Straight from the Quiver

Be Good Be Social returns next week with an astounding lineup of speakers - will you be part of it?

I was lucky enough to be involved in Be Good Be Social's Social Media for Social Good event a couple of weeks ago. It was great to be involved as always and I enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm of people to actively join the conversation (in the room and on the livestream).

Be Good Be Social on 17th May will be the 4th Scottish event. I spoke at the very first one and I'll always hold that moment dear, it provided me with the confidence to get involved in discussions I previously felt I had no right to enter. It made me dispel the dreaded Guru word once and for all, realising that there are no overall experts.

Be Good Be Social has created a collaborative culture in Scotland's 3rd sector. It is a constant source of inspiration for fundraisers, comms folk and others across sector. This is all down to Ross McCulloch and he has done it again with an exciting line up including John Popham and Louise Macdonald.

In this harsh economic climate we've all got to be frugal and creative, reaching out and building relationships with your peers is not a nice thing to do. You simply must be part of a wider network.

I implore you all to get involved on the night with the #BeGoodBeSocial hashtag on Twitter and keep your eyes peeled for updates on www.begoodbesocial.org.uk in the build up to 17th May. The event went international this year in Toronto too, the next stop could be your town.

For those of you remotely interested you can see my slides and the video of my Facebook chat from Social Media for Social Good below

Any charity would be lucky to have somebody like Marc Bowker of Quarriers

Here are the top ten reasons why Quarriers are lucky to have Marc Bowker in their team:

1. He does digital - Marc is adept at building conversations online, he has an engaging and natural approach. Your charity will benefit from this enormously
2. He does offline - he does print - including external and internal promotional materials. Whatever you think about online vs offline, print still has a place and so do folk who do it well.
3. He does pictures - whether it is through One Big Picture or just for kicks, Marc is a talented photographer. What a fantastic bonus for any charity
4. He is a family man - Marc has finished falling out of Stringfellows at 4am yonks ago, he is a dedicated and loving family man with a wife and two young lads
5. He is a good friend - he will always go the extra mile for his friends and is as loyal as they come. That is never a bad thing to have on your team!
6. He is honest - Marc supports Liverpool FC and actually tells people about it, therefore you can rely on him to be truthful about anything.
7. He is a networker (*shudder*) - in the best sense of the word, Marc is a networker. He plays a key role on the sounding board for Be Good Be Social. This places him at the forefront of the future of the Scottish third sector.
8. He innovates - Marc has been pivotal in developing the new Quarriers website, QR Codes at Quarriers 140 and their upcoming crowdfunding site. 
9. He embraces change - technology is forever changing how charities do things. Marc never hides from that and gets stuck in to developing himself for new challenges.
10. He is really really tall - got some lightbulbs that need screwing in? He'll do that too!

Today, still wanted by a host of top charities (to revamp their communications), he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him (you can on marcbowker@gmail.com), maybe you can hire... Marc Bowker.

I spoke on Facebook Hints and Tips this morning at the Facebook in Scotland conference. I decided to pitch at entry level, which was a good job as much of the content seemed a bit too advanced for many of the user levels attending.

You can view the presentation here:

Facebook pages can be seen as a bit of minefield when you're new to them. However, there are very simple things you can do to make it much easier for your charity or organisation when setting up a presence on ol' Facey B.

• First of all - are your supporters using Facebook? It might seem obvious, but don't go to the bother of setting up a Facebook page only to find that there isn't an audience for you there;

• Ask your supporters what they might like to see from your Facebook page - don't just use your page as an outpost for website content. Be creative - even if resources are limited there is plenty you can do. For example, start discussions with your Facebook fans over relevant topics and get to know your supporters. Check out OneKind's Facebook below:

• Don't feel under pressure to post your own content for the sake of it - Yes, original thought is fantastic, but you can share relevant content from other sources too. This could even represent the opportunity to build relationships with other organisations, bloggers or individuals;

• Mix up your content - don't just share news from your organisation. Introduce a human element to proceedings, sharing pictures, video and blogs from fundraising events, supporters or just happenings around the office. This can make people feel like they are part of the organisation, part of a real movement. Check out one of OneKind's lovely office dogs, Esme, below:

• Use Facebook Insights to gain an impression of who is engaging with you and whether the direction you're taking with your page is working. You can link Facebook Insights upto your website now with a simple bit of code, providing an idea of referral traffic between the two. 

These are all simple actions, which could help the new NFP Facebook user find their feet. It is vital that you find your own voice and be natural in your approach, at the very least people will know your doing your best to build an engaging discussion for them to join.

Just a short message. It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I announce I will be leaving OneKind this Friday. I'd like to thank our fantastic supporters for helping me build a strong movement, which can have a real say on animal welfare issues going forward. We've had some great times together with They're Here, #savethehogs and other campaigns. I wish the organisation every success in the future.

I have been given the opportunity to join SCIAF in Glasgow as Online Marketing Officer. This will not only represent a great opportunity to develop an online presence for a stellar third sector brand, but it will allow me to have a shorter commute when my daughter arrives in August. I look forward to the future with relish and genuine excitement.

