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10 Twitter Tips for Nonprofit Organizations

Newsweek said it best: “Suddenly, all the world is a-Twitter.” Simple and powerful, Twitter is a must for nonprofit organizations. I created and manage a portal to nonprofits on Twitter @nonprofitorgs and based on my experience using site, I have crafted ten of my favorite Twitter Tips for beginners:

1. Authenticity before marketing. Have personality. Build community.
Those nonprofits who are most successful at utilizing social networking Web sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace know from trial, error, and experience that a “marketing and development approach” on social networking sites does not work. Simply put, it comes across as lame. Traditional marketing and development content is perfectly fine for your Web site and e-mail newsletters, but Web 2.0 is much more about having personality, inspiring conversation, and building online community. Nowhere is this more true than on Twitter. Relax, experiment, let go a bit… find your voice. Be authentic.

2. Be nice. Be thankful. Reply and Retweet!
Twitter functions much like Karma. The nicer you are to people in the Twitterverse, they nicer they are to you in return. The more you ReTweet (RT) others, the more they will RT your Tweets in return. And whether it’s Twitter, MySpace, Facebook or YouTube, if someone does something nice for you in the public commons of Web 2.0, it is always a good practice to send them a message of “Thanks… much appreciated!”. Kindness and appreciation will make you stand out from the others and makes an excellent impression.

3. Follow everyone who follows you.
This is a hard one for a lot of nonprofits. They want to keep their “Home” view clutter free and controlled and only follow a select few. Honestly, they only want to follow those whose Tweets that they are really interested in reading. But I say this often… “This time it is not about you, it is about them.” Web 1.0 communications is all about us and our messaging i.e, your Web site and e-mail newsletter. Web 2.0 is all about your supporters and their messaging. It’s better to create a personal Twitter profile in order to only follow those select few you are interested in reading, but if you are going out on Twitter behind your organization’s logo a.k.a. avatar, it is a mistake to not follow all your followers in return. Why?

1. Twitter is about conversation. You can’t have a conversation on Twitter if you are not following your followers. It is a one-sided relationship.
2. They can’t message you on Twitter if you are not following them.
3. It’s a snub. Let’s face it… people on Twitter want to be followed. That’s what the site is about! How can you build community on Twitter if you won’t even participate with your followers?

Have a look around Twitter… you will see the most successful, ReTweeted nonprofits follow everyone who follows them.

4. Use “Favorites” to organize the chaos and feature your most important Tweets!
So, if you are going to follow everyone who follows your organization (which is hopefully thousands of people) then “favorite” Tweets by those who you are most interested in reading and favorite your most important Tweets. The favorites option on Twitter is a simple, excellent tool to help you organize the chaos.

5. Don’t tweet about your coffee (unless it is fair trade), the weather, or how tired you are. Provide value to your followers, not chit-chat!
It’s one thing to chit-chat about the weather, your headache, or how you need coffee to wake up in the morning on your personal profile on Twitter, but it’s quite another if you are active on the Twitterverse via your organizational profile. The messages you send reflect upon your organization. Example of what not to Tweet: “Such-and-such Nonprofit got stuck in traffic this morning. Ugh! I need coffee and a vacation… and I think I am getting a headache!” No one likes a whiner and this just makes it sound like Such-and-Such Nonprofit is not a fun place to work. People follow you because they want good content from your organization on subjects relevant to your mission. Make sure your Tweets provide value and are Re-Tweetable.

6. Don’t only Tweet your own content.
Twitter is a news source. Participate in news. Tweet articles or blog posts by your favorite newspapers, bloggers, or other nonprofits (yes… other nonprofits! Find allies, build relationships). If it is a good read or a good resource, it reflects well upon your organization that you Tweeted it. There is also a good chance you might get ReTweeted if the article is deemed timely and worthy by the Twitterverse.

7. Send messages, but not via auto-responders.
There are tools out there that will automatically message your new followers. Don’t use them. It’s Spam. It’s not authentic. It’s not human. It’s lazy marketing. I think this cartoon sums up auto-responders perfectly.

8. Don’t worry about those that “unfollow” you.
It’s easy to feel slighted when someone stops following you. What did I say? Did I do something wrong? Let it go. Who knows why they followed you in the first place. Give it no more than 3 seconds thought and then move on.

9. Limit your Tweets to 5 per day, and no more than 6!
I have been polling on Twitter and the Twitterverse has revealed that less is more when it comes to Tweeting. See poll results.

