Outreach Via the Internet for
Nonprofit Organizations

(It's a lot more than just getting a World Wide Web site)

 
Engaging in online outreach is more than just putting up a Web site. It involves thinking about the specific community or audience you want to reach, planning and acting strategically and dynamically, finding and posting to appropriate Internet discussion groups, involving all staff in online strategies and activities (not just one department), perhaps even starting your agency's own online community of volunteers, supporters and others, and being ready to evolve into more advanced online activities. Online outreach must be nurtured in an ongoing way and fully supported by all staff, from top to bottom (or the other way around), just as with all of your offline interactions (direct mail, phone support, onsite presentations, meetings, etc.).

Whatever impression you want people to have of your organization offline, via face-to-face and traditional forms of outreach, promotions and interactions, is the same impression you should strive for online. Online outreach and online service delivery should accurately reflect your agency's mission and culture. It's not only what you say, but how you say it: replying to people promptly, providing complete information, responding to criticism without defensiveness, etc. The Internet is about connecting humans, not machines! Treat it as such.

Online outreach should be the domain of whomever undertakes activities relating to communications, donor relations, volunteers, and clients/customers. Your web master or other technical staff should follow the lead of program and marketing staff when it comes to online activities, not the other way around.

What does online outreach look like? It means:

• the organization has a web site
• staff members use email to communicate one-to-one and one-to-many (to volunteers, members of the press, attendees to last night's special event, etc.)
• staff members post information about the organization to online communities, bulletin boards, etc.
• staff members use third-party online databases to post notices, such as the volunteer manager posting to VolunteerMatch or IdeaList to recruit volunteers.
• the organization has a subscription-based, email-based newsletter/update
• staff members use instant messaging
• the organization has an official blog
• the organization engages in online activism, such as staff sending messages to supporters regarding upcoming legislation on the local, state or federal level and how they can contact their representatives
• staff members produce live webcasts or recorded online video
• staff members produce podcasts
• staff members talking with others via live audio or video chat.
• staff members using online social networking
• staff members using Second Life or other avatar-based virtual world.

Before your mission-based organization (nonprofit/NPO, non-governmental organization/NGO, civil society organization or public sector agency) engages in online outreach:

• Review the information you want to provide online and assess its need in the community (and define what you mean by "community"). Think strategically about both what and how you will deliver online information, and make sure what you want to do online relates to the mission of your organization (for instance, if you don't mentor young people onsite, then do NOT try to do it online).

• When you prepare information for online use, keep in mind the people who might access your information. Are they current or potential clients? donors? volunteers? Again, think strategically and speak to the audience you are trying to reach. Different activities can be oriented to different audiences (with overlap always in mind).

• Determine the commitment your staff will have to make to acquire the needed skills to contribute and maintain accurate, timely information about your organization online, AND determine the support your organization will make to that staff to ensure quality maintenance and development of all online activities.

  Draft a document that outlines what it would take to bring staff skills up-to-speed regarding online responsibilities, to recruit volunteers to support your online activities, and the costs associated with additional training and volunteer involvement. Also detail in this document why this strategy would be important to the mission of your organization (and those it serves). Then make sure potential donors and your board of directors are aware of these needs.

• Make sure all staff have the opportunity, at any time, to comment on online materials, and encourage all staff to be familiar with online activities, so that they can explain its contents to those who ask, and can think about how they might want to use online technologies as part of their own staff roles. More on this can be found in Maintaining a Web Site and Web Policies and Security.

• I have web site content suggestions elsewhere on my web site.

• It is imperative that your agency maintains a commitment to posting accurate, timely information online, whatever the forum. If people who visit your Web site or online profile on MySpace find that the information never changes or that it is inaccurate (outdated information, broken links, etc.), they will stop accessing it. If you post information to online discussion groups that is incomplete or inaccurate, you can adversely affect public perception of your organization.

• Identify yourself in your emails, as well as posts to other organizations' fora. Your organization's name, main email address, city and state of location, and daytime phone number should be at the bottom of every email you send or every announcement you post online. If you have a Web address, that should go in too.

• Post to the appropriate online discussion groups. Don't post your information in just any online forum you come across. You can find an Internet discussion group for just about any subject or geographic area. For advice on how to find such groups, and how to learn to participate in online groups, see this resource, The dynamics of online culture & community.

• When you ask a person for his or her phone number, you should be asking for an email address as well. HOWEVER, make it clear that you will not sell, trade or give their email address to any other organization. And follow this policy!

  Why? Commercial emails, sent unsolicited and to millions of users at once, are clogging up the Internet, making it increasingly difficult for individuals to get to the information they seek, and to reach appropriate audiences themselves. They are also ever-increasing the costs of Internet service, as providers have to buy equipment and software to handle this huge amount of junk mail. They also promote dubious "businesses" and products. If you do want to promote yourself via the Internet, distance yourselves from these unethical practitioners.

  Consider setting up an email distribution list that users can join, or unjoin, on their own.

