The Digital Age
2016 Trends and Tips for Nonprofits to Stay Relevant
H
ere’s a no-brainer … the digital revolution is having a significant impact, is
a viable strategy, and is not just a ‘fad’. Entrepreneurs seem to be making
adjustments to keep up with this trend however nonprofits seem to be
lagging behind. This may be attributed to what has been identified as their
top 3 challenges – Leader Adaptability, Marketing and Funding. The correlation seems obvious but to explain, it’s about change. If these strategies aren’t
recognized as viable and relevant their fundraising, communication, engagement and capacity building efforts will be negatively impacted.
Here are two commentaries that detail the relevance to the digital age.
4 TIPS FOR NONPROFITS TO STAY RELEVANT IN 2016
By Allyson Kapin
Ev Williams, one of the cofounders of Twitter and the CEO of Medium
said the future of media lies in platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Medium.
“There’s going to be a convergence of distribution points for media,” Williams
said. “And it’s going to make less and less sense to publish on the Web.”
Of course social media giant founders like Williams and Mark Zuckerberg,
founder of Facebook, would like to see this convergence happen, as it would
greatly benefit their platforms.
Facebook has been aggressive in this convergence strategy from their acquisitions of other platforms like Instagram to their consistent roll out of new
features such as the recent interest-specific news feeds. Facebook is testing this
new feature, which allows people to customize their feeds by categorized topics
and sub-categories. The goal? To get users to stay on Facebook for longer periods of time and engaged with their customized news feeds.
The news feeds show recent and relevant posts from friends and pages
you’ve liked. Facebook first rolled rolled out a test in October to some users on
desktop and now they are rolling it out to mobile app users.
According to a Facebook spokesperson, “People have told us they'd like new
options to see and have conversations about more stories on Facebook around
specific topics they're interested in," a Facebook spokeswoman said in an email.
"So we are testing feeds for people to view different stories from people and
Pages based on topic areas. You can access these feeds from your Bookmarks,
located underneath Favorites, or a navigation bar under Search."
So what does this mean for nonprofits?
Will websites die in the next 10 years? No, websites are not at risk of being
phased out, but of course they will evolve, function, and look different than
they do today. Social media platforms and mobile will become even more prevalent (including ones that we don’t even know about yet) and nonprofit leaders
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must carve out time to understand these trends and act now to remain relevant
with their base of supporters.
FOUR TIPS
1. Make your website, signup forms, and donation forms mobile responsive. This may
seem like a “duh” recommendation to some of you, but there are a ton of nonprofits
that have not invested in a mobile responsive site. If you are one of those organizations, you must make that investment in 2016.
2. Update Your Nonprofit’s Facebook page a few times a day. This is especially important now as Facebook is rolling out interest-specific news feeds. This means if your
supporters categorize your issue in their news feed, your page could be prioritized
so they will see your content a lot more. Right now, about 2% of Facebook page
posts are seen by page “Likers” so this could be a game-changer in reaching your
biggest advocates and donors.
3. Build up your nonprofit’s leadership influence online. All senior leadership should
have their own accounts and be active on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. Leadership should be posting regularly about your nonprofit related resources, perspectives, and ways to get involved. On Linkedin (LI), leadership should test taking
advantage of LI’s blogging tool. LI also has an influencer program. Influencers are
leader