Are you ready to start using social media in your organization? It's a more complicated question than you might think: adopting new media necessarily means giving up a certain degree of control over your message, and there's a host of reasons not to loosen the reins. On the other hand, losing that control can bring your message to exponentially more people than were previously possible. Consider the story of Mister Splashy Pants (via):

In the wake of the huge number of donations given to Haiti earthquake relief via text mesage, MobileActive has published Texting for Charitable Dollars: The Definitive Guide. 

It describes the process of raising funds via SMS from the donors' and the nonprofits' perspectives, including costs and tips for getting started. The guide is available for free at http://mobileactive.org/mobile-fundraising.

As the tragedy lingers on in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, the generosity of individuals, organizations, and nations around the world has brought a glimmer of hope for the stricken nation. O-Matic Software, maker of the Raiser's Edge plug-in Import-O-Matic, is helping out in a different way.

For organizations providing assistance and relief to the Haiti effort and use Raiser's Edge, O-matic will be donating their Import-O-Matic software to expedite your data processing. For organizations deluged with donations over this last while, this could mean more aid going to those on the ground.

For more information check out their special Haiti relief page.

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If you didn't get the chance to watch it live, please take an hour to watch the TechSoup Talks! webinar What Should a Website Cost? with special guest Allen Gunn. Though Gunner does answer the webinar's titular question, he does a lot more than that, taking us step-by-step through the process of scoping, planning, sourcing, and executing a website redesign. It's a highly entertaining and engaging listen.

One point that comes up a few times in the webinar is that good content for your website is (and should be) more work than the website design itself. Gunner posits that for many nonprofits, a website design may be the first time they think in concrete terms about the story and message that they tell the public. At Poke the Beehive, Dan challenges you to ask yourself whether your nonprofit's story has a clear call to action at all: "There are countless nonprofits out there who, given their limited impact, don't really have a reason to exist. Don't be one of them. If you can't tell a compelling story about your organization and its mission, then perhaps you should reconsider what you're doing or how you're doing it."

It's often the case that different stakeholders, both inside and outside of the organization, have their own stories of who the organization is and what it does. That's expected, but the unfortunate thing is when the nonprofit's homepage and other media present a watered-down compromise rather than a clear story. Before our redesign last year, TechSoup's homepage reflected such a compromise. Each program had its own box for recent updates, but there was no overarching narrative. If your site lacks a clear message and call to action, then it doesn't matter how pretty it is: it brands your organization as confused and disarrayed; on the other hand, if your website's message is clear, direct, and actionable, then even the most technically crude site can engage with visitors in a beneficial way.

Our friends at Ashoka (previously) recently created an excellent downloadable guide to using SMS (text messages) for social change. You can download the guide directly (1.1 MB PDF) or learn more about it here.

We discussed mobile giving here about a year ago, and it's grown a lot in prominence even since then (Kevin blogged about new developments in microgiving just a few days ago) but SMS is much more than a fundraising tool. In the guide's introduction, Ashoka offers these examples of how NGOs are using SMS today.

• Farmers receive details of market prices and demand for their products before heading off to market.
• Health NGOs send dietary advice and information to people with eating disorders.
• Young people living in the slums of Nairobi receive texts alerting them of urban job opportunities.
• National parks communicate details of dangerous animals, providing an early warning system to reduce human and wildlife conflict.
• Water sanitation advice and community training updates are sent to municipal counselors.
• Patients receive reminders to take their medicine, saving time and money traveling to clinics.
• Security and emergency alerts are sent to staff and fieldworkers in high-risk situations.

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TechCrunch, a popular technology and venture capital blog, blogged about a startup that is launching CauseWorld, "the first mobile application that let's you do good deeds simply for walking into a store."

In partnership with larger corporate partners, the app, slated for the iPhone platform initially as well as others later on, will indicate the retail locations where you can collect "karma points," which the user can donate to the charity of their choice.

Google and the nonprofit community have had a very Jim-and-Pam* relationship over the past two years, as Google has repeatedly extended the end date for donated Google Checkout services but stayed equivocal about whether we can expect to see the free services indefinitely.

