What's the opportunity cost when a nonprofit blocks employees from using social network sites during work hours?

May 2010

Site Tracking

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Wendy Harman, American Red Cross

According to Wendy Harman, employees at the Red Cross were blocked from accessing social networking sites, like Facebook, from work. Recently, a change in policy has allowed access. So, was there lots of lost productivity equaling millions of dollars?

No.

Recently, thousands of Facebook members helped leveraged a $50,000 donation from the Western Union Foundation by voting for the American Red Cross and its disaster relief efforts. The $50,000 donation will contribute to a broader American Red Cross goal to raise $100 million for disaster relief.

As soon as I heard about it, I tracked down Wendy Harman who is responsible for social media strategies at the American Red Cross to learn more about how she did it.

1. Tell us about your job? Is it 100% social media or does it include other online/Internet marketing?

Officially, it's 100% social media. I truly believe that being present in an open, giving, and transparent way in spaces where your supporters are already spending their time will lead to a stronger loyalty to your mission. But, in this economic climate the Red Cross is certainly making more aggressive online marketing moves.

2. Can you tell me the basics about the Red Cross $100 million fundraising campaign for disaster relief?

2008 has been a record year for disasters and therefore a record year for disaster response. The Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund is what gives us the ability to be ready to respond to the 70,000 disasters that happen every year. In order to keep the fund healthy, we set a goal of raising $100 million back in September. All 700+ chapters are participating in the campaign. I think we're employing every fundraising method in the book! For our email messages, we're getting help from Blue State Digital (Obama's online strategists). We're pushing the Text2Help program that allows anyone to donate $5 by texting "Give" to 24357.

As for social media, we've tried to supply our online supporters with all the tools they might need to make it as easy as possible for them to help us get the word out that people affected by disasters need their help. We created a wiki full of sample avatars, banners, widgets, videos, audio clips, etc. – that are easy to grab and use. We've used our online channels to keep the public updated on the campaign. The campaign's home page has all the links you'd need to help out.

On Saturday we celebrated a National Day of Giving (which I like to call N-Dog) – all over the country Red Crossers were out and about raising funds for the campaign. To date, we've raised $70 million.

3. How did you get the $50,000 from Western Union Foundation via Facebook? What was your strategy?

This was such a great victory for us. Until recently, all employees had been blocked from viewing social networking sites due to security concerns, so we were never even able to tell our own organization what we were doing out in this wild social web. Since the great wall fell, we've been able to promote initiatives like the Western Union Foundation contest to all of our chapters and blood regions. When 700+ entities across the country are all asking their supporters to vote, we have a much stronger turnout. This contest marked the first time we were able to put a notice about taking a social media action in our internal communications channels and I believe that was the key to our success.

4. Given the horrible economic circumstances, why concentrate any time on social media at all if other proven methods - like email - have higher ROI?

We have the luxury of being able to do both. As I said earlier, we're now using the Blue State Digital strategists to revolutionize our email outreach and we're able to complement those messages across social media platforms. Plus, even (or maybe even especially) in horrible economic circumstances it's important to listen and learn from the people whose support you're trying to inspire.

5. What have you learned about social media strategy for fundraising that could be broadly applicable to other nonprofits?

I think you and Kami Huyse and John Cass gave me the best advice back in September. Offer the people who are talking about you easy tools to help support your mission. Hand the power to passionate supporters and they are able to leverage their own networks with their own personal stories.

To further assist the Red Cross in reaching its ambitious goal, Western Union is offering consumers the opportunity to donate to the American Red Cross at any Western Union location. All money transfer transaction fees will certainly be waived for donations to the American Red Cross to ensure that every dollar goes directly to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

Think about it, what's the opportunity cost of blocking access to social networking sites? What's the opportunity cost of not engaging at all?

No, I'm not saying that you should drop everything and spend all your time and resources using social networking and social media strategies. But, realize that it shouldn't be a yes or no question. You should begin to engage with small strategic experiments so you're not playing catch up down the road.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Thanks for highlighting this topic. I work for the Red Cross too. Being able to have our staff access social media has given so many people the opportunity to learn new skills and expand our voice in the online world. It's also given our leadership a chance to really understand what we are doing. If you work in a place that is restricting social media access, it's important to become an advocate and make a responsible, logical case for its use. On a side note-I'm Wendy's boss. You couldn't have picked a better person to interview. She has done wonders for our organization (including teaching little ol techno-phobe me how to be a champion for social media!).

Posted by: Laura Howe | December 14, 2008 at 06:28 PM

I think the conclusion of this article offers some great advice - start small, experiment and evaluate. Not every organization can afford a social media strategist, but every organization can afford to pilot a Facebook or blog giving program. These are great programs to give to young professionals in your organization. They are already in touch and using these medium heavily. Let them use some of the time they already spend using online social media to promote your organization.

At Valley of the Sun United Way, all our staff are encouraged to join Facebook and talk about our work as part of our daily comments and conversations. It's easy to do, it's driven by the person and the person's passions and it builds on our work.

Posted by: Aaron Stiner | December 15, 2008 at 11:50 AM

Posted by: Aaron Stiner | December 15, 2008 at 11:51 AM

This is a great interview and timely post for so many of us who are working with government and nonprofit networks. Those I've had the privilege to work with have blocked all social media - to the degree that even video used for web-based training is blocked. All popular sites like Facebook, YouTube and Flickr are out-of-the-question.

My advice to them has been to partner with the IT department and begin with a small project that can be readily evaluated. :o) Most of them need to tip-toe in with a small project, kind of a "proof of concept" before they can even begin to get support for any kind of full-fledged social media strategy. I'm encouraged by Wendy's experience and positive outcome. Thank you both.

Posted by: LaDonna Coy | December 19, 2008 at 06:51 PM