Thanks for everything and please stay in touch

We all need a bit of money, right? We have to be able to get by in life and sadly money is required. However, for most of us, money is not what makes our life good. Oxfam Scotland have developed an exciting new tool to measure what is important to people and what enables them to live a good life. The HumanKind Index is aimed at identifying what is really valuable to the people of Scotland. You can check out the tool here.

I used the tool and you can see my results. The five factors that matter the most to me are Home Life, Relationships and Social Connections, Friends, Mental Health and Physical Health. The relationships here are of particular importance, as I feel that if I have my family, my friends and a stable home life then I can make the most of anything life throws at me.

I have the most beautiful, loving family and friends possible. I would walk over hot coals for every last one of them and that makes me happy. It drives me forward and gets me out of my bed everyday, not money or material objects.

My physical and mental health are of high value to me too. I suffered from depression as a teenager and I could never undervalue the ability to work through problems in my head. I'd never want to return to a point where I feel I cannot cope with life and I know I never will. Furthermore, given the physical pain I have been through with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, being healthy is vital - even more so now that my daughter is on her way.

I'm not saying the wider environment is not important to me, it just falls further down the line than my relationships and my health. Is this selfish? Yeah...I guess it is a bit. However, no matter what happens elsewhere, I know I have solid foundations and by default so does my daughter.

Go on....check out the HumanKind Index and tell people what matters to you.

Check out this event at The Scottish Parliament on 10th June. Oxfam are giving YOU the chance to take part in a conversation cafe style debate about what should be featured in their new HumanKind Index and what shouldn't. Visit www.oxfam.org.uk/humankindindex for more info on the Humankind Index in the meantime.

I do not see myself as any sort of expert in social media. I think given the infancy of many social media platforms and the approaches to utilising them, there exist very few genuine experts (maybe none at all), just a lot of very savvy and smart people with good ideas. However, having dealt with social media strategy in my day job and helped a few other charities/businesses with their approach I felt I would share a checklist I like to use:

• Jumpers for goalposts - set your goals. Do they match what your management team want from social media? Ensure you seek to iron out any creases at any early stage, as you don't want squabbles undermining your work at a later stage;

• The audience - what do they want to see your organisation talking about in social media? What do they need from you? What will encourage them to share and get involved in a conversation? Will your actions encourage offline actions or fundraising?

• Your stakeholders - whether it is your board, your offline marketing bods, your supporters or you CEO - a lot of people will have opinions and ideas about your social media strategy. This is fine, embrace it. Turn all these people into real advocates for you, by helping them understand when, why and how you are doing things in the online space;

• Pace yourself - dive in to an extent, experiential learning is definitely the best way for my money. However, ensure that there is a goal tied to your actions. Why have you taken a certain action? What opportunities does a certain platform represent for your organisation?

• Share and share alike - put yourself out there and make connections with plenty of peers. I learn every day from a really good network on social media platforms, I will not name drop as the list is endless (you know who you are). Don't be a passenger though, social media is all about discussion for me and it is boring if we always agree. Put some effort in and reap the rewards, while adding a little value yourself (hopefully);

• Monitor - going back to your goals, think about what you wanted to gain from your online work. What is the best way to measure that? How can value be demonstrated? There are so many ways to view success - it could be increased website traffic, greater follower numbers or online donations going through the roof. Personally, for me everything comes back to engagement. I want to see conversations happening and I definitely want to be part of them;

• Be flexible - as I said, there are very few experts in social media. It is all about trying things out, sometimes they don't work. Get over it and move on! I try to be as flexible as possible and not get bogged down in a failed idea. I never regard anything I have learned from as a failure anyway;

Social media strategy is not just "let's set up a Facebook and Twitter, then people will look for us". Think about what you need from social media and carefully plan how to achieve those goals. I'd love to hear from everybody else about what works for them and whether they harness their own checklist when approaching social media strategy.

I felt I would share a great story of donor stewardship I experienced lately from my very talented fundraising colleague, Catherine Jennings. The recent OneKind Firewalk was organised and led by our CJ. Unfortunately, we did not receive an astounding turnout on the night, but an opportunity was spotted.

Credit: questprblog.com

Catherine took it upon herself to send individual, hand written letters to all the Firewalk participants. This struck me as an enormously warm and caring act, demonstrating that she is very much a supporter herself. I believe she thought about how she would like to be treated and happened upon this simple and yet brilliant display of donor care. 

I reckon there are a few reasons why this was so brilliant:

• Catherine puts her heart and soul into every last thing she does, that will shine through and let fundraisers know they have gotten involved with a charity which really cares about their involvement;
• When do you ever get hand written mail anymore? It is suitably exciting when you receive a piece of mail like that, coming from a cause you really care about, it must lead to even greater jubilation;
• It kept OneKind in the donors thoughts, they might be more willing to get involved with us again soon.

I fully recognise that this is not possible for every event or even for every charity, given the massive databases which some of the big guns must be boasting. However, it doesn't require a lot of effort to come up with your own little gesture like this. In the week that these letters went out, I saw several positive and emotional tweets heralding this approach. 

I reckon my colleague is at the start of a long and very successful career in fundraising, because she genuinely cares about everything she does. She has passion, determination and compassion in spades. Above all else, she has the ability to spot a golden opportunity to make the people who really matter (our donors) feel very special indeed.

Well done Catherine, I salute you.