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10 Take-Aways from SXSW for Nonprofits

South by Southwest Interactive is not one of my usual gatherings during the year. But it's always fun to read the breathless coverage produced by the brilliant, but often twitterpated, participants. One of the calmer summaries was produced by Matt Kolterman, who shares 10 Take-Aways from SXSW for Nonprofits: (1) Tell stories about your constituents that speak to the heart and inspire action. (2) Ensure cross-channel brand and message consistency. (3) Get your message across in as few words as possible. (4) Make sure your website behaves like an approchable and likable person. (5) Support other nonprofits involved in your cause. (6) Segment your constituents and develop a targeted communications strategy. (7) Create and maintain an editorial calendar. (8) Empower your super-advocates. (9) Experiment frequently and iterate rapidly. (10) Create content that people will talk about and share. Posted: 3/22/10; 5:52:47 PM #

The Robber Barons of Social Change

Mark Engler's review of Small Change: Why Business Won't Save the World by Michael Edwards is a must-read. (So is the book he's reviewing.) In The Robber Barons of Social Change, Engler and Edwards take on the "philanthrocapitalists" who seem to claim that there is no problem of capitalism that can't be solved with more capitalism. I worry that we as a sector swing between two unbalanced mindsets: We alternatively worship the ground that business people walk on and outright reject fantastic tools because they are culturally associated with business. Neither of these approaches are the least bit useful. Neither Engler nor Edwards are arguing for a knee-jerk reaction, rather they just point out that philanthropy has no reason to look to the business sector as a model of virtue. Posted: 3/22/10; 5:47:08 PM #

Nonprofit CEOs Who Want For-Profit Salaries Should Work at For-Profit Companies

Rosetta Thurman says something that I wish I had said myself: Nonprofit CEOs Who Want For-Profit Salaries Should Work at For-Profit Companies. She makes several great points: Good pay does not mean excessive pay. Million-dollar salaries are not sustainable for the sector. High salaries do not equal effective leaders. Excessive salaries turn donors away. We need to be more concerned with paying all nonprofit staff better, not just CEOs. I would add three thoughts: First, there are a lot of intangibles being exchanged in the employment of nonprofit leaders (such as the values themselves) and those intangibles account for at least some of the difference in salaries. Second, the more nonprofit leaders become culturally interchangeable with business leaders, the less civil society will be able to maintain distinct values. Third, excessive for-profit salaries are often the result of ugly non-market forces (such as stock volatility and senior executive comments) that we in the nonprofit sector want to stay as far away from as possible. Posted: 3/22/10; 5:39:29 PM #

Quince UX Design Patterns

The more our technology partners in the sector move in the direction of user involvement, the more we are all exposed to these things called "design patterns". We already know what these are. When we say "but on Twitter it works like this and it's easy", we are probably talking about a design pattern, a user experience element that you see as portable from one context to another. Whether you think of yourself as a techie, a designer, or just a smart user, it doesn't hurt to expose yourself to a range of patterns, organized as such. For example if you spend a little time with the Quince UX Design Patterns Library, you'll start seeing things in the sites you use that you probably never saw before. Posted: 3/22/10; 5:11:19 PM #