I believe this Telethon was a good thing. It was a little depressing. I would have loved to have seen some musicians carry forth a few more upbeat and optimistic songs that carried a message of hope, but nevertheless, the show was impressive.
Until you tried to make a donation.
I would like to know just how many more millions of dollars could have been made last night had Hope for Haiti Now been better prepared for the volume of phone calls. If tens of millions of people can successfully vote for American Idol contestants, why wasn't it easier to get through on the phone lines?
But it got worse. Did you try to make an online gift? Impossible. Whoever designed this website should be banished from the technology world forever. I bet the 16 year old boy that lives next to me could have a designed a better, and more importantly, a more functional website. I tried for hours to make a donation online only to be greeted by a message to try making a gift online later. What??? Are you kidding me? Were they so unprepared as not to imagine the volume of people that would try to make an online gift? That was the epitome of bad technology planning.
So, my next attempt to make a donation was to go to one of the featured charities. My next surprise was that not one of the charities was linked to this site. In the words of my favorite ESPN broadcasters before Monday Night Football, "Come on, man!" That is Web Design 101. Perhaps they didn't hot link these because they wanted people to make donations on the Hope for Haiti Now page. But really, that's just more bad management. I would presume other people besides me wanted to read up on what the charities were doing in the relief effort. No, that was impossible unless you had to navigate away from the site to search for these charities.
And that is exactly what I did. I navigated away from the Hope for Haiti Now webpage to seek out these charities and see what they were doing. They had fascinating stories, live blog posts, twitter feeds from Haiti, video messages, and detailed information about how gifts were to be used. I made my choice there to support one of the charities directly and made my gift to Oxfam America, as I was particularly impressed by their efforts to provide just the basic necessities of live: water, shelter, sanitation, and food. A pop up window comes up immediately when you go to the site to make a gift. It was a seamless way to make a gift and to feel like you were making a difference. I felt good about making my donation. I never needed to go back to the Hope for Haiti Now website.
Hope for Haiti Now: Good concept, ridiculously bad planning in regard to use of technology. And if you wanted to take it further, Hope for Haiti Now wasn't doing anything to promote the use of social media. No mention of where to follow the Telethon. No mention of which celebrities were tweeting. No mention of where to become a Facebook fan. Plain and simple, this Telethon missed the technology boat. The sin of that knowing that countless people probably didn't make a donation. What could have been a technology home run turned out to be a shanked foul ball.
Side note: I just checked on the Hope for Haiti Now website and it has markedly improved. The donation system works and there is information about the global conversation on Twitter about the relief efforts and a link to the Facebook Cause page to make a donation. There is still no hot link to any of the featured charities though. That's really a shame, as Hope for Haiti Now could have done a much better job promoting the extraordinary efforts of these organizations.
Here's what I hope: Those people moved to give did what I did. They sought out a place to make an online gift and gave as generously as possible. Whether it was to the Red Cross, the Clinton/Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam, Project Hope, Children's Miracle Network or dozens of other reputable charities doing God's work. Giving was the right thing to do. I gave for the right reasons. I just gave through an alternate route. I didn't give up. And that's what I hope happens for the Haitian people -- that no one gives up.
Until you tried to make a donation.
I would like to know just how many more millions of dollars could have been made last night had Hope for Haiti Now been better prepared for the volume of phone calls. If tens of millions of people can successfully vote for American Idol contestants, why wasn't it easier to get through on the phone lines?
But it got worse. Did you try to make an online gift? Impossible. Whoever designed this website should be banished from the technology world forever. I bet the 16 year old boy that lives next to me could have a designed a better, and more importantly, a more functional website. I tried for hours to make a donation online only to be greeted by a message to try making a gift online later. What??? Are you kidding me? Were they so unprepared as not to imagine the volume of people that would try to make an online gift? That was the epitome of bad technology planning.
So, my next attempt to make a donation was to go to one of the featured charities. My next surprise was that not one of the charities was linked to this site. In the words of my favorite ESPN broadcasters before Monday Night Football, "Come on, man!" That is Web Design 101. Perhaps they didn't hot link these because they wanted people to make donations on the Hope for Haiti Now page. But really, that's just more bad management. I would presume other people besides me wanted to read up on what the charities were doing in the relief effort. No, that was impossible unless you had to navigate away from the site to search for these charities.
And that is exactly what I did. I navigated away from the Hope for Haiti Now webpage to seek out these charities and see what they were doing. They had fascinating stories, live blog posts, twitter feeds from Haiti, video messages, and detailed information about how gifts were to be used. I made my choice there to support one of the charities directly and made my gift to Oxfam America, as I was particularly impressed by their efforts to provide just the basic necessities of live: water, shelter, sanitation, and food. A pop up window comes up immediately when you go to the site to make a gift. It was a seamless way to make a gift and to feel like you were making a difference. I felt good about making my donation. I never needed to go back to the Hope for Haiti Now website.