• There's nothing wrong with sending unsolicited email -- if you write me and ask me a question, you've just sent me unsolicited email. What's wrong is advertising email sent in bulk to hundreds or thousands or millions of users at once, with nothing in the email that tells the person PRECISELY who you are and how you got that person's email address, with forged headers and footers that misrepresent your organization's Internet address and contact information, sent totally untargeted -- sending email to any address you find -- and sent over and over again, with no real way for people to PERMANENTLY remove their email address from your send list.

  The key is to tailor and personalize the email announcement as much possible, and be completely honest about how you got a person's email address and who you are (and how to contact you by email). For instance, say, "This email is being sent to members of the xxxxx association" or "to people who have emailed our organization in the last year" or "people who attended such-and-such meeting," etc.

  Make sure the tone of such an email is informative and mission-based to the organization -- few capital letters, few "!!!!!!." This will be another thing that separates you from unethical mass bulk emailers.

  One important final note: NEVER send unsolicited email attachments. EVER. You send them only by request or with permission. PERIOD.

  More advice regarding setting up an email list

• Include information about your online activities in your printed materials. Don't include just the web address: note in your paper newsletter, for instance, new updates to your YouTube channel. Promote your interactive online activities through press releases as well.

• Make sure that whomever answers your phone knows how to say the Web address, knows when and how to refer callers to it, and is familiar with its content. And make sure anyone who has contact with the public (this includes your Executive Director!) also knows how to say the Web address (NOT -- "We have a Web site, but I've never seen it, and I don't know what the address is." It makes your organization look really unprofessional), as well as what information is on it.

• All staff should "Walk the Talk" Re: Your organization's online activities. Your staff needs to know about all of your organization's online activities, no matter what their job is, and they need to provide leadership in using your organization's online tools (they need to be reading your organization's online discussion group every day, for instance).

• Direct staff to include a summary of their online activities, and the results of such, in any internal updates they provide. Include an evaluation of these activities during employee performance reviews. This is a key way to integrate online activities into staff's overall responsibilities.

• Market your volunteer opportunities online. The Virtual Volunteering Project provides resources regarding using the internet to recruit volunteers (using your own Web site, using online discussion groups, etc.), as well as a link to a comprehensive index of online databases of volunteer opportunities. By marketing your volunteering opportunities online, you are increasing your organization's online profile.

• Track the responses that result from your online activities (just as you should track responses to your advertising). It will help you plan more strategically for future posts and online activities.

• Track your online profile. For instance, go to Google or any other online directory system and search for your organization's name, the name of your organization's executive director, your web address, or key phrases, such as:
  • the word "contact" and the name of your organization
  • the word "volunteer" and the name of your organization, or, a phrase relating to your mission
  • the word "donate" and a phrase relating to your mission

  Doing these kind of searches can help you to see how easy it is for someone looking to volunteer with, donate to or contact an organization with a particular focus to be able to find you online. It also will give you an idea of how many web sites are linked to your organization's site, and what the media and other publications may have said about the head of your organization. You may find criticism or praise from a volunteer, donor, or client about your organization that you will want to address.

 
Other Resources:

• How Not-for-Profit and Public Sector Agencies REALLY Use Online Technologies
  This provides real-life examples of what agencies are using the Internet for, and links to other resources offering even more advice and examples. Includes information about online solicitations and fund-raising.

• Basic Press Outreach for Mission-Based Organizations
  Like fund-raising, press relations is an ongoing cultivation process. Your agency strategy for press coverage needs to go beyond trying to land one big story -- you want the press to know that you are THE agency to contact whenever they are doing a story on a subject that relates to your mission. These are basic, low-cost/no cost things you can do to generate positive attention from the media.

• What are good blog topics for mission-based organizations?
  The word "blog" is short for "web log", and means keeping a journal or diary online. Blogging is NOT a new concept -- people have been doing it long before it had a snazzy media label. The appeal of blogging for an online audience is that it's more personal and less formal than other information on a web site. Readers who want to connect with an organization on a more personal level, or who are more intensely interested in an organization than the perhaps general public as a whole, love blogs. Blogs can come from your Executive Director, other staff members, volunteers, and even those you serve. Content options are many, and this list reviews some of your options

• For Nonprofits Considering Their Own Podcasts: Why It's Worth Exploring, and Content Considerations
  (includes my own podcast)

• Nonprofit Organizations and Online Social Networking (OSN): Advice and Commentary

• How to handle online criticism of your organization

• How folklore, rumors and urban myths interfere with development and aid/relief efforts and how to prevent or address such.

• THE CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO
  "We appreciate your efforts in spreading this important sedition." A project involving the often hilarious/ often outrageous/ sometimes insulting/ always entertaining Entropy Web Consulting and "Rageboy." This is a challenge to companies to quit thinking that they can control the Internet and online culture and shape it to fit their outdated PR and marketing dreams, and to quit fearing its "open" nature and, instead, realize that this open system can actually be a good thing in the quest to meet customer needs and move products and messages. I think most of the things put forth in this document are worth considering among the not-for-profit and public sectors as well.

• the Drucker Foundation SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOL for Nonprofit Organizations
  It is built around five questions:
  What is our mission?
  Who is our customer?
  What does the customer value?
  What are our results?
  What is our plan?
  This Self-Assessment tool is not free -- but those five questions are!

Return to the index of resources for "Community Relations, With and Without Technology"

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