Seth Godin (Non)Sense
Seth Godin wrote a piece yesterday that seems to have split people between admiration for his condemnation of non-profit bureaucracy and outrage for his poorly researched blanket statements about non-profits and their presence online.
Me? I’m somewhere in the middle.
I can understand the frustration, and Seth has some fair points. But the post ignores a large part of how non-profits build community, network, and fund raise. There is some bureaucracy, it’s true. There is some resistance to change. But a non-profit not having the resources to be online in a meaningful way does not mean they’re not doing important work.
When you look at reports that have been done in the past few years on the efficacy and uses of social media for non-profits, it’s clear that it has yet to prove itself as a highly effective fund raising tool. In order to motivate donors/volunteers/advocates, the person or organization tweeting has to have a fair amount of social capital and a strong connection to their followers. Plus, it assumes that your donors have a certain level of technological savvy, are interested in the realm of social media, and that you have a mission that can be distilled into 140 characters. That’s a lot different from “too much fear to tell a compelling story in a transparent way.”
And as far as community building and advocacy, organizations and individuals are still figuring out how to build structures to do that. There’s no holy grail. Yes, there is value in reaching out to new contacts and building connection online, but you still have to make them translate into offline relationships to cultivate major donors. A hand signed letter that acknowledges a relationship, the individual’s history with the organization, and thanks them for their ongoing support while encouraging them to get involved in new and exciting ways is extremely different from a 140 thank you tweet.
Twitter and social media shouldn’t be a threat to non-profits, but neither should they be heralded as the quick, easy, cheap and effective savior of all things non-profit. The most effective uses of social networking are still in situations where tried and true marketing tactics are taken online and applied to new media. And that takes know-how and resources.
As many others have pointed out, Grodin’s reference to the top 100 Twitter accounts as his proof of the inefficacy of non-profits is sloppy at best. When I looked at the top 100 twitter accounts, what I immediately noticed was that they were all people or organizations with massive amounts of disposable income and either a staff or the time themselves to really spend promoting themselves. There’s a degree of economic, social, and technological privilege required to effectively use the tools at hand. And in some cases, a cause that you can make “sexy,” so people relate to it and feel like they should care when you reach out.
On a separate note, and in reference to something I’ve not seen talked about a whole lot, it’s highly problematic to posit that charity: Water is “more passionate” about making change than non-profits simply because they’re on Twitter. Yes, they raised a lot of money, and their model is an important case study, but that’s not the only measure of success for organizations making change. Grodin didn’t even touch on the “What now?” What is their donor retention rate like? Are those people continuing to engage in meaningful ways with the cause of the organization past the one event they attended? Are they now advocating for the cause? Telling their friends? Or did they show up, tweet, and leave?
Overall, if the article kicked some people into gear and enlightened them about the bureaucratic stalling happening in their organization that’s holding them back, the good on Grodin. But making blanket statements about the state on non-profits online, without doing the research and rather than taking the time to craft your statements to the audience you really mean to address? That’s just irresponsible. And then he wonders why organizations don’t want to hand control of their messages over to volunteers and third-parties.
