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Non-Profits
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Seraphim has more than 20 years of experience serving non-profit and human service agencies of all kinds, around the world. We know that producing a media communications element, such as a video or integrated website can be a stressful experience. We're here to help you be prepared, ask all the right questions, partner with you to create the perfect message, and walk with you as you send that message out to the world. This is what we do.
Please view samples of our work on behalf of not-for-profit and human services organizations, (click here) and then dive into the rich archive of media project planning resources written just for you (click here). Contact Kristin Wiersma for a free consultation to assess your needs.
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or 651.645.9173 +14.
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CornerHouse hears the voices of approximately 500 children each year when conducting forensic interviews and medical examinations of children who have reported sexual abuse, witnessed violent crime or who may have been otherwise victimized. CornerHouse from Seraphim on Vimeo. |
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Non-Profits -
Planning Resources: Non-Profit
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Customers now demand:
• Transparency: does the organization’s messaging contain open and honest dialog with those important to your success?
• Relevance: is your current information available where people get it? Silos of common interest will aggregate online.
• Immediacy: decision makers digest info quickly, is your messaging timely?
Communication has fundamentally changed. Traditional communication was:
• Controlled
• Organized
• On-message
• One-way
Social Media revolution made communication:
• Interactive
• Organic
• Complex
• Personalized and personable
• Democratized
Why Social Media matters
• Social Media has evolved; now it’s also about business
• Mass conversations lead to influence
• Competitors are populating multiple Social Media platforms and guiding conversation
• Dialogue will continue with or without your participation
• Opportunity to connect directly to target audience and form relationships
• Increase your online presence
How Social Media can work for you:
• Raise brand awareness
• Establish relationships with prospects and constituents
• Connect to “centers of influence”
• Participate in dialog in your space
• Uncover opportunities to participate and lead
• Generate more positive dialog about company
• More leads and web traffic
• Measurable reach with marketing
Levels of Involvement
1. Monitor dialogue
• See what people are saying about you, competitors, industry
• Look for opportunities
• Utilize web tools
2. Participate in conversation
• Provide relevant info to discussion
• Read and comment on other blogs
• Reach out to influencers
3. Lead the discussion
• Give people reason to talk
• Make it easy for people to talk (applications and comments)
• Encourage and promote conversation
• Be a thought leader (blogs, communities)
Examples of Social Media:
Blogs are:
• Online interactive counsel and idea sharing
• Contain personal or professional news
• Readers comment
• Readers subscribe to updates
• Links to other Social Media
Blog uses:
• Platform for communicating news
• Establish expertise in field
• Demonstrating through leadership
• Reveal organization’s human face
LinkedIn is:
• Social networking for professionals
• Online resume
• Platform to showcase thought leadership
• Facilitate connections with other professionals
LinkedIn uses:
• Interactive bio to share with media
• Answer business questions posed by others in the field
• Become an expert via platform
• Monitor questions/discussions for emerging trends/issues
Facebook is:
• Over 120 million active users
• 4th most trafficked site and SM site
• Top social search engine/more than 55000 networks
• Fastest growing demographic: 25+
Facebook Uses:
• Create brand, product or though leadership page
• Network with people who share common interests
• Post news
• Respond to consumer opinions/ideas
• Ask questions
• Host surveys
Twitter is:
• Micro-blogging platform
• Short text messages (140 characters or less)
• Messages sent via computer or mobile phone
• One to one or one to many communication
• Subscription-based (“followers”)
Twitter Uses:
• Live coverage of events
• Announcements
• Crisis management
• Calls to action
• Relationship development/network
RSS is:
• “Really Simple Syndication”
• Fast way to get web content
• Subscribe to news updates or feeds
• Receive all site updates in a single place
• Offer news updates from your site
• Email client/browser based news reader
RSS Uses: - Tracking news efficiently and conveniently
- Offering custom news feeds to stakeholders
What to Measure: - Reach (website visits, views, volume of reviews and comments, incoming links)
- Action and Insight (lead generation, new business, customer satisfaction/loyalty, marketing efficiency)
- Engagement (sentiments of reviews and comments, brand affinity, commenter authority, time spent, favorites, fans, friends, viral forwards, number of downloads)
Now What?
