I get asked a lot if nonprofits are using social media effectively. After taking a look at the Nonprofit Times list of 100 top nonprofits based on revenue, the craigconnects team decided to look at who was proactively and effectively utilizing social media in August and September of 2011. Do the highest revenue nonprofits use social media the most effectively? How are people responding and interacting? The deal is with social media use on the rise, we decided to check this out and created an infographic to show the results.

A few cool things we figured out:

•92% of the top 50 nonprofits have at least 1 social media presence on their homepage.
•The most followers that an organization has on Twitter is 840,653 (PBS)…
•…but on the other hand, the organization following the most people is following 200,522 (The American Cancer Society)!
•The American Red Cross was the first organization on the list to create a Twitter account.
•Food for the Poor is the most talkative organization on Facebook, and has posted 220 posts over the course of 2 months.
•The organization with the highest revenue, the YMCA, only posted 19 times to Facebook in 2 months, but has over 24,000 Fans.

Is it really first come, first serve? It took some organizations no time at all to jump on the social media bandwagon, as early as 2007, others were a little bit behind. So the question is, does that impact the number of followers they have? The slogan, quality over quantity seems rather fitting. For example, PBS has the most followers on Twitter but is in the bottom quarter bracket on the list of net income.

So you have friends, and you have followers. But what factors determine how often an organization’s Facebook post will generate a like or a comment? Can money buy engaged friends on social networks? We took a look at the average amount of responses (combined likes and comments) each organization was getting per post, and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital was definitely in the lead, yet ranked 29 on the revenue list.

For the record, we checked out their Twitter Grader score, which provided us with all the possible information we could need about their Twitter account. We discovered how many times they tweeted over the course of 2 months and took look at their Facebook standing: we utilized AllFacebookStats.com to capture the number of Facebook fans the nonprofit had, how many times they had posted over the course of 2 months (August 2011-September 2011), and the likes and comments they had received on their posts over that time period. It was these metrics that led us to determine just how efficiently the top 50 nonprofits utilize social media, and whether income actually has an effect.

The bottom line is that revenue does not increase a nonprofit’s visibility and interactions in the social media world. Some of the most social media savvy organizations are in the bottom quarter bracket in terms of revenue, yet they are clearly active on social media. Social media is about fostering conversations and interactions. These are the keys to keeping up in the fast-paced arena of social networks.

*Note this blog post was updated October 28, 2011 to reflect that the nonprofits listed were ranked by revenue not net income. The data was not changed by this update.

I’m a big fan of DonorsChoose.org, helping teachers get the job done. A teacher can post a project there, and anyone can help out by giving a few dollars until the project gets funded. A project could be as simple as getting enough pens and paper to last the school year, which is a real problem in many schools. There’re a lot of underfunded school districts out there, and it’s real unfair for teachers to fund stuff from their own (inadequate) salaries.

Some schools primarily serve the families of active duty troops, so this really sucks.

That’s why I picked up an idea of Stephen Colbert’s wherein I matched funds with people who would also help teachers helping the kids of military families. Here’s some of the results:

• 19,965 kids helped out
• 104 projects
• 476 other people contributed an average of $54
• classrooms in 28 states
• 67% of project went to “high poverty” schools

I guess that’s a good start, and I should do more…

My general giving page is here!

Turns out, the folks in Washington have been increasingly working with the private sector to run things more effectively, providing better return for the taxpayer dollar. We don’t hear about this much, but I just noticed Designing for Democracy.

The deal is that they’re looking for an effective engagement tool for public workers to engage expert citizens in stuff that matters.

This would be serious engagement with citizens, where government workers would take all suggestions and comments seriously, and where there would be actual results.  The public would vote good stuff up, hopefully dealing with trolls that way.

This effort goes the extra step, getting questions to people in the online communities where they spend their time.  Instead of having people visit government sites, people visit Facebook or LinkedIn or maybe an online support group for cancer sufferers.

Consider a government policymaker wants people to invest in the green economy or promote use of solar energy, and so on. Right now there’s no way to find people with expertise in and passion for areas like that. “It’s not just about connecting up to people with 3 PhDs but about making sure that people who care about a given topic know about the chance to participate.”

