When starting out with social media as a nonprofit, it can be a tricky and confusing process. It’s not like the for-profit sector where you have a goal to gain customers through deals and offering products/services. It’s about your cause.

You now have supporters, donors, partners, and those directly affiliated with your organization to think about and cater to. Besides a website, the musts of nonprofit social media include a Facebook page and Twitter account. They provide an easy way for others to show their affiliation and support while being able to directly engage with the nonprofit. Your cause and organizational updates are able to become clearer and more regular through your messaging. I personally began employment at my first nonprofit, ICAN, a year ago, and this is how I’ve been able to make my social media mark on the brand.

The Facebook and Twitter pages had already been set up, but they were scarcely used. I re-evaluated the mission and audience of the organization and found a healthy mix.  As I began to post on a daily basis, I started including real-time photos and posts about events, donation thank you’s, and basic organization updates. Eventually, I began adding in “behind the scenes” posts about staff to make our brand include more than just the faces of those we serve, but also those who were providing service. Within a year, both the Facebook and Twitter followers more than doubled, and engagement increased…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

In our professional and personal lives, we are all asked to take a dozen or more surveys every year. At work, I receive email surveys on everything from how we use social media to how we like the services of our vendors. At home, I get opinion questionnaires from organizations ranging from political parties to movie ticket vendors.

Being the recipient of so many surveys, I pick and choose which I respond to. No doubt you do as well. As the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) embarks on its fourth annual nonprofit State of the Sector Survey, I hope you will choose to spend a few minutes of your valuable and busy work time responding to ours. Here’s why.

Nonprofits are our social safety net, particularly now, during the hard times our country continues to experience. They help and enrich people and communities, some of whom face dire health, housing, or food access circumstances. Yet many of the nonprofits that Arizonians rely on for a just and vibrant society are themselves in dire circumstances. Revenue is down, particularly from government funders, while service demand is up (77% saw a rise in service demand last year, on top of increases in service demand from previous years).

As we’ve seen with the rise…

In these hard economic times, nonprofits are famously struggling—fighting for funding and fighting for resources. Now, more than ever, it is important for nonprofits to play smart while building capacity. At the heart of this notion is leveraging volunteers.

In her blog post, “Don't Be Afraid To Ask,” Stephanie La Loggia says, "recruiting volunteers is one of the most important jobs in most nonprofit organizations.” And that’s true - the recruitment process is crucial but it’s also imperative to engage and retain those who can be, or who already are, key volunteers.

Ostensibly, volunteers are a source for one-time, episodic projects; free labor to tackle those tasks our organizations simply don’t have the time (or resources) to do. However, I've learned from both serving on boards and being a volunteer myself, that volunteers can easily become invaluable assets to an organization. Key volunteers are the most dedicated and skilled of your organization’s volunteers who can essentially take on the duties of staff when resources are limited.

Engaging and retaining these key volunteers is paramount to the success of most organizations. Through proper volunteer cultivation and management, the process can be both painless and productive.

Volunteers love to feel needed. When volunteers feel like their personal contributions are…

I am a firm believer in the necessity of professional development, which made the position of Program Coordinator Senior at the ASU Lodestar Center a great fit for me. Before joining the rest of the team at the ASU Lodestar Center, I worked for seven years as a coordinator of youth ministry, or was what is more often known as a youth minister, youth pastor, or youth leader. Though traditionally not a professional position, there are a number of individuals who enter the field wanting to make this their life-long career — I was one of those people. I regularly attended professional development sessions every year.

As time went by, unbeknownst to myself, I had completed all of the requirements necessary to receive a credential as a coordinator of youth evangelization from the Diocese of Phoenix. I was thrilled and continued on with my professional development. Though this is no longer my paid position, I continue professional development in this field as a volunteer.

One of the ways I am trying to improve professionally is to increase my knowledge and ability regarding Social Media. I began writing this blog post as I sat in the NMI 122 class, Digital Communications: Social Media Tools & Strategies. Do I have a Facebook page? Yes. Do I tweet? Yes (thank you @KaylaMcKinney for helping me…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

A year ago, Johns Hopkins University's Center for Civil Society Studies published a document titled, "The Nonprofit Technology Gap - Myth or Reality." The authors of the publication were curious to find out how accurately the widely held assumption that nonprofits are at a technological disadvantage reflects reality. Their findings were somewhat mixed. They reported that the majority of nonprofits rely quite heavily on technological solutions in their day-to-day operations. However, despite the fact that nonprofits seem to utilize technology more than may be expected, the majority of respondents expressed a discontent with their technological status. An official press release for the study reads:

The survey ... found that most nonprofit managers believe there is still considerable room for improvement. Less than half of respondents noted that they are "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their organization's current level of information technology. ... What is more, a significant proportion of nonprofit organizations remain well behind the curve.

While these findings are undoubtedly true…