Wired Causes

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This is the title of a new eBook I just finished with Alia McKee and Mark Rovner of Sea Change Strategies.  It’s a guide to behavioral economics for nonprofit leaders and in here is why you should be reading it:  You will be seeing behavioral economics everywhere this year.  It’s the topic of a slew of business books - and it should be the topic on the minds of everyone in nonprofit marketing and fundraising, too.

As we explain in the eBook, behavioral economics challenges the notion that people will choose the best action or the most logically presented choice and explores the bounds of rationality — identifying social, cognitive and emotional factors that can influence the decisions people make.  The big takeaway?  People don’t arrive at most decisions through a process of weighing costs against benefits. We are irrational. In their book Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein put it simply: Real people make decisions like Homer Simpson, not Spock.

So why is behavioral economics important to nonprofit organizations? For us, these irrational decisions have high stakes. We’re not asking people to buy a Coke. We’re asking them to protect our environment, to safeguard our children, to fight for human rights. We’re asking them to change the world. Their individual decisions — which often don’t take into account one’s own best interest let alone the interest of the greater good — matter a lot. We need to be sure we’re asking people in the right way, or their Homer brains might undo our Spock arguments.

Learn how to deal with all the Homers out there!  Get the eBook for free here.

Enjoy!

Credit: Awesome artwork by Faith Goble used from Flickr on a Creative Commons license. When we started Zoetica, as its founders – Beth Kanter, Geoff Livingston, and Kami Huyse – we wanted it to be a different kind of company….

In less than a month, the “Crowdsourcing Innovative Social Change” panel will take place at SXSWi To prepare for the panel, we decided to do a little crowdsourcing of our own by asking folks to submit examples of how they…

Social by Social is a practical guide to using new technologies to create social impact. It makes accessible the tools you need to engage a community, offer services, scale up activities and sustain projects. Whoever you are, it shows you…

I’ve written a lot lately about contests (Chase Community Giving and Pepsi Refresh) here in the United States that are focused on “social media for social media.” The core of the design is “popular vote” - the group whose idea…

Workshop Ngo Feb 13 View more presentations from Beth Kanter. My 8 day visit to India was a whirlwind. I’m still recovering. Here’s why: I attended and presented at the Indian Leadership Forum in Mumbai on Feb 9-11. The Nasscom…

That’s the question Lucy Bernholz answers with her Blueprint 2010.  This is the first in what will be a independent annual industry analysis for philanthropy and social investing.  Lucy describes how 2010 will be another tough year for nonprofits - but likely a growth year for alternatively structured organizations that pursue the common good - like L3cs and B Corporations.  Nonprofits no longer have the corner on social good.  For-profits, social enterprises and other hybrid organizations will be active in the work of social impact as well - and on a bigger scale than ever before.

Earlier this week, I got to hear Lucy present on what all this will mean beyond 2010.

Some fascinating trends she highlighted were:

1. Data is the new platform for change.  There is an expectation that nonprofits should provide more data about their activities and impact to the public - and that government and others also open up their data to the public.  Transparency and impact are the new black, folks.  (NB: That said, individual donors have limited interest in the data.)

2. Self-organizing groups using free technology will increasingly challenge institutional monopolies on social change.  When anyone can put together a cause-related effort with relative ease, they are freed from working via nonprofits.  We have to learn how to engage with these groups.

3. Anyone can act anytime, anywhere.  In an era when we can volunteer from our iPhone or give with a click as part of any transaction, giving opportunities are becoming more and more pervasive and fragmented.  Individual people can make a difference more than ever in more ways than ever.  We need to figure out what this means to conventional fundraising and outreach.

4. Mobility matters:  The ability of nonprofits to react to the digital world and manage channels like FourSquare and geotagging will separate the old school nonprofits from a new digital generation of organizations.

5. Forms matter: The conventional nonprofit is no longer the end all, be all of doing good.  (See above comments on L3Cs and B corporations).

6. Global reach is a new standard: Technology is enabling organizations to scale globally in short order - just look at Kiva.org or Wikipedia.  Are you an organization that should scale to the world?

The hard copy of Blueprint 2010 is $20 but you can get it on Kindle for half that cost.  I should disclose Lucy has done consulting work for my organization and I’m a fan of her work.

This is what I’m presenting here in Florida at a social media gathering for nonprofit marketers and fundraisers:

As you know, HP emailed me to say they are giving away laptop and printer bundles as part of their Create Change program, which highlights how individuals and technology are creating change in the world. More on the campaign here.

I asked readers to write in comments one great, brief story about how technology helps you transform lives.  I encouraged great storytelling skills.  I said I’d pick the most moving story and HP would send that person a laptop and printer for the work of their nonprofit.  Everyone else who posted gets copy of Switch (the one book to read if you’re trying to change the world) !

This was a tough decision.  I reviewed every story along with three collagues, and we wanted to give away 31 laptops and printers.  Thank you everyone for such amazing storytelling.

There was one story, though, that grabbed us all from the start and illustrated every principle of good storytelling.  That was Vikki’s:

A local mom had her heart broken when her ex-husband did not return their two boys to her after a visitation last year.

Her life and soul was seemingly ripped from her when the two boys and their father were discovered in a remote wooded, snow-covered area - victims of a murder/suicide.

Shortly after that incident, our Domestic Violence shelter was in danger of being closed due to funding cuts, and we had implemented a fundraiser using Facebook Causes. Amy, the bereaved mom, was a “friend of a friend of friend”, and one of those friends had supported us through that cause. Amy, a Survivor, and her friends quickly utilized their Facebook accounts to spread the word that, without their help, Neville House was in danger of closing down, and this would eliminate all victim services for the whole of our county.

Amy’s request for people to donate reached the local newspaper, who ran a domestic violence theme for three days - including Amy’s appeal and the plight of the shelter.

I believe that it is as a direct result of this story running “through the wire” - from our website to Facebook to the local media -  that our shelter is still operating. We have had to eliminate a staff position, and now need to replace funding that has been cut by a different source. but the victims of domestic violence in our county still can find shelter in their time of need, and can still access support services to enable them to become Survivors.

So the laptop and printer go to MCCA!

And everyone else gets a book!  Just email me at katya dot andresen at sign networkforgood dot org with your address.  I will be thrilled to send you an advance copy of this great book.

HP is giving away laptop and printer bundles as part of its HP’s Create Change program which is an example of “embedded giving.” That’s a buzz word coined by Lucy Bernholz to describe the common practice of building a philanthropic…