10. Twitter is what you make of it. You get out of Twitter what you put into it. This is the same of all Web 2.0 social networking sites.
Twitter is a fun, valuable tool that can drive significant traffic to your Web site (start watching your Web site referral logs!) and help build and strengthen your brand in the online world of Web 2.0, but just like Facebook and MySpace, Twitter requires time and energy to produce results. You get out of it what you put into it. If you do one Tweet a week, you will get the results of one Tweet. But if you Tweet 4 times daily Monday through Friday… you will get the results of 20 Tweets weekly.

Again, it’s about community building around your mission and programs. Just having profile on Twitter (or MySpace, or Facebook) does not magically produce any results. You have to work these profiles. Find the person on your staff who loves Web 2.0 and enjoys working the sites and/or find a marketing/pr intern from your local university that needs to do a senior project! If they are getting college credit, then you know they have to stay around for at least a semester.

Technorati Tags: Authenticity, Clutter, Development Approach, E Mail, Facebook, Kindness, Mail Newsletters, Message Of Thanks, Networking Web Sites, Newsweek, Nonprofit Organizations, Personality, Reply, Rt, Social Networking Sites, Traditional Marketing, Trial Error, Tweets, Twitter, Web Mail, Youtube

California Democratic Party Convention 2009

Technorati Tags: California Democratic Party, California Democratic Party Convention, Congressmember Doris Matsui, Congressmember Xavier Becerra, CTA President David Sanchez, Democratic Party Convention, Flickr, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, State Attorney General Jerry Brown, State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Superintendent of public Inst. Jack O’Connell, US Labour Secretary Hilda Solis, Us Senator Barbra Boxe

Basic Principles of the Mondragon Cooperatives of Spain

This summary consists of both direct quotes (in “”) and our summary of the Mondragon text.

I. OPEN ADMISSION

The Cooperatives do not discriminate on the basic of religious, political, ethnic, or sex when it comes to becoming a member of the Cooperative.

II. DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION

All authority is vested in the “general assembly,” which consists of all the worker owners of the enterprise, one person one vote. The general assembly elects the “Governing Council”, which would be like the Board of Directors, which appoints (and removes) the organization’s management..

III. SOVEREIGNTY OF LABOR

“In the MCC Co-operatives it is understood that Labor is the main factor for transforming nature, society and human beings themselves. As a result, Labor is granted full sovereignty in the organization of the co-operative enterprise, the wealth created is distributed in terms of the labor provided and there is a firm commitment to the creation of new jobs. As far as the wealth generated by the Co-operative is concerned, this is distributed among the members in proportion to their labor and not on the basis of their holding in Share Capital. The pay policy of MCC’s co-operatives takes its inspiration from principles of Solidarity, which are materialized in sufficient remuneration for labor on the basis of solidarity.”

Worker owners receive competitive and just salaries and dividends based on the profitability of the co-op.

IV. INSTRUMENTAL AND SUBORDINATE NATURE OF CAPITAL

Generally, a corporation sells shares of ownership and management to raise capital, and then hires labor. The Mondragon Cooperatives do not sell shares in order to raise capital. Here, the workers own the enterprise and the management and rent the capital.

V. PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENT

“This Principle implies the progressive development of self-management and, consequently, of the participation of the members in business management. This requires: (1) The development of adequate mechanisms and channels for participation. (2) Transparent information with respect to the performance of the basic management variables of the Co-operative. (3) The use of methods of consultation and negotiation with the worker-members and their social representatives in those economic, organizational and labor decisions which affect them. (4) The systematic application of social and professional training plans.

(5) The establishment of internal promotion as a basic means of covering positions with greater professional responsibility.”

VI. PAYMENT SOLIDARITY

” The Mondragón Co-operative Experience declares sufficient payment based on solidarity to be a basic principle of its management. Solidarity is manifest both internally and externally, as well as at the Corporate level.”

VII. INTERCOOPERATION

The Cooperatives cooperate with each other, with other cooperatives in the area, and with national and international cooperative organizations.

VIII. SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

The Cooperatives acknowledge a duty to contribute to the common good: (1) by reinvesting a high proportion of their profits, including regular investments in community funds for job creation; (2) 10% of the net profit of the Cooperatives is donated to charitable organizations; (3) taking care of their social security, unemployment, and health insurance requirements (through a cooperative owner by the other cooperatives; and (4) being active in their community.