Hope for Haiti Now: Good concept, ridiculously bad planning in regard to use of technology. And if you wanted to take it further, Hope for Haiti Now wasn't doing anything to promote the use of social media. No mention of where to follow the Telethon. No mention of which celebrities were tweeting. No mention of where to become a Facebook fan. Plain and simple, this Telethon missed the technology boat. The sin of that knowing that countless people probably didn't make a donation. What could have been a technology home run turned out to be a shanked foul ball.
Side note: I just checked on the Hope for Haiti Now website and it has markedly improved. The donation system works and there is information about the global conversation on Twitter about the relief efforts and a link to the Facebook Cause page to make a donation. There is still no hot link to any of the featured charities though. That's really a shame, as Hope for Haiti Now could have done a much better job promoting the extraordinary efforts of these organizations.
Here's what I hope: Those people moved to give did what I did. They sought out a place to make an online gift and gave as generously as possible. Whether it was to the Red Cross, the Clinton/Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam, Project Hope, Children's Miracle Network or dozens of other reputable charities doing God's work. Giving was the right thing to do. I gave for the right reasons. I just gave through an alternate route. I didn't give up. And that's what I hope happens for the Haitian people -- that no one gives up.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Explaining Why Non-Profits Should Use Social Media in 5 Minutes: The Killer Brownie Bite
My boss came to me last week and asked me to do a social media presentation for our Foundation Board the following week. I had been waiting for this opportunity, as I want our leadership team to understand why we are using social media and the positive results we are having. Most, if not all of them, are unfamiliar with social media. They have heard of Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn but have never used them or taken the time to understand the value of being engaged in any kind of social media networking systems. I was excited and had some amazing ideas of what I could share. Then I was told,
"You have five minutes."
A five minute presentation. That's it. That was all the time I was allocated. There are day-long conferences on just using Twitter. There are dozens of hour long webinars that only graze the subject of social media. I've spoken at conferences and had the same hour long slot where you can only focus on one aspect of a particular platform. Five minutes?
There was no time to give a clinic on each form of social media that is out there. There wasn't even time to given an overview of the most used forms we use at the hospital such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. I did not want to lose this opportunity but I realized I needed to really focus in on some key reasons why we use social media and then show just an example of our pages. There would be no time for statistics, demonstrations or much background information. This was needing to be a snapshot...a nugget...a taste test...a Killer Brownie Bite.
For those of you not familiar with the Killer Brownies at the Dorothy Lane Market, these are without a doubt the most delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, leave you dying for more brownies. One full brownie could put you over the edge. One bite is all you need so in the infinite wisdom of the Dorothy Lane Market bakery staff, they have sliced up the Killer Brownies to make "Killer Brownie Bites." One bite is all you need to be hooked. That's what I needed to do...give our board a bite.
I decided to focus primarily on why Dayton Children's uses social media. The background of each network was not as important as the overall reasoning as to why our marketing and development offices decided to embark on using social media. The concepts are simple and this would be something the board could grasp.
Why Use Social Media?
Reach target audience: Our target audience is women, ages 18-49. The demographics for social media meet this head on.
Build supporters/constituents: Our goal is to build relationships, especially in a participatory method
Two-way communication: Social media gives our constituents, donors, families, supporters, etc. the opportunity to interact with us and tell their story. We can respond to their questions, comments, complaints, suggestions and most importantly, acknowledge that we have heard them.
Educate: This spans the range from sharing health and safety tips, parenting suggestions, safety recalls, news from the hospital.
Tell our story: Amazing stories and miracles happen here every day. We want to share that and let the public know that Dayton Children's is a wonderful place to take kids for health and healing.
Fundraise: We use Causes, viral campaigns, e-newsletters, special promotions and are constantly looking for creative ways to be generate new revenue to support the hospital.
Advocacy: There are few better ways to mobilize the community to be advocates for children's health. We have simple ways to allow friends and followers to send letters to legislators expressing their concerns.
Share video testimonials: If a picture tells a thousand words, a video must share a million. Our videos tell the stories of our patients. I dare you not to be moved by these kids.
Connect families, patients, friends, donors, employees: It's about building relationships with people who all care about the same thing--the health and well-being of children. Our community grows every day and our exposure nationally has developed in ways we never imagined. Dayton Children's is recognized nationally for the work that is done here and we attribute some of that new visibility to what we have accomplished by staying active with our use of social media.
