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Social Change and the Connected Age

Connectedness does not come from technology but is facilitated and strengthened by it. The greatest challenge for nonprofit organizations and their leaders in the connected age is recognizing that using social-media tools is easy compared with adopting a new mindset for social change. Today, nonprofit groups are part of a larger network or ecosystem of people, organizations, resources, and information. Relying on old-fashioned, top-down management approaches for setting activist agendas and designing fund-raising and volunteering efforts will lead inevitably to disappointing results. Power is shifting from institutions to individuals throughout society. We have seen what happens when people can barter and sell goods without a middleperson on eBay, and when we can watch what we want, when we want, through YouTube. The same sorts of shifts are happening quietly in the nonprofit world. Anyone can create and post a video of what they think their Congressional representatives do all day as part of the "Congress in :30 Secs" campaign organized by the Sunlight Foundation. Volunteers can document the connections between campaign contributions and legislation as part of the Genocide Intervention Network. Donors can pick a school and a specific project to support as part of the DonorsChoose Web site. Successful connected-age organizations are those that facilitate broadly representative networks of social activists — not necessarily organizations with the biggest membership lists or the most money in their coffers. These days, young people, in particular, are not likely to join behemoth membership organizations. Instead, they go online to express their views and instantly connect with individuals and communities interested in their issues and concerns. They also self-organize for social action as so many did in joining the immigration marches last spring.

Process frequency. At many companies, strategic planning and portfolio management is an episodic process that happens quarterly or annually. In turbulent times, strategic planning has to happen more frequently. Kill rate. As times get tough, many companies have to de-prioritize some projects in their portfolio. Companies should make sure they focus on an idea's true potential, or else they will accidentally sacrifice ideas with great long-term potential (see a recent excerpt from The Silver Lining in BusinessWeek for more on this topic) Focus on "loving the low end." Most companies generally default towards providing better products or services to demanding customers. In tough times, companies have to figure out how they are going to compete for increasingly value-conscious customers. Ask whether you have any explicit strategies focused on "loving the low end" of your market.