New Environment For NGOs & Advocates
In this slide presentation, Lee Rainie of Pew Internet presents ten “fresh realities” of the digital age that NGOs (and others) must contend with to succeed in persuading others.
What Rainie says, much of it related to the explosion of social media and mobile communications, applies to all messaging and communications, which makes these observations pertinent to fundraisers, and especially those in advocacy groups.
Some key thoughts:
- With hugely expanded networking capacities, there are many more — and new — civic actors, many operating independently.
- Four messaging opportunities — to traditional ‘paid media’ and ‘earned media’ now add ‘owned media’ (e.g., websites, customer service) and ‘shared media’ (e.g., social sites, YouTube) … all requiring communications strategies.
- Six stages of engagement — observing (Lurkers matter, he says), following, endorsing, contributing, owning, leading.
- Migration of authority away from organizations (like your nonprofit) to — traditional experts with new platforms (e.g., blogs), amateur experts who are avid contributors (some with tribes), new algorithmic authorities (e.g., Google, Bing).
- Different ‘attention zones’ — continuous partial attention to media streams, immersion in ‘deep dives’, info-snacking in free moments.
- All organizations under more scrutiny, where trust depends upon transparency — surveillance (powerful watch the ordinary), sousveillance (ordinary watch the powerful), coveillance (peers stalk peers).
- Age of big data is upon us, giving new power to analytics.
This is a powerpoint presentation, so you will need to fill in the blanks yourself. But it’s well worth the mental effort … a very stimulating presentation.
Lee Rainie, you deserve a raise!
Tom
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