social media breakfast ottawa 14 presentation united way

Social Media in the charitable sector – a new way to engageStacey Diffin-Lafleur @TheStaceyBrendan Mullen @Brendan_Mullen

Communications and Marketing, United Way Ottawa

Intro• Brendan and Stacey - a little bit about us• Focus of presentation: SM @UWO in 20091. What is United Way Ottawa?2. Barriers? Who said barriers?3. Where we started4. Some tools we used5. Results6. Lessons learned

Who we are• NPO – Ottawa chapter established 1933• Building stronger, healthier communities • Low turnover• We market on a shoestring – volunteer

support is key • Workplace campaign model

– 1800 campaigns; 14,000 volunteers• Expanding engagement

Did we have any barriers? Yep.• Corporate culture

– IT owning gateways (no Tweetdeck, sites blocked, no access to Myspace, bandwidth restrictions)

– Hey….we’ve always done it this way– Facebook and Twitter … those are for playing…

not for working– Fear of letting go – losing control of the messages

Baby steps…• Basic website

– No robust online donationtool

• EBlasts– Really just invitations

• E-newsletter– Low subscriber base, not

used to engage

All push marketing, no conversation…

Broadening our reach in 2009• Home-based business• Entrepreneurs • Smaller retail outlets• Students • Next Gen

We changed it up• And..

– met a lot of the SM folks in town, asked a lot of questions, ate a lot of lunch

– Held a SM lunch and learn for United Way staff to demonstrate potential

– Got the Director’s Network at United Way Ottawa using Yammer

We changed it up

– Used Twitter and Facebook to promote the Malcolm Gladwell visit…a lightbulb went off in the organization

– Put a plan in place……and the rest is history

Next Step: Let’s start the conversation• Met Overlay.tv @ twestival• Desire to do more SM outreach• Deeper engagement w/ UW• Began outreach tool development

Our SM tool• Access trusted networks – personal ask• Record.Share.Donate.• http://www.unitedwayottawa.ca/overlay.

php• Speaker’s Corner

Our SM tool (mobile)

Our SM tool• Other UWs excited about potential• Results and what we learned

Some results• 68% year/year increase in page views at

www.unitedwayottawa.ca• 6,000 pageviews of Overlay page on United Way Ottawa

site• 200 user generated videos submitted• 22% year/year increase in # of online donors• 12% increase in total online $$$• 27 blogs about United Way Ottawa reaching 16K readers• Using Prospectics Inmailbox tool we are tracking our

EBlasts and E Newsletter open rates and fine-tuning• Schmoozefest sold out (year before attendance was low)• New people involved with us? Yes.

Lessons learned • Listen, ask questions, don’t be afraid to

get involved• SM is a great engagement and

awareness tool and a low-cost, high return piece of our overall marketing strategy

• Measurement takes time, but put the tools in place now

Lessons learned• Work within corporate culture to help more

senior execs and busy VPs to understand the value of Social Media – get them involved, show them results, engagement will follow. – St. Bernard Project/UW Nt’l Conference– Facebook help from employee body – engage, harness,

share– Bloggers invited to events as media- good ideas

spread. It’s all about telling the story to the right people.

Lessons learned• Set your objectives - then achieve them• Start small• Not everyone will get on board -

immediately• Measurement – be prepared to defend

your results• Proceed until apprehended

Questions…?• And thank you.