Relevant+Literature

**__1 ) Facebook Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations (2009)__**  [] This web article outlines many tips for nonprofit organizations who want to utilize the social media site Facebook. It gives step-by-step instructions on a range of practices which may help create an interactive site, such as… -Creating a Facebook ‘Page,’ -Choosing a Logo that is uniform across all media platforms, and -Using Applications such as ‘Static FBML’ allowing Fans to donate money to the org. The main goal of this article is to show how using various techniques, Facebook can help to inspire online conversations around the mission and programs of the organization. Building a community around Shepherds is essential to having a return on investment (ROI) when using these social media sites. This article is relevant to our project with Shepherds as it gives exact instructions on how to use Facebook and its various features to create a page which will allow users to interact, donate and learn more about the organization and what they are doing for our city. Most of the tips listed can be easily applied to our project and will be very beneficial to us in the coming months.

__ Tamara A. Small __** []
 * __2) The Facebook Effect? On-line Campaigning in the 2008 Canadian and US Elections (2008) __

This article focuses on how social media such as Facebook are used during political elections to gain voters. The site is part of the transformation of the internet called Web 2.0, which is collaborative, creative and interactive. This includes social networking, blogging, micro-blogging, on-line video sites such as YouTube and social bookmarking sites. These sites all allows users to interact with other users and collaborate in the creation of site content. Facebook is the current leader in social media, with over 100 million active users. The site allows users to create a personal profile and form links with other users based on off-line and on-line friendships, family, co-workers, classmates, interests, etc. Politics is a very popular subject on the site as politicians are now able to create profiles and buy ad space to promote their party. They can post information about themselves, photos, videos, blog entries, and be as interactive with their supporters as they choose. The article states that there are many benefits to why campaigning on Facebook is a good idea. First of all the campaign exposure is unmediated by the press and comes to little or no cost to produce. The majority of the active users are the millennial generation, which were born between the years of 1980-2000. It has been said that young people are slowly losing interest in politics today, but through new media applications, some interest may be brought back. In order for a user to follow a politician they first must become their ‘friend.’ The politician, through his list of friends has access to an already-made database of supporters who can then be asked to volunteer or donate to the party. The interactivity of the site allows communication between voters and other voters as well, allowing them to independently campaign. When looking at the 2008 presidential race between Obama and McCain, Obama made 2.2 million friends on Facebook, while McCain made just over half a million. It was Facebook, along with other digital technologies such as e-mail and text messages which helped the Obama campaign reach $600 million in donations. Their strategy was to have millions of small donors rather than a small number of large donators.

This article is relevant to our project with the Shepherds of Good Hope as it states benefits of a Facebook account for more than just social purposes. The politicians use Facebook to gain ‘friends’ and in doing so they are creating a database of followers who will receive regular updates on everything the party wishes to post. Shepherds can use their list of ‘friends’ to ask for small donations, or supplies when they run out. Although this article states that they are looking to gain more support from the 18-25 year olds, Facebook also has many users in the 20-35 year range that can be reached via ‘friend invites.’ The idea of many small donations rather than a few large donations would also be a good way for the Shepherds to gain young donators as many people in their target age category may be unable to donate large lump sums, but knowing that they are donating small amounts of money or supplies along with others in their community would have them see the difference they could make.

**__3) Websites or Facebook Groups: What Choices for Non-profit Organizations in Singapore? (2009)__**  [] This article analyses the use of websites versus facebook in regards to attracting a donor database and communicating with its supporters. A content analysis of eight websites and four facebook profiles of non-profits in singapore, together with in-depth interviews with three representatives from different non-profit organizations showed there is a significant difference between organizations that use only websites and those using both social platforms. The authors concluded that a facebook group, profile or fan page is a positive extension of a non-profit's website, serving as a gateway to the website where more building and public engagement is readily available.

This article is relevant to our project with Shepherds because it provides an understanding of the benefits of Facebook in expanding the organization's database. The article explains that the collaboration of a website and the use of Facebook allows organizations to access a larger audience. The authors also discuss the fact that Facebook acts as a mechanism in directing an audience to the organization's website. This information is beneficial for our group due to the fact that we are aiming to increase Shepherds donor database and with the information in the article we realize this can be accomplished through the pairing of both a operating website and a social networking site.

**__4) Charitable Technologies: Opportunities for Collaborative Computing in Non-Profit Fundraising (2008)__**  [] This article presents research analyzing the role of computational technology in the domain of non-profit fundraising. In this paper, the authors identify six roles that computational technology plays in support of nonprofit fundraising and present two models characterizing technology use in this domain: (1) a cycle of technology-assisted fundraising and (2) a model of relationships among stakeholders in technology-assisted fundraising. The authors also identify challenges and research opportunities for collaborative computing when dealing with non-profit fundraising. The six roles are as follows:

1. Communicating Information about Non-Profits -basic role of technology in non-profit is communicating the activities, goals and impact of nonprofit organizations to potential donors.

