Today I've been exposed to two valuable perspectives. First, I invited myself to a session on social networking tools for non-profits and then I attended a session specifically for Executive Directors of "sponsor" agencies. I'll start with that. Apparently some ED's and CEO's are put out that the Corporation for National and Coomunity service doesn't communicate with them (us) more directly and that their Program Directors have too much influence. I have a few thoughts on that. First I want CMCA's Foster Grandparent Director, Ann Gilchrist, to have influence with CNCA as she has all the experience and know-how. Second, she's been forcing me to stay engaged in FGP issues and would LIKE me to be more involved I think. Certainly I see now that I can be more involved in promoting and administering (but I'm not about to get in the way of managing) and will follow up with Ann when I return. Finally, I can't help but make comparisons to Head Start, Workforce Investment, CSBG, etc. They all want to tell us how to run our programs and organizations. Heck, the Head Start Reauthorization tells our BOARD how to operate. All the more reason to seriously and continuously pursue new resources from nongovernmental sources.
My morning session was presented by the Director for Community Affairs in the US for Google, and reps from MySpace, Salesforce.com, and VolunteerMatch. We learned about all kinds of free online services available to non-profits for use in fundraising, volunteer recruitment, administrative functions, etc. Google and Salesforce.com have free fundraising tools for online donations and donor tracking. Google suggests using the internet "cloud" for intranet and local server functions and collaboration tools that allow multiple users to edit a single document (instead of tracking multiple versions of a document as peopoe make revisions). The MySpace rep talked about "viral fundraising" where "friends" enable fundraising through "widgets" on their websites, blogs, and MySpace pages. They all pointed to the fact that 18-25 year olds are particular engaged in community building (or have a desire to do so) and are likely to be comfortable with a variety of online communities. Shouldn't we be giving them the opportunity to connect with us and our clients? Here's the real kicker. The following is an excerpt from Salesforce.com's annual report about the Family Service Agency of San Francisco's use of their tools, "one of the largest benefits has been for the agency's caseworkers who work directly with clients. Previously, caseworkers spent nearly 50 percent of their time on paperwork and reporting. Now, using Salesforce, they can access client records remotely, make case notes more quickly, and track client progress over time. The result of lessening the administrative burdens has allowed caseworkers to increase the time they spend with clients by more than 30 percent." Sounds like everything our funders' short sighted, controlled, data management systems haven't been able to deliver on.
