Workshop: Becoming a Networked Nonprofit – An Essential Transformation
Beth Kanter, Master Trainer, Author, Blogger
Buffalo, NY – September 2014
Photo Credit: Vlad Krylov

Workshop: Becoming a Networked Nonprofit – An Essential Transformation
Beth Kanter, Master Trainer, Author, Blogger
Buffalo, NY – September 2014
Photo Credit: Vlad Krylov

Beth Kanter: Master Trainer, Author, and Blogger
@kanter
http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/buffalo

Who is in the room?
Organizational Size
Type [Health, Arts, Children, Social Service, Education, Community,
Environmental, Animal Welfare, other]
Role/Title

Raise Your Hand If Your Digital Strategy Goal Is ….
 Improve relationships
 Increase awareness
 Increase traffic referral
 Increase engagement
 Increase innovation
 Change behavior
 Increase dollars
 Increase action

What’s your experience with social media?
• Oversee social
media strategy
• Implement social
media strategy
• Both

Stand Up, Sit Down

Your BWurenilncgo Qmueestions!
Please write down
your burning
question about
networked
nonprofits or social
media on sticky note
What do you want
answered by the end
of the day?

SHARE PAIR
Introduce yourself to someone you don’t know
and share your burning question!

Becoming A Networked Nonprofit
Agenda OUTCOMES
• To leave the
room ready to
implement one
idea to take a
small step to
become a
Networked
Nonprofit
FRAMING
• Interactive
• Reflective
• Learning from Adjacent
Practices
Welcome and Introduction
Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly:
Where is Your Organization
Becoming A Networked
Nonprofit: Being and Doing
Break
Understanding Networks
Mapping Your Organization’s
Network
Q/A
Reflection
http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/buffalo

Networked Nonprofits
Simple, agile, and
transparent
organizations and
leaders.
They are experts at
using networks, data,
and learning
strategically to make
the world a better
place.

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t
run then walk, if you can’t walk then
crawl, but whatever you do you have
to keep moving forward.”
Maturity of Practice

Where is your organization?
CRAWL WALK RUN FLY
Linking Social with
Results and
Networks
Pilot: Focus one
program or channel
with measurement
Incremental Capacity
Ladder of
Engagement
Content Strategy
Informal Champions
Strategy
Best Practices
Measurement and
learning in all above
Communications
Strategy
Development
Network Mindset
and Map
Culture Change
Network Building
Formal Champions –
internal/external Strategy
Multi-Channel Engagement,
Content, and Measurement
Reflection and Continuous
Improvement

What’s Your Maturity of Practice?
Where is your organization now? What does that look
like? What do you need to get to the next level?
CRAWL Walk RUN FLY

Maturity of Practice: Crawl-Walk-Run-Fly
Categories Practices
CULTURE Networked Mindset
Institutional Support
CAPACITY Staffing
Strategy
MEASUREMENT Analysis
Tools
Adjustment
LISTENING Brand Monitoring
Influencer Research
ENGAGEMENT Ladder of Engagement
CONTENT Integration/Optimization
NETWORK Influencer Engagement
Relationship Mapping
1 2 3 4

Becoming A Networked Nonprofit
Networked Mindset

Active Listening Challenge
• Take notes on index
card
• Ideas that resonate
• Something you have
thought about
before
• A challenge
• A opportunity
Photo by niclindh

A Networked Mindset: A Leadership Style
• Leadership through active social participation
• Listening and cultivating organizational and
professional networks to achieve the impact
• Sharing control of decision-making
• Communicating through a network model,
rather than a broadcast model
• Openness, transparency, decentralized decision-making,
and collective action.
• Being Data Informed, learning from failure

Open

What does a networked mindset
for a nonprofit look like in practice?

Visualized Their Network
• What people and organizations do we
want to connect with?
• How are we already connected?
Online? Offline?
• How can we connect with the
networks of our internal champions?
(Staff/Board/Volunteers)
• What are they currently seeking?
• Where do they go for information?
• What influences their decisions?
• What’s important to them?
• What makes them act?

