Social Networks for Social Change: Ivan Boothe Knows What He Is Talking About!

Using Social Networks for Social Change: Facebook, MySpace and More

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: fundraising advocacy)

I was lucky enough to meet Ivan Boothe at the first (or maybe second) Netsquared Conference back in 2005 and have been following his work for years.   Ivan Boothe helped start the Genocide Intervention Network in 2004, and was  responsible for communications, web development and social networking strategy.  He has since  started doing freelance work on his own at rootwork.org.  So he cautioned me that some of the information might not be entirely up to date that he shared on listserv including a pointer to his awesome slide show with audio.

Ivan is one of a small number of nonprofit early adopters in social media and social networks - he has a couple of years of experience under his belt - so his wisdom is priceless.  

He describes how the Genocide Intervention Network uses social networking and in this description you'll find a great example of the first step in social media, listening, if you venture onto social networks.

We use it to go where people are already organizing against genocide, and give them tools to do so effectively. For instance, when we first started organizing on Facebook in 2005, we found many existing groups on campuses working to end the genocide in Darfur. So our role wasn't to try to convince people to become active, but to give them effective tools, like our congressional scorecard and 1-800-GENOCIDE hotline, to take action on a regular basis. Our long-term goal is to build an anti-genocide constituency, and social networks are a key part of that because it allows our members to speak for themselves -- we can cultivate leadership among our members by encouraging them to talk to their friends and submit content (such as photos on Flickr or videos on YouTube). For concrete examples see the Slideshare presentation above.

Ivan says their organization's social networking initiatives have been successful in building the "brand" of an anti-genocide constituency. Ivan notes, "Social networking is a long-term approach and using traditional metrics of advocacy or fundraising it may not look like much. But over a long period of time social networking is actually critical in building an effective, educated political constituency."

The senior management of the organization was very supportive of their social networking efforts.  And as Ivan notes, "They were often looking for creative ways to integrate social networking approaches into existing campaigns."     Although he doesn't say,  I suspect this happened through ongoing discussions and developing small proof of concept experiments and reiterating and reflecting on successes and not so successful efforts.

What I think is really key as Ivan points out is the lack of a generational divide in getting buy-in from the organization's leadership.  The Genocide Intervention Network is an organization founded and driven by younger people. 

Many of the original members were in their 20s and familiar with some aspects of social networking. We had seen it working for other organizations, as well as political campaigns (such as Dean, Obama and MyGOP). The only limit to our interest in doing social networking is staff time. We do critically analyze the best approach to social networking, but we rarely doubt that there is some effective approach we can take.

So, what is the right fit to use a social networking strategy?  Ivan suggests:

 Social networking is a natural fit for an organization that wants more than an ATM of donors or a list of petition-signers, but active and engaged political organizers.

I'm so glad that Ivan is adding his presentation and wisdom to the WeAreMedia wiki!  Thanks Ivan.

Comments

[Myra Reichel]

I am in the process of trying to decide if this is the right time for me to start the process of becoming a non-profit and will be presenting my business tonight at the Sustainable Business Network meeting at the Coffee CLub in Media PA from5:45 to 7 or so. I presented my healing center at the Social Venture Institute a couple years ago and they said yes that my idea of having a place where people could do outreach in the community and where people on disability could do some part time work when they feel up to it was a good non-profit idea. I was told to look your site up and I am not really sure what your group is about from what I see skimming over the site is there an overview someplace or information I can read?
Thank you
Myra