You can get directly engaged:

To provide feedback by January 7, 2011, please go to http://expertnet.wikispaces.com where you will find a draft description of ExpertNet.  (ExpertNet is a working title.  You’ll find a page to suggest a better name.)

[My dad died from this.]

If you, or someone you know, smokes, now is a good opportunity to think about quitting. The folks at Legacy have developed www.BecomeAnEx.org to help. No matter what age you are, quitting smoking is one of the most important lifestyle changes a person can make to improve and extend their life.  It’s never too late.

www.BecomeAnEX.org gives smokers the resources and methods that have been proven to
increase smokers’ chances of quitting successfully. And, it’s all free.

Judge for yourself, it’s linked to by the honest material here.

The judge says “craigslist leaves this field with something less than total victory.” Not total victory, just a little less.

The judge kinda split the baby, but said we acted in good faith. We’ll keep fighting the good fight in California.

Here’s the deal. As old time craigslisters know, I’m a hard-wired nerd with symptoms I’m told border on Asperger’s Syndrome. That means I’m too trusting, often socially inept, have difficulty shifting focus, and frequently am unsure what to do in situations others handle easily. And I don’t have a normal person’s ability to sense when someone might be looking to take advantage of these shortcomings.

Amber approached me after an event where I had just spoken about stuff like getting real support for our troops and veterans — a cause I care about and support whenever I can. She said because “I’m the Craig in craigslist,” she expected me to have all the answers on the spot about anything to do with the company. Well, I don’t. Jim Buckmaster, our CEO, has been running craigslist for the last 10 years. I am a customer service rep, and I still love being connected to our users and trying to help people. But I have no role in managing the company’s operations because basically (a) I suck as a manager, and (b) while overall company direction matters to me as founder and a board director,  the deal was to hire good, trustworthy people and then get outta the way.

If Amber had done her homework, she would have known ambushing me with questions I am not qualified to answer, or even the right person to ask, would not get CNN’s viewers the accurate information they deserve.

So I should have said, “Hey, thanks, but Jim’s the guy your viewers should hear from.” Instead, I froze and looked clueless, and, worse than that, uncaring. Clueless I definitely am sometimes, but not uncaring. Neither is craigslist and neither is Jim. I know our folks have worked very hard to identify and do the right thing with legitimate versus illegitimate adult service ads. From what I can tell that’s a lot more difficult to do perfectly than is being portrayed by CNN and other media. I know we’re also reaching out to lots of concerned groups and experts for help on these issues, which sure makes sense to me.

Meanwhile, Amber, CNN, and others are depicting Jim and I as profiteers oblivious to the welfare of women and children. Anyone that’s followed us over all these years knows that’s not at all what we’re about. In reality, we’re both pretty obsessed with trying to make the world a better place, and neither have much interest in possessions or fancy lifestyles. Me, I’ll stick to my causes, like doing right by our veterans, keeping the faith on net neutrality, and working toward better governance. And hopefully be a little more perceptive about the true intent of reporters I talk to.

Wish me luck, I’ll need it.

Hey, check out the details here, but here’s the gist:

As a practical example of eBay’s “advanced filtering” and “family friendly” classifieds, we’ve been shown some ads currently live on eBay’s Loquo.com classifieds site, which features thousands of paid ads offering various sexual acts in exchange for money (NSFW). The highly explicit photographs included in the following example ads depict young Asian females engaged in unprotected sex, along with rates and a listing of specific sex acts (in Spanish) on offer.

Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman was fully aware of this business during her tenure at eBay.

Okay, the deal is that the Obama Administration is serious about making government work, providing good return for taxpayer dollars, and providing good customer service.

Today, they’re providing additional useful tools for the USA.gov site.

The following might be the big part, they’re serious:

This change is part of the Administration’s commitment to making government more open and responsive to the wants and needs of the public.

As part of this effort, OMB is working to close the significant IT gap that has developed over the past decade and a half between the public and private sectors, contributing to the productivity divide between the two.

This includes:

• An app for quick access to nutrition information for over 1,000 foods;
• An app that provides around-the-clock access to frequently-requested airline information from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) including wait times at airport security lines;
• An app for checking the UV Index and air quality ratings from anywhere in the world;
• And an app that provides instant information on consumer safety recalls of toys, food, and more.

The apps currently available on USA.gov are free and most are compatible with iPhone, Blackberry, and Android devices.