When you hear about the work of World Vision or look at the string of personalities connected to the One Campaign it does not take very long to feel like the little guy. However, there are more nonprofits with 3 or less development staff than organizations with 20 or more development staff. I’ve worked in organizations that are small and organizations that are large, and they each have their benefit.
If you work for a small nonprofit, I have some good news for you: social media allows you to compete with a larger nonprofit. If you have a decent website and are willing to spend a little bit of time communicating with your community online, you can leave just as large a mark in the online world as the big guy. In fact, because social media is so new, right now you can probably make a bigger mark.
Epic Change – who I featured a number of months back – has only one development staff and has been extremely successful in raising money using Twitter, blogging, and their online community. Beth Kanter with The Sharing Foundation has raised thousands of dollars as a volunteer board member using social media.
I’m excited about what social media can mean for your organization and, in the coming weeks, am going to spend a little more time talking with you about its advantages.
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Jason – thanks so much for the shoutout
I think we may be even smaller – unless you include “volunteers” under the heading “staff” – Epic Change has no paid employees yet, myself included. We’ll get there, I’m convinced, and we’ve definitely encountered much success already – most, as you’ve mentioned, through our use of social media.
I think part of our success has actually been due to our size; small organizations like Epic Change can be agile, take risks, and be totally authentic and transparent – because there’s just no bureaucracy to stand in the way.