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Internal communication and collaboration within intranets has documented solid ROI’s encouraging companies to look to it more and more for increased innovation and decreased costs. While many organizations have achieved these positive ROI’s, the process to realizing them is often challenged. Activating the community, and getting users to interact with each other becomes a difficult behavioral change, but one that is invaluable to the company as a whole and its employees

Successful internal community participation directly and indirectly helps users across divisions and regions achieve their goals, find experts, and collaborate efficiently.

Identify ambassadors/ Experts: Don’t ignore those able to deliver genuine knowledge, identify them, embrace them, and give them room to speak in a HUMAN voice. Engagement breeds engagement. People who are most likely to contribute include natural leaders, employee’s active on other social networks, and members who had a say in the initial community planning stages,

Recognize these experts: Thank users who do participate. Many companies build communities prompting “Find an Expert” “Ask a Question” but the true value of the question and answer feature is getting people to answer those questions.

Invest in Information Architecture and User Experience: We’ve seen several communities that are lacking engagement because it is unclear to users HOW to engage.  Investments in information architecture are often over looked, even though they are vitally important. 

"As CSR and sustainability continue to converge into ‘business excellence,' we will see a growing recognition within executive ranks to understand, recognize and leverage the value of a responsible and sustainable work culture. 2012 just might be the year when change management becomes institutionalized as a prerequisite for growth and profitability."

smaller nonprofit organizations have the same needs that the larger ones have

virtual volunteers.-Volunteermatch.org -Networkforgood.org -Charityguide.org -icouldbe.org -Onlinevolunteering.org -Serviceleader.org -WorldVolunteerWeb.org -Youthxchange.net

For example, if you are in need of a graphic designer you might be able to find a virtual volunteer half-way across the country willing to design your fundraising promotional materials.

On aimerait que ce soit zéro, mais ça coûte de l'argent, aller chercher de l'argent.

95 812$ au cours d'une collecte de fonds qui lui avait coûté 96 849$

On n'a plus envie de dépenser des millions pour récolter des millions

Aujourd'hui, ils demandent des activités rassembleuses, des courses de type Relais pour la vie. Ces courses entraînent cependant des coûts, ne serait-ce qu'en sécurité, souligne-t-il.

es collectes rapportent gros (13 millions par année)

en faisant commanditer des soupers par des groupes et en leur offrant la possibilité aux personnes de venir servir elles-mêmes le souper aux sans-abri.

partir à la recherche du riche qui ne demande pas mieux que de donner.

Il y a beaucoup de pression à donner, et vous serez étonné de constater à quel point vos dons à droite et à gauche ne réflètent pas nécessairement vos grandes priorités.»

«Combien d'argent l'organisme a-t-il à la banque et en placements? Combien redonne-t-il à ses bénéficiaires? Tout organisme a besoin d'un certain coussin, mais certains donateurs peuvent préférer que leur argent serve immédiatement plutôt que de dormir à la banque.»

Centraide, dont la mission est notamment d'aider les démunis, n'aide aucun de ces refuges.

Overall, participants that adopted integrated social media tools increased their fundraising by as much as 40 percent compared to their peers who weren’t using the available online tools.

he Resource Center will also include a spotlight section for successful non-profits and a success stories app where Facebook will showcase best practices and try to build a community around shared stories and advice.

The resource center is clearly meant to provide non-profits tools, but it’s also a sign that Facebook is taking social good seriously. Facebook has been a home to online philanthropy for some time, but it is not the only game in town.

t’s important from a business perspective to establish Facebook as a hub for non-profits online, but ultimately the cause — and social good — should come first.

The page has already raked in more than 410,000 Likes and only seems to be growing. Has social good hit the mainstream? Should more companies create resource centers?

It must have mattered. Look how bad it was. Not only were the pages just ugly, they were peppered with database errors and CSS blowups

. It doesn’t prove design doesn’t matter, but it does suggest design may not be the deciding factor.

Can you see at what point in time we changed design?  No?  Must not have made a difference. Let’s look at time-on-site:

Nothing. But this is all superficial — what Really Matters is the Conversion Rate: are more or fewer people signing up each week:

Hmm. Looks like everything objective is saying “it doesn’t matter.” But as much as I respect and follow Lean Startup theory, objective measurements aren’t the only things that matter. Those customer emails matter too.

The other day we landed a large customer who said they could tell from our website that among our competitors we’re more mature and ready to handle a bigger customer like them. I can tell you — objectively — that we’re among the youngest of our competitors, and although I have a list of reasons why “we’re better,” the truth is that particular customer would probably be served just fine by several of those competitors. Was it the design that gave us that edge? Could be. Didn’t hurt, anyway.

Still, the more I look at the importance of design in the startups in my little career, the less it seems to matter.

Modern Lean Startup theory blares out from the red-tiled rooftops of Stanford: Seek the Data and Ye Shall Find! First the bounce-rate. If our website design was repulsive — literally — the bounce rate should now diminish. Here’s the data:

An even more extreme example comes from my second company ITWatchDogs. I displayed its old homepage at the magnificent Webstock design conference in Wellington earlier this year; the crowd whooped at our violent assault on the visual arts, complete with calliope menubar colors, two broken images tag above the fold, and a layout model that could be seen as a “grid” only after consuming a pillowcase of mushrooms:

But you’re anticipating the punch-line — ITWatchDogs grew every month, made millions of dollars, stole business from competitors with billion-dollar market caps (and professional-looking websites), and had a successful exit.