My advice to our board will be to look, listen, and then jump in. I will lead them to the sources:
www.facebook.com/daytonchildrens
www.facebook.com/Wally.B.Bear
www.facebook.com/TWIGAux
www.facebook.com/WomensBoard
www.twitter.com/daytonchildrens or @daytonchildrens
www.youtube.com/daytonchildrens
http://daytonchildrens.blogspot.com/
It's a five minute presentation...just enough to give the board a Killer Brownie taste. I know they will be hooked. I bet they stay after to ask me more questions. It never fails.
"You have five minutes."
A five minute presentation. That's it. That was all the time I was allocated. There are day-long conferences on just using Twitter. There are dozens of hour long webinars that only graze the subject of social media. I've spoken at conferences and had the same hour long slot where you can only focus on one aspect of a particular platform. Five minutes?
There was no time to give a clinic on each form of social media that is out there. There wasn't even time to given an overview of the most used forms we use at the hospital such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. I did not want to lose this opportunity but I realized I needed to really focus in on some key reasons why we use social media and then show just an example of our pages. There would be no time for statistics, demonstrations or much background information. This was needing to be a snapshot...a nugget...a taste test...a Killer Brownie Bite.
For those of you not familiar with the Killer Brownies at the Dorothy Lane Market, these are without a doubt the most delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, leave you dying for more brownies. One full brownie could put you over the edge. One bite is all you need so in the infinite wisdom of the Dorothy Lane Market bakery staff, they have sliced up the Killer Brownies to make "Killer Brownie Bites." One bite is all you need to be hooked. That's what I needed to do...give our board a bite.
I decided to focus primarily on why Dayton Children's uses social media. The background of each network was not as important as the overall reasoning as to why our marketing and development offices decided to embark on using social media. The concepts are simple and this would be something the board could grasp.
Why Use Social Media?
Reach target audience: Our target audience is women, ages 18-49. The demographics for social media meet this head on.
Build supporters/constituents: Our goal is to build relationships, especially in a participatory method
Two-way communication: Social media gives our constituents, donors, families, supporters, etc. the opportunity to interact with us and tell their story. We can respond to their questions, comments, complaints, suggestions and most importantly, acknowledge that we have heard them.
Educate: This spans the range from sharing health and safety tips, parenting suggestions, safety recalls, news from the hospital.
Tell our story: Amazing stories and miracles happen here every day. We want to share that and let the public know that Dayton Children's is a wonderful place to take kids for health and healing.
Fundraise: We use Causes, viral campaigns, e-newsletters, special promotions and are constantly looking for creative ways to be generate new revenue to support the hospital.
Advocacy: There are few better ways to mobilize the community to be advocates for children's health. We have simple ways to allow friends and followers to send letters to legislators expressing their concerns.
Share video testimonials: If a picture tells a thousand words, a video must share a million. Our videos tell the stories of our patients. I dare you not to be moved by these kids.
Connect families, patients, friends, donors, employees: It's about building relationships with people who all care about the same thing--the health and well-being of children. Our community grows every day and our exposure nationally has developed in ways we never imagined. Dayton Children's is recognized nationally for the work that is done here and we attribute some of that new visibility to what we have accomplished by staying active with our use of social media.
My advice to our board will be to look, listen, and then jump in. I will lead them to the sources:
www.facebook.com/daytonchildrens
www.facebook.com/Wally.B.Bear
www.facebook.com/TWIGAux
www.facebook.com/WomensBoard
www.twitter.com/daytonchildrens or @daytonchildrens
www.youtube.com/daytonchildrens
http://daytonchildrens.blogspot.com/
It's a five minute presentation...just enough to give the board a Killer Brownie taste. I know they will be hooked. I bet they stay after to ask me more questions. It never fails.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
13,000 Nonprofit Twitterers
Big or small, nonprofits are finding their place on Twitter. Today, @nonprofitorgs reported that it was following 13,000 nonprofits. I've watched this account grow exponentially during the last few months and have been impressed with the number of nonprofits dipping their toe in the Twitter pool. That's the way to do it...just get started. Listen, follow others and put some tweets out there that are relevant and interesting and you are on your way.
I am frequently asked what we could possibly tweet about at The Children's Medical Center of Dayton. My first response is always that someone should follow us @daytonchildrens and see for themselves. But I'll share with you some of our key topics:
But we are also listening to what others say that we find relevant. We RT (retweet) information relevant to the topics listed below along with social media tips, news in Dayton, news from our corporate sponsors, school information, interesting blog articles, news about other charitable organizations, news from other hospitals, fundraising success stories, and the list goes on and on.
Dayton Children's twitter account has nearly 1900 followers and the list grows daily. We use Twitter as a positive new way to build relationships. When @daytonchildrens launched, we didn't anticipate the national following we received but it has been a wonderful bonus. Fans from all over the country follow us because we put out content that is relevant and valuable to a variety of constituencies. We strive to be an institution that earns the trust of our followers and one that anyone could contact for help about pediatric healthcare. I hope those 13,000 nonprofits do the same.
