by Kevin Martone, GIJP Technology Program Manager

Camp is an incredible place for kids to learn, grow, meet new people, and have new experiences. Camp staff and board members should follow this lead and make sure they are continually learning as well. This is why the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy (GIJP) offers its annual conference free of charge to all of its participating organizations.
 
This is also why GIJP Business Systems Analyst Joe Ruotolo and I attended the recent Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) organized by NTEN. We joined 1400+ nonprofit staff members, including a growing group of Jewish nonprofit professionals, to learn how to utilize technology to improve our nonprofit communications, fundraising, and management.

Some key takeaways that we can all use in our work include:

• Stories are our most powerful tool for communication. Here are some key tips from a session about how to tell great stories:
  • Everyone in your organization should be collecting/telling stories: staff, board members, counselors, campers. For camps, this is easy – stories are as much a part of camp lore as campfires, swimming, and bug-bites.
  • Don’t recreate the wheel. Use stories that already exist!
  • Repurpose/reuse stories across channels. A longer story that can be used during a camp visit or in an eNewsletter can be shortened for a Facebook status update or Tweet.
  • 10 great stories are better than 100 mediocre stories. Don’t worry about the quantity, focus on the quality of the stories.
  • Pictures and video are effective vehicles for telling stories.
  • Consider guest bloggers for additional stories/content.

• Start with Mission –> Strategy –> and Goals (You’ve been working hard with your GIJP Mentors on that Strategic Plan for a reason!). For true success, everything has to tie back to moving your mission forward.

• Your communications have to be focused on your audience, not your organization: “Cause 1st, You 2nd.” Check your website, brochures, Facebook Page, eNewsletter, etc. – if the content is focused on what YOU do and not on your audience, get to work. Start with personal stories (see above). Focus on your IMPACT.

• YouTube now offers a customizable video player and the ability to allow users to upload videos to your YouTube Channel. Camps could use this for moderated video contests. Click here if you haven’t already signed up for a free YouTube nonprofit video channel.

• Use tools and templates to make your job easier and more effective. For example:
  • Create email/eNewsletter templates – don’t design every time
  • Create Press Release templates. Train staff in how to use.
  • Create a listening dashboard in Google Reader or Netvibes to make managing your social media efforts more efficient. For more information, here is a longer list of free tools that can help nonprofits use social media more effectively.
  • Create a “Central Info Bank” to store stories, quotes/testimonials, photos, stats; makes sure everyone has access. You can use a free tool like Google Groups or Dropbox.

   

In Summary…There are LOTS of nonprofits facing the same challenges as our camps. And many are overcoming those challenges with both technology and non-technology solutions. The key? Start with a strategy and goals and then DO IT! And remember to continually learn…just like your campers.

Want to learn more? This brief recap of the SXSW® Interactive 2010 Conference in March gives 10 quick takeaways from that conference for nonprofits that dovetail nicely with the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

Want even MORE information? Search for the NTC official hashtag on Twitter (#10ntc) or check out our live tweets from the conference at @gijp. The Foundation for Jewish Camp was also there – check out their tweets as well: @FdnJewishCamp. Many other Jewish organizations were present and tweeting as well!

And last (but certainly not least!), check out Beth Kanter’s blog – she offers great insights and examples about how nonprofits can use technology effectively. For example, here is her post about social media measurement based on her session on the topic at NTC.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments!

If you’ve found many alumni in Facebook and decided to focus some of your limited resources on the social networking site, you may have already created a Facebook Group or Page for your camp. You’ve likely prepared engaging content and added many, many friends of your camp. I included some basic information about using Facebook in my previous blog post about Social Networking Sites.

I recently ran across this blog post from the Wild Apricot’s nonprofit technology blog that explains some specific applications that you may want to use to customize your camp’s official Facebook Page. It mentions some specific applications you can utilize to make your page more engaging, like the YouTube Box to show your camp’s videos or the RSS Feed application to show your camp’s blog posts on the Page. It also mentions incorporating the Causes application for focused fundraising efforts.

In addition, I recently received an email via Facebook about some new features for utilizing pages in Facebook that may be especially useful to camps:

(1) You can restrict your Page to users over age 13, 17, 18, 19, or 21, or the legal drinking age where they live. On your Page’s edit page, scroll down to “Settings” at the bottom. This functioanlty will allow a nonprofit to only allow users of a certain age join the page. Of course, they will still be able to view the page in Facebook.

(2) You can target your messages from your Facebook Page. When you send a message to fans, you can target it by geography, gender, and age. For example, a camp can promote a regional Alumni event to alumni only in a specfic area. When sending an update, check the “Target this update” box to utilize this feature.

Comment below if you have any experience setting up a Facebook Page. Any words of wisdom? What worked? What didn’t?

I posted some basics about how nonprofits can use video here. If anyone has any examples of videos they’ve posted on the web, please leave links in the comments below. I’d love to see what you’ve come up with! And other readers can learn from your experiences.

In the meantime, I ran across another blog post about using video at See3′s blog called see what’s out there. He gives a lot of tips about effectively using YouTube and telling your story with video. He also includes links to lots of great examples of nonprofit videos online.

Camps have great personal stories to tell. The internet has offered an easy way to share those stories via video. Please share any of your videos in the comments below.