Of course it’s only fair to also point out some of the many instructive counter-examples: Hipmunk is the same thing as Orbitz or Travelocity — the only difference is amazing design, not just because it looks good but because it’s so useable. In the words of Joel Spoksly — the design “affords usability.” (P.S. Early Hipmunk team member Alexis Ohanian is so cool and smart and rich and funny and successful and good-looking that really he doesn’t deserve to be alive. (P.P.S. Hey flamers, for God’s sake it’s a joke! Don’t you realize I’m just sore from losing the Pecha Kucha competition to him?)) I always use and recommend Amy Hoy’s time zone tool only because it’s just nice to use and look at. (P.S. she also authors a terrific blog aimed at the solo entrepreneur.) Many people credit Mint’s smash success with their terrific design. Considering how many features were broken for how long, it’s hard to argue. 37signals documented — with data — how design changes results directly in more credit-card-swiping customers. It doesn’t get more “business value” than that. So where does that leave us in the “matters / doesn’t matter” question of design?

I think you can go either way, but you must decide whether or not you’re going to value design as core to your startup’s identity, and then act consistently. Here’s what I mean.

It’s clear from the outset that design is the only competitive advantage Hipmunk has over its competition. Specifically, by making the flight-search problem pleasurable and useable instead of feeling like you’re navigating pivot tables from Excel ’98.

They don’t have better data, better branding, better name, better SEO, or more money. Just better design, and not just easily-copyable incremental improvement, but a quantum leap better.

When design is that fundamental to the business — how it acquires and retains customers, garners attention and referrals, and distinguishes itself in the market — obviously design can be the most important thing.

Conversely, at ITWatchDogs the company’s internal and external culture was that we’re low-cost, friendly, approachable, regular guys, who understand exactly what you worry about, exactly what your budget is, and we nail it. The site might have looked bad, but our message couldn’t have been clearer.

But it is useful to decide where you come down on the question of design in your startup, because if it’s important you’d better work on that right now and develop a consistent culture of valuing design through-and-through, and if it’s not important you’d better decide what is important and nail those things all the harder, because you’ll be competing with people who are using superior design to cover up their lack of competency in those same areas.

Current Dollar Fair Market Valuation Pro bono work should be valued at Fair Market Value (FMV) and recorded as non-cash giving in CECP Survey Question 9.  FMV is the hourly or project cost that a paying client would incur for the same service. Companies are encouraged to use the three scenarios below to assist in determining the FMV of services rendered.  The dollar values in the scenarios below are based upon current U.S. salary data adjusted to account for geographic differences and typical fee-discounting practices.  CECP is currently unable to provide dollar-value assistance for non-U.S. pro bono service. Paid-release-time service that does not meet the pro bono criteria should be recorded at a dollar value that is appropriate to the skills involved in CECP Survey Question 22 (do not include pro bono hours in Question 22, as that would be double counting hours recorded in Question 9). When in doubt, the current Independent Sector rate is appropriate.

For companies with minimal pro bono tracking capabilities In the absence of employee skill area data and internal billing rates, CECP recommends using an estimate of $120 per hour for pro bono service projects. This is based on a rounded average billing rate for mid-level employees across disciplines, highlighted below. For companies with moderate pro bono tracking capabilities Companies that track the seniority level or skills deployed in pro bono projects should use the following chart to value pro bono hours if internal rates are not available.

For companies with robust pro bono tracking capabilities Companies should use their best internal billing information to determine the FMV of services rendered. These valuations should be adjusted to reflect billing differences by: geography, seniority level, rate discounting, employee skill area, etc. To do this, companies must track project metrics that affect billing rates so that an accurate, defensible valuation for pro bono contributions can be recorded. CECP strongly encourages companies to track pro bono to this level of specificity whenever possible.

Why now?

what's with the boom in charity work in recent years?

candidates for medical school are becoming more and more qualified right out of university. With great grades and amazing recommendations, it can be hard to differentiate yourself from the pack. Enter philanthropy.

It adds some much-needed clout to your character and shows you can commit yourself fully to a project and see it through until the end.

Bus ads, billboards and online banner announcements all broadcast the latest causes to hit the scene. Perhaps all this good karma talk has seeped into our collective subconscious minds and led us to believe that the only way to live a worthwhile life is to include a little do-gooding in our daily activities.

the most important factor at play when it comes to philanthropy: the pure, selfish, unadulterated sense of warmth and happiness that comes from knowing that you've just used your valuable time to help someone who's not you

we've all started realizing that helping other people is just another way of helping yourself.

behind every good charity organization, there stands an army of amazing volunteers. So, here's to all you karma junkies, altruism enthusiasts and kindness fanatics out there. Consider yourselves all cyber high-fived, because the work you're doing is actually making the world a better place.