- What are your organization’s goals for Social Media? Lead generation, raise awareness, establish market/thought leadership?
- Who are my target audiences?
- What mediums do they frequent?
- What kinds of info do they seed?
- How much time can I devote?
- Daily, weekly, monthly?
- What is my desired level of involvement? Monitoring? Participating? Leading?
Based in material developed by Jason Swartz; Padilla, Spears and Beardsley, 2009. Used by permission.
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1. Identify Audiences
a. Who are they?
b. What are they looking for?
c. What do they expect?
d. Where do they go from there?
2. Identify Outcomes
a. Generate donor leads?
b. Provide information/education?
c. Email/call/make appointment?
d. Other?
3. Site Priorities
a. Manageability over time
b. Content or functionality growth
c. Design (high or low)
d. Function (high or low)
e. Affordability
4. Design & Branding
a. How to express brand through design
b. How to promote brand through design
c. How to protect/support brand through design
5. Content Management
a. Content vs. design: the age-old battle
b. Distributed management
c. “WYSIWYG” editing
d. Novelty and freshness
e. “Reference library”: resources
f. Solutions
6. Next Steps
a. Domain registration solution
b. Web/email hosting solution
c. Content management solution
d. Design solution
e. Function solution |
Strategy is the foundation of any web project’s success. This can include visioning, market research, mission analysis and audience profiling. Business plans, project goal and objective outlines, project concept models and other instruments can assist in this process. This is the most critical first step. Strategy involves raising and answering key questions about intentions and factors of the project. These typically fall into five categories.
Why?
• What is the purpose of the site?
• What are the site’s objectives?
• What are its goals?
• How will you know if the site is successful?
• Why is the web the appropriate medium choice for this project?
Who?
• Who is the intended audience?
• What do we know about them (demographics, age, etc.)?
• What can we assume about their level of technology?
• Why would they be coming to this site?
• What would they be doing or looking for on the site?
What?
• What is to be created? A brochure site, portal, intranet, extranet?
• Is this site largely informational, entertaining, interactive, functional?
• What is the project’s scope? What is in it, and what is not?
When?
• What is an approximate project time frame?
• How will this project be phased?
• What are the timelines for each stage or phase?
• What is an approximate launch date?
• What are our expectations around updating it?
How?
• Is there an internal or external developer and/or designer?
• Are there considerations for added functionality?
• Are there considerations for hosting solutions?
• How will testing and development be hosted and managed?
• Who will be responsible (architecture, interface, project management)?
For complex agencies and institutions, establishing priorities for messaging on the web are not always so simple. A bakery needs to only communicate what it sells, where it is, and when it’s open. Communicating a nuanced mission message to a wide range of audiences, each of which expects something different; the challenges for human services agencies, educational institutions and other non-profits are very real. So how do you find the right balance? Below are three different approaches to help you shape your web presence to maximum effect.
The Need/Solution Approach:
• Identify purposes and goals for meeting organizational needs: In order to fulfill our mission, the website must…”
• Identify purposes and goals for meeting “visitor” needs: “In order to serve all types of visitors, the website must…”
• Identify purposes and goals for meeting customer needs: “In order to serve customers, the website must…”
• Identify purposes and goals for meeting staff needs: “In order to empower staff, the website must…”
• Identify purposes and goals for meeting other needs: “In order to fulfill other priorities, the website must…”
The Presence/Perception Approach:
• Identify purposes and goals for the casual visitor: “In order to acquaint an unfamiliar visitor…”
• Identify purposes and goals for the knowledgeable visitor: “In order to maximize its usefulness to a knowledgeable visitor…”
• Identify purposes and goals for the affiliated visitor: “In order to encourage the loyalties of an affiliated visitor…”
• Identify purposes and goals for the non-affiliated visitor: “In order to avoid alienating or confusing a non-affiliated visitor…”
The Priority/Tension Approach:
• Identify high-priority need/solution purposes: “If nothing else, the website must…”
• Identify challenges to those purposes: “Achieving those purposes will be made very difficult by…”
• Identify high-priority presence/perception purposes: “If no one else, the web site must address…”
• Identify challenges to those purposes: “Achieving those purposes will be made very difficult by…”
Sorting out these priorities may still be difficult, but at least you now know how to orient your web message to the people who really need it.
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Non-Profit