What is our ROI? We can measure the number of followers, those we follow, number of direct messages, number of retweets, how many times a particular message gets retweeted, etc. What isn't as measurable is the positive relationships that have been established, the trust that has been created, the information that has impacted someone's life, or the care and concern we can show our patients and families. While there is no specific metric, you can be assured that is the most valuable return on investment we could ask for.
Is it of value for nonprofits to be on Twitter? Yes, of course. But don't take my word for it. Take a look for yourself. A great place to start is @nonprofitorgs.
I am frequently asked what we could possibly tweet about at The Children's Medical Center of Dayton. My first response is always that someone should follow us @daytonchildrens and see for themselves. But I'll share with you some of our key topics:
- pediatric health information
- health tips
- H1NI or other health news
- children's safety information (safety tips, product recalls, etc)
- upcoming events at the hospital
- hospital news (awards, recognitions, etc.)
- physician news (awards, discoveries, accomplishments, etc.)
- fundraising events
- fundraising news/results
- pediatric healthcare best practices
- patient and family testimonials
- links to the Dayton Children's blog
- safety checks (bike helmets, car seats, etc.)
- healthy living tips
But we are also listening to what others say that we find relevant. We RT (retweet) information relevant to the topics listed below along with social media tips, news in Dayton, news from our corporate sponsors, school information, interesting blog articles, news about other charitable organizations, news from other hospitals, fundraising success stories, and the list goes on and on.
Dayton Children's twitter account has nearly 1900 followers and the list grows daily. We use Twitter as a positive new way to build relationships. When @daytonchildrens launched, we didn't anticipate the national following we received but it has been a wonderful bonus. Fans from all over the country follow us because we put out content that is relevant and valuable to a variety of constituencies. We strive to be an institution that earns the trust of our followers and one that anyone could contact for help about pediatric healthcare. I hope those 13,000 nonprofits do the same.
What is our ROI? We can measure the number of followers, those we follow, number of direct messages, number of retweets, how many times a particular message gets retweeted, etc. What isn't as measurable is the positive relationships that have been established, the trust that has been created, the information that has impacted someone's life, or the care and concern we can show our patients and families. While there is no specific metric, you can be assured that is the most valuable return on investment we could ask for.
Is it of value for nonprofits to be on Twitter? Yes, of course. But don't take my word for it. Take a look for yourself. A great place to start is @nonprofitorgs.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Do You Give a Tweet?
Nonprofit Tech 2.0 posted an interesting blog article today about "Three Reasons Why Nonprofits Should Give a Tweet." Be sure to read that article so this blog post makes a lot more sense. I'm not sure what the potential is for this but I spent some time checking it out the new "GiveATweet" feature. I did a search for Dayton Children's and quickly found it and "claimed" it. I have seemingly linked myself to it as my charity of choice and I received a very quick twitter message from @GiveaTweet saying the following:
(via @BethanyDeines) @DaytonChildrens You hv been #giveatweeted http://www.giveatweet.com/charities/c4d9c3954e1f63a3f7512d600bf9f49c752ed202.
Things get pretty cool from here. Or at least they should. There still looks to be some glitches to work out. Theoretically, I should be able to make a donation. But when I tried that, I kept getting redirected back to an Invite Me page. Businesses should be able to sign up to match donations, which is a good concept but also doesn't seem to be working yet.
If this works out, there may be some potential for those charities with real evangelists out there to drive traffic to us GiveaTweet to make donations. Some charities really lend themselves well to this kind of promotion. I will likely play around with this feature to see how it benefits Dayton Children's but still believe we'll get better results by driving traffic to our website for an online donation. At least for now...I'm always open to see how things change. Different audiences will respond to different opportunities. It's best to keep all options open!
(via @BethanyDeines) @DaytonChildrens You hv been #giveatweeted http://www.giveatweet.com/charities/c4d9c3954e1f63a3f7512d600bf9f49c752ed202.
Things get pretty cool from here. Or at least they should. There still looks to be some glitches to work out. Theoretically, I should be able to make a donation. But when I tried that, I kept getting redirected back to an Invite Me page. Businesses should be able to sign up to match donations, which is a good concept but also doesn't seem to be working yet.
If this works out, there may be some potential for those charities with real evangelists out there to drive traffic to us GiveaTweet to make donations. Some charities really lend themselves well to this kind of promotion. I will likely play around with this feature to see how it benefits Dayton Children's but still believe we'll get better results by driving traffic to our website for an online donation. At least for now...I'm always open to see how things change. Different audiences will respond to different opportunities. It's best to keep all options open!
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