How do you visualize viral?

We've heard about going viral for a long time now. Or at least it seems that way. Here is a pretty good infographic that helps visualize the phenomenon.

Is you nonprofit ready to be disrupted?

Are we ready? Are we ready for someone else to disrupt us? Can we disrupt ourselves?

These are essential questions for all nonprofits today. The ability to disrupt our business is a reality to be considered. Do it ourselves or have someone do it to us seems to be the issue to think about.

Maybe we need to consider that we are not the only ones who can deliver our mission. In this day and age, others can, perhaps cheaper and better. It is something to think about. 

One of them -- who self-identified as a Gen Yer who had recently received $15 million in funding for his startup -- explained to me that the cost of disrupting has fallen so low that he doesn't even think people like him need to go for the big funding anymore (not that he refused it when it came!). He said, "Especially in software, it only takes $30,000 to build anything in software today."

Are You Ready To Disrupt Yourself? | Forrester Blogs

What do we get when we give to a good cause?

I think Seth nails it. People who give aren't buying tote bags. Donors believe in the mission or at least they should. They care about our passion to make something right.

Why on earth would a rational person give money to charity--particularly a charity that supports strangers? What do they get?A story. In fact, every time someone donates to a good cause, they're buying a story, a story that's worth more than the amount they donated.

It might be the story of doing the right thing, or fitting in, or pleasing a friend or honoring a memory, but the story has value. It might be the story that you, and you alone are able to make this difference, or perhaps it's the story of using leverage to change the world. For many, it's the story of what it means to be part of a community.

The fundraiser, then, isn't taking, she's giving. She's giving someone the chance to buy a story that's worth far more than it costs.

Stories are the way we navigate our world, our chance to make sense of who we are and what we do.

Introducing tote bags or charity auctions muddies the waters, gets us thinking about the value of that thing we bought, not the story itself.

If people aren't donating to your cause, it's because you're not telling a story, or telling the wrong story to the wrong people (in the wrong way). Non-profits make change, and the way they do this is by letting us tell ourselves stories that nurture our best selves.

Read more: Seth's Blog: What do we get when we give to a good cause?

Facebook Tests Donate Button, a Mixed Blessing for Charities

 Logo Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Facebook has launched a donate button for nonprofit pages. That is the good news.

Some nonprofit observers say that while they appreciate Facebook’s move to make it easier for nonprofits to raise money, the donate function can make it tough to develop relationships with donors: Nonprofits don’t get the names or email addresses of people who use the donate button, so it’s impossible to follow up to seek more gifts. Facebook says it won’t provide that information out of concern about the privacy of its members. That is the not so good news.

So nonprofits are now faced with the interesting choice of do I want the money with no way to build a relationship and renew the gift.

Read more: Facebook Tests Donate Button, a Mixed Blessing for Charities - News - The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas

As a nonprofit, are you focused on the right things in 2014?

To improve performance, nonprofits should pick out key pieces of data from each of their departments and review them regularly at staff meetings, says Amy Sample Ward, chief executive of the Nonprofit Technology Network, who calls the measures “canary metrics”—figures that show the canary in the coal mine that could be a sign of future trouble.

Looking at important data regularly, she says, helps organizations stop making decisions based on hunches and identify potential problems early. She says, “That way you can always look up there and say, 'Gosh, tons of people are signing up for our e-newsletter. No one has registered for an event. Look at how low those numbers are. What’s happening here?’”

What Nonprofits Should Start Doing in 2014: Advice From the Experts - Outlook 2014