Me? I think I edit myself too much when it comes to things like this – and often not enough when it comes to important stuff (go figure). It’s a scary thought to put yourself out there. And the power of the web makes it even scarier.
In my real life, I spend a lot of my time figuring out ways that the web can be harnessed by small nonprofits (well, at least one – the one I actually get paid to work for) for minimal effort and with minimal cost. There are, of course, some amazing things that you can do with plenty of people-power and plenty of money, but what can you do with a $2,500 marketing budget, too little time, and a one-person shop? How can you help an organization that does incredible work but is missing the public interaction and get people to feel that passion – and best of all to give some of their hard earned money to that same group?
On one hand, it obviously takes something or someone to bring your cause to the forefront. Look at what the millennium development goals have done to bring the world’s water crisis to the forefront. It’s hard to believe when I first started working for agency that must not be named (ATMNBN), its annual income was right around $750K. Three years later when I left, it was on the cusp of $10 million. While ATMNBN went through some serious growing pains to reach that amount and lost some of its soul along the way, it really wasn’t anything that it did that brought that change. It didn’t bring the water crisis to the forefront of people’s minds; it didn’t make a huge difference in politics; it didn’t have an amazing leader (well, it did, but it lost her). It just happened to be at the right place at the right time. And it happened to have a pretty good website and the ability to start an e-community thanks to the work of some employees. For groups like ATMNBN, the power of the web is much easier to harness – you bring in an employee or two or three who specialize in it and you spend the money needed to do it.
But for every organization that can afford to do that, there are thousands of other nonprofits struggling to make ends meet with just as worthy of causes. Barring having the millennium development goals to help you bring your cause to the forefront (or a celebrity or the Gates Foundation), how do you bring people over to your cause? How do these organizations harness the web to help it reach those who feel passionately about the same things? My job is to figure out how to make people like me and you care about some of these unsung groups. Care enough to give time, to give support or to give money. I believe harnessing the web is critical to that growth and I wish that I could spend my time creating ways for that to happen. But realistically in an organization where every dollar counts and where more immediate needs take precedence, other priorities have to be weighed. If I can’t specialize in this – like many of us can’t – how do we use it to the best of our ability, our time, and our money?
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