Vision Statement
• Encouragement and support
•Why policy is needed
• Cases when it will be used,
distributed
• Oversight, notifications, and
legal implications
• Guidelines
• Identity and transparency
• Responsibility
• Confidentiality
• Judgment and common sense
• Best practices for personal use in
service of organization as
Champion
• Brand
• Voice
• Links to Org Strategy
• Dos and Don’ts for Personal Use
from Legal
• Additional resources
• Training
• Operational Guidelines
• Escalation

Leadership Conversations

Are you listening and cultivating organizational
and professional
networks to achieve the impact?

Balancing Individual and Organizational Voices

Authenticity
Open and accessible to the world and
building relationships
Making interests, hobbies, passions visible
creates authenticity

Personality

Do you have a social media policy
that facilitates building
relationships and networks?

Best Practice: Write Down the Rules – Social Media Policy

http://www.bethkanter.org/category/organizational-culture/

Social Media Policy – All Staff Participate
http://www.bethkanter.org/staff-guidelines/

Do you have
a communications strategy?

BREAK

SMARTER SOCIAL MEDIA: POST FRAMEWORK
Flickr Photo: graceinhim

POST APPLIED: SMALL NONPROFIT
PEOPLE: Artists and people in their community
OBJECTIVES:
Increase engagement by 2 comments per post by FY 2014
Content analysis of conversations: Does it make the
organization more accessible?
Increase enrollment in classes and attendance at events by
5% by FY 2014
10% students /attenders say they heard about us through
Facebook
STRATEGY
Show the human face of artists, remove the mystique, get
audience to share their favorites, connect with other
organizations.
TOOLS
Focused on one social channel (Facebook) to use best
practices and align engagement/content with other channels
which includes flyers, emails, and web site.

POST: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
• What keeps them up at night?
• What are they currently seeking?
• Where do they go for information?
• What influences their decisions?
• What’s important to them?
• What makes them act?

POST: SMART OBJECTIVES
Results
• Reach, Engagement, Action,
Dollars
1. How many? 2. By when?
3. Measure with metrics

Are you building the capacity to implement incrementally?

Hybrid Model Staffing: Tear Down Those Silos
Source: SSIR – Mogus, Silberman, and Roy

Hybrid Model Adapted to Small Theatre
• 3 person staff
• Social media
responsibilities in all three
job descriptions
• Each person 2-4 hours
per week
• Weekly 20 minute
meeting to coordinate
• Three initiatives to
support SMART
objectives
• Weekly video w/Flip
• Blogger outreach
• Facebook

Understanding and Mapping Networks

A Quick Network Primer
What: Social networks are collections of people and
organizations who are connected to each other in different
ways through common interests or affiliations. A network map
visualize these connections. Online and offline.
Why: If we understand the basic building blocks of social
networks, and visually map them, we can leverage them for
our work and organizations can leverage them for their
campaigns. We bring in new people and resources and save
time.

Network Maps
Two Lenses
1: Whole Network
2: Professional Network (Ego)

Whole Networks: Organizational Network

Professional Networks for Social Change Goals
National Wildlife Federation
Brought together team that is
working on advocacy strategy to
support a law that encourages
children to play outside.
Team mapped their 5 “go to
people” about this issue
Look at connections and strategic
value of relationships, gaps

Network Map: Stakeholders

Whole Networks: Twitter Hashtag: WEF 2030

Create Your Map
1. Use sticky notes, markers and
poster paper to create your
organization’s map.
2. Think about communications
goals and brainstorm a list of
“go to” people, organizations,
and online resources
3. Decide on different colors to
distinguish between different
groups, write the names on
the sticky notes.

Walk About, View Other Maps, Leave Notes
What insights did you
learn from mapping your
organization’s network?
What did you learn from
looking at other network
maps?

Speed Debrief: 60 Seconds

A Few Minutes of Quiet Reflection
What small action steps can
you take after the workshop
to get to the next level in
these different areas?

Let’s RevieWwe Blucronimng eQuestions!

Think and Write: What is your take away – one
thing that you can put into practice?
Write on an index card
for a book raffle!

Closing Circle and Reflection

Thank you!
www.bethkanter.org
www.facebook.com/beth.kanter.blog
@kanter on Twitter