Today's good news is that the checkout services will be free for another year (until January 1, 2011), but only for nonprofits also enrolled in Google Grants for free advertising. If you have a Google Checkout account and a Google Grants account, you need to link them to take advantage of the donated checkout service.

Even if you don't use Google's nonprofit offerings, it's worth looking at their announcement because it also offers an interesting discussion on suggested donation amounts. During a recent disaster-relief campaign, Google decided to run tests on various suggested donations to see which one yielded the best results. To my surprise, Google reports that leaving the donation amount blank brought in the best numbers. Of course, the big takeaway is that you should run this sort of test yourself, as results will be different for different audiences. If you're relying on intuition, you're wrong.

Update: Marc has followed up with some more insight about how orchestras could improve their social media metrics. See his blog post and join the forum discussion.

Beth's Blog has an interesting guest post today by Marc van Bree, who's recently been studying how orchestras use social media. His findings are interesting not only for orchestras and performing arts organizations, but for anyone who's trying to use new media to spread awareness.

…Social media activities, familiarity, and usage seem to be widespread among orchestras. Managers find social media important and organizations are generally enthusiastic. However, the efforts are far from organized and strategic. It seems many orchestras are dipping their feet in the social media pool, but do not have the policies, budgets, and metrics in place to effectively use the tools at their disposal, even if they do recognize the need for checks and balances.

The full report is 24 pages, but it's definitely worth a look. One thing that struck me is that when van Bree asked participants what the goals of their social media campaigns were, "Increasing web traffic" was the most popular response, just above "Increasing brand awareness" and well above any goals that directly impacted revenue (ticket sales and fundraising were sixth and eighth, respectively, out of eight choices).

Respondents were right in not treating social media as a silver bullet for fundraising, but the apparent focus on website traffic seems odd to me. Web traffic is much easier to measure than most other kinds of impact, but it seems a clumsy proxy for the less transparent goals of awareness and education. Upon watching a YouTube video about your nonprofit's message, would you rather a viewer visit your website or send the video to 100 friends?

Conduit, a company that helps content publishers distribute content using browser add-on technology, unveiled a year-long campaign to donate money to U.S.-registered nonprofits, and at the same time help them connect with their constituents. Using their Conduit Platform, every time someone clicks on the "Conduit Gives" button on a particular nonprofit's "conduit," the company will donate some money to that nonprofit.

I've been thinking a lot recently about nonprofit website design and what different nonprofits' websites say about themselves and their supporters. When I try to think of well-known corporate websites to draw analogies from, I keep returning to two: Apple and Mighty Putty. Both sites serve roughly the same purpose (to sell a product); what's different is the timetable for achieving that purpose.

It's absurdly easy to buy Mighty Putty. There's literally nowhere you can browse to on the website where you can't order it. Since there's only one item for sale, there's no need for a "Cart" or other extra steps. Apple is different. When you click on the huge photograph of the featured product (currently the iMac), you're greeted not by an order form but by a full page of information and more photos, with links to even more info about the product. Apple's goal is still to sell you a product, but their website design is based on their understanding that they need to invest a lot of time into that transaction.

Imagine what would happen if Apple added an order form like Mighty Putty's to its homepage. No one would buy a computer without consulting any additional information; even if someone did buy, Apple would miss out on the opportunity to offer her additional peripherals, warrantees, etc. On the other hand, what if Mighty Putty redesigned its website to look more like Apple's? The multitude of links and choices would overwhelm users and many would give up before they ever entered their credit card information.

The funny thing is that at least in the nonprofit world, it's a lot harder to be a Mighty Putty than an Apple. Many nonprofits try to be Mighty Putties, but most fail at it (of course, there are exceptions: I CAN's Adopt a Word campaign comes to mind). As Seth Godin asked in a recent blog entry, "Do you really expect that the first time we transact, it will involve me giving you money in exchange for a product or service?" He goes on to list various online interactions that could eventually lead to a purchase (or a donation) and point out that facilitating these actions costs nothing. "I can give you permission to teach me something. I can watch a video. I can engage in a conversation. We can connect, transfer knowledge, engage in a way that builds trust… all of these things make it more likely that I'll trust you enough to send you some money one day."