IX. UNIVERSALITY

“The Mondragón Co-operative Experience, as an expression of its universal vocation, proclaims its solidarity with all those who work for economic democracy in the sphere of the Social Economy and supports the objectives of Peace, Justice and Development, characteristic of the International Co-operative Movement. Likewise, through OTALORA, which is our Business and Co-operative Training Centre, we try and disseminate co-operative culture on the basis of our own social-economic experience, developed over the last 40 years.”

X. EDUCATION

“Education and Training have played a decisive role in the creation and development of the Mondragón Co-operative Movement. Its founder and main driving force, the priest José María Arizmendiarrieta, was always quite clear that ‘education, understanding as such the complex of ideas and concepts adopted by a man, is the key to the development and progress of a people’. Insisting on this idea, Father Arizmendiarrieta liked to repeat ‘that education is the natural and indispensable cornerstone for the promotion of a new humane and just social order’ and that ‘knowledge has to be socialised to democratise power’.

“Therefore, on the basis of this approach, the first thing he did when he came to Mondragón was to create the Polytechnic School in 1943 (today Mondragón Eskola Politeknikoa), which during all these years has been the main source of managers and skilled workers for our co-operatives.”

Technorati Tags: Co Operatives, Democratic Organization, Dividends, Firm Commitment, General Assembly, Governing Council, Human Beings, Mcc, Mecha, Mondragon Cooperatives, Nature Society, New Jobs, Open Admission, Participatory Management, Principles Of Solidarity, Progressive Development, Remuneration, Self Management, Share Capital, Sovereignty

Can coops go global? About Mondragón Cooperatives

The Mondragón Corporation is a group of manufacturing, financial and retail companies based in the Basque Country and extended over the rest of Spain and abroad. It is one of the world’s largest worker cooperatives and one important example of workers’ self-management.

Organization
The sovereign body is the 650-member Co-operative Congress, its delegates elected from across the individual co-operatives. The annual general assembly elects a governing council which has day-to-day management responsibility and appoints senior staff. For each individual business, there is also a workplace council, the elected President of which assists the manager with the running of the business on behalf of the workers.

Current developments
In the 1980s, the various companies responded to pressures of globalisation by joining together as the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation. The MCC is now the Basque Country’s largest corporation, the seventh largest in Spain. It is considered the world’s largest worker co-operative. In 2006 the MCC contributed 3.8% towards the total GDP of the Basque Country.

Education has always been key to MCC and its development, hence the conversion of the old school into the University of Mondragón in the 1990s, a private university to promote further development. Some 4,000 students attend the university campuses in Oñati , Eskoriatza and Mondragón.

MCC now constitutes over 150 companies, with important manufacturing and engineering interests, as well as retail, financial and educational arms. Its supermarket arm, Eroski, is the largest Spanish-owned retail food chain and the third largest retail group in Spain.

The Basque government and the tax authorities of the Basque provinces have special measures to help co-operatives. The Deba county around Mondragón has kept a very high employment rate even during Basque industrial crisis.

Mission
MONDRAGON’s mission combines the basic objectives of a business organisation competing in international markets with the use of democratic methods in its organisation and with special emphasis on job creation, the promotion of its workers in human and professional terms and a commitment to the development of its social environment.

MONDRAGON’s mission combines the basic objectives of a business organisation competing in international markets with the use of democratic methods in its organisation and with special emphasis on job creation, the promotion of its workers in human and professional terms and a commitment to the development of its social environment.

Listen to video presentation about Mondragón here:
www.socialprofitnews.org

Can coops go global? Mondragon is trying. (Mondragon cooperatives in Spain’s Basque region)(includes related articles on Italian and Mondragon cooperatives)

Technorati Tags: Basque Country, Basque Government, Basque Provinces, Business Organisation, Cooperative Corporation, Coops, Current Developments, Day Management, Economic crisis, Employment Rate, Industrial Crisis, Management Organization, Management Responsibility, Private University, Retail Companies, Retail Food, Retail Group, Self Management, Sovereign Body, Tax Authorities, the humanity at work, University Campuses, Worker Cooperatives, World economy

Financial Crisis Wakes Up America to Action – Making Money Democratic Way

New America – New Currency.

The Detroit News.

Nation’s economic crisis prompts group to jump-start local economy with own bills.

