Jeff Pulver (founder of Pulver.com; producer of the 140 Characters Conference), reminisced about the hours he spend as a kid talking to people around the world on his ham radio set, comparing it to the connection people get with Twitter. He would pass along radio messages to others in a kind of radio “retweet”, allowing people to connect on a personal level at an incredible distance. Pulver spoke about how even though he never met the people he befriended on the radio, he felt comfortable with them, like he knew them, emphasizing how important personal relationships are for nonprofits. Later in the conversation he added, “there’s a generation of people who are growing up being able to communicate, sort of like next generation pen pals.” Pulver feels nonprofits need to tap into the personal connection provided by social media platforms in order to succeed. Mark Horvath agreed, concluding their conversation by saying, “as we look at all the technologies and we look at the social media space, we’ve got to get back to the fundamentals… of human interaction, whether it be face-to-face or over the phone, it’s the same thing. If you treat people right, with respect, anything’s possible.”
Next up was Chris Brogan (president of New Market Labs; author of “Trust Agents”), who continued the theme of connection and transparency in the nonprofit world. He emphasized the importance of making it “ridiculously easy” for someone to donate to your cause. He cited Skip 1 as an organization that has succeeded in doing that. “Skip 1 makes it really easy to take ten or twenty bucks out of your pocket and give it, which, if you make it hard, if you make it too difficult for the transaction, that friction keeps me from doing it even if I want to.” Horvath asked the obvious question: how do we make it easy? Brogan responded by pointing out that not only do nonprofits need to get to know their donors, they need to know more about each other. “I guess what, the step that’s missing, Mark, the step that people could do is when someone like Skip 1 figures it out, do the case study. Show everybody. This is how we did it. This is how we made it so damn easy. And then, I mean, share that knowledge. Step one is make it easy. I think step two should be make it ridiculously easy for others to do what you did.”
Pulver and Brogan had a lot more to say, and you can watch the interviews on UStream.
(Our apologies to Jeff Pulver. Technical difficulties prevented us from capturing his entire interview.)
One final point Chris Brogan made applies to every aspect of the nonprofit struggle to get the attention of sponsors, donors, volunteers, and other organizations: people want to support those they feel they know and like. You have to get to know them. “And the only way you can do that is by listening,” said Brogan. “Everybody’s grandmother said, ‘God gave you two ears and one mouth.’ Listen twice as much.”
Words to live by.
Sunday morning, 10:30-11:00am, Mark will again be live-streaming from the Beacon, this time chatting with Kari Saratovsky, Tony Steward, and Terry Storch.
Related Posts
Tags: Beacon Lounge, Chris Brogan, Hardly Normal, Jeff Pulver, Mark Horvath, nonprofits, Skip1.org, social media, South by Southwest, SxSW