Three Detroit businesses are reviving a Depression-era idea of creating local currency, Detroit Cheers, in an effort to keep money spent in Detroit circulating within the community.

During the Great Depression eight decades ago, confidence in the national economy was so shattered, and people’s ability to earn cash so limited, that thousands of communities created local currencies to save hometown commerce.

Provincial dollars allowed businesses and their customers to exchange goods and services with currency that had regional worth.

A Detroit trio of small-business owners are reviving the idea, following an emerging national trend. The businesses are creating a currency called Detroit Cheers, and more than a dozen city merchants have already agreed to accept it as real money. “The world is just now reeling from economic chaos; in Detroit, that’s how we always roll,” said Jerry Belanger, 49, a backer of the currency, as he watched the initial run of Cheers bills roll off the presses last week.

In Detroit, the jobless rate is 22.2 percent. The median sale price of a home is cheaper than a Chevrolet Aveo. Two of Detroit’s Big Three automakers are surviving on federal loans amid the global recession.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t do business in Detroit — you can. But, man, you have to support one another or you will die,” said Belanger, who owns the Park Bar and Bucharest Grill and the building that houses the Cliff Bells jazz club near the Fox Theatre and Comerica Park.

Detroit Cheers joins an estimated 75 local currency systems that have sprung up recently in the U.S., said Michael Shuman, author of “The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition.”

That includes Traverse City, where more than a 100 businesses and institutions accept “Bay Bucks” as currency.

Local money is a direct response to the national economic crisis, Shuman said.

“The federal government is desperately trying to restore consumer confidence. This is a community doing the same thing, only in miniature. They are trying to pump up local demand and revive their community’s health.”

Legal scholars say local currency is permitted as long as it doesn’t resemble federally issued money.

Belanger’s partners in the Detroit experiment are John Linardos, owner of Motor City Brewing Works, and Tim Tharp, owner of Grand Trunk Pub, formerly Foran’s Irish Pub.

The three are backing the Cheers money — which will come in $3 denominations — with 3,000 U.S. dollars, and they put the federal money in an escrow account.

Those who have agreed to accept the Detroit money include a building and furniture design firm called Dormouse, the Canine to Five dog day care center, a graphics designer, a carpenter, a nonprofit and several restaurants and bars.

And this is just through word-of-mouth: The three Cheers backers have not formally begun to pitch the idea to others, to see just how much it can grow.

The goal is to keep business flowing in their hometown and not have it be ferried off to suburbia or some corporate headquarters in Arkansas or Tokyo.

The business owners intend to give the Detroit currency to businesses and individuals they know will spend it at participating businesses.

If anyone wants to cash in the Cheers bills for U.S. dollars, one of the founders of the Detroit currency will give the person the real thing.

“There’s no question in my mind this has real value,” said Billy West, a co-owner of Dormouse.

With the currency, he said, “I can get a good meal, I can get a beer, I can help another Detroit business. That is money to me. To keep commerce in Detroit, I totally support that goal.”

Traverse City’s Bay Bucks program started four years ago. Today, there’s more than $13,000 worth of the currency circulating in the community, said Stephanie Mills, one of the creators of the program.

Beyond restaurants and bars, a local grocery store accepts the Bay Bucks; so do a bed and breakfast inn, a winery, a physician, an attorney, an accountant and tarot card readers, Mills said.

Among the largest of local currencies is BerkShares, launched three years ago in the rural Berkshires area of southern Massachusetts.

Nearly $2 million worth of local currency is circulating among businesses and private individuals, said Susan Witt, who sits on the board of the BerkShares program.

“It reformed the way many business owners and residents think about their local economy and helped educate the community on why shopping locally matters,” she said.

“The current national economy has only increased the use of BerkShares.”

Jerry Belanger, Tim Tharp and John.

Detroit Cheers joins an estimated 75 local currency systems that have sprung up recently in the U.S.

Technorati Tags: Big Three Automakers, Chevrolet Aveo, City Merchants, Comerica Park, Comerica Park Detroit, Democratic Way, Depression-era, Detroit, Detroit News, Detroit Trio, Economic Chaos, Economic crisis, Exchange Goods, Federal Loans, Fox Theatre, Global Recession, Great Depression, Jerry Belanger, Local Currency Systems, Median Sale Price, Michael Shuman, National Economy, New Currency, New democracy, New economy, Small Business Owners, The Detroit News