2. ** Helping Potential Donors Discover Nonprofits ** -Technology also assists potential donors in discovering nonprofits with which they were not previously familiar. 3. Enabling Directed Giving - Individuals traditionally make donations to a nonprofit organization without knowing how their contributions will be used. Nonprofits and third parties, however, are utilizing technology to enable donors to direct their contributions to specific programs, services, and even individual beneficiaries.

4. Enabling Donations - Nonprofits are employing technologies that make it easier for donors to make donations. Many large nonprofits enable donors to make contributions directly through their websites.

5. Enabling Individual and Community Advocacy - Technology enables individuals to become advocates for nonprofit organizations

6. Helping Nonprofits Learn about Technology - The final class of technology helps nonprofits become aware of and learn about technologies that may be useful in their fundraising efforts.

This article is relevant to our work with the Shepherds of Good Hope because it outlines the ways in which online technologies can be of assistance to increasing a non-profit's donations and donor database. Even though the article does not specifically refer to online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter it provides information that can be applied in a larger context. __**5) Engaging stakeholders through social networking: How nonprofit organizations are using Facebook**__  Richard D. Waters, Emily Burnett, Anna Lamm and Jessica Lucas Looking at a sample of 275 Nonprofit profiles (mostly american) on facebook researches studied how these organizations are using the social networking site and how effective they are being in their efforts. The three main strategies that the organizations should be using social networking sites for are; disclosure, information dissemination and nteractivity. RQ - How are nonprofit organizations incorporating relationship development strategies into their Facebook profiles? The research team determined whether the following items were present for each strategy:
 * Disclosure**: a description of the organization's programs and services, an organizational history, the mission statement, the organization's Web site, the logo, and a listing of the administrators of the profile
 * Information dissemination:** links to news items, photographs, video and audio files, posted announcements, and links to press releases and campaign summaries were posted
 * Interactivity:** methods to contact, donate, and volunteer for the organization, use of message boards, provision of an organizational calendar of events, and the presence of an e-commerce store.

The study found that:
 * While many of the organizations incorporated some of the components, it was rare that a site utilized all of them. Methods for becoming involved (interactivity) was the strategy that organizations most commonly left out (only 36% had it), while disclosure (information on the organization) was almost always present (97% present).
 * Organizations understand the importance of facebook but lack the skills, man power and expertice to utilize it effectively. Often college interns or volunteers are put in charge of nonprofit facebook sites.
 * Interactivity is the most important aspect of social networking online and this needs to be taken advantage of
 * As social networking sites become more ingrained in daily life, they will soon see a more diverse audience in terms of age, culture and socio-economic status. Then, nonprofits will need to begin using more social networking applications social networking to meet the growing needs and expectations of their stakeholders.

6) It Takes a Village to Find a Phone, Chapter from 'Here Comes Everybody'

This article presents a case study which describes the use of social media as a means of attracting the attention and participation of social media users and organizing them towards group action. The Case study is drawn from the experience of a blog writer whoi was engaged fruitless negotiations with a young thief who refused to return his stolen phone. Through his disclosure of ostensibly private matters, and his ability to frame the issue as a public problem instead of a personal one, the blogger was able to leverage the knowledge and participation of his readers in order to learn more about his legal options (to the point of recieving priveledged information from the police department which he would otherwise have been ignorant of), to apply social pressure against the thief, achieve a wider audience of potential allies, and in general to motivate his readers to adopt an active role in the recovery of his phone.

A central concept of the article is the idea of the 'plausible promise', explained as 'a message framed in big enough terms to inspire interest, yet achievable to inspire confidence'. In terms of the SOGH project, this idea would provide a conceptual objective for the group- the end result must use the interest-attracting greater issues at the heart of SOGH operations such as homelessness, poverty and mental illness, but must frame these issues in a manner which provides an achievable goal to attract participation by reducing them to the municipal or organizational level. The article also touches on concepts addressed in other literature in the review, such as 'cost of participation', as well as the transfer of social power and influence from the institutional realm to that of the digitally connected individual.

7) '31 Day Challenge: Optimize Your Blog For Social Media' www.Joshhaydon.com

This series of posts by social marketer Josh Haydon provides a detailed framework for creating a social media platform which uses multiple sites and formats to generate effective and active readership and participation. Haydon provides 31 concrete, practical strategies for applying social marketing theories to social networking sites. Of particular interest to this project are his discussions of measurable goals and statistics to guide the creation of objectives and to assess the degree of success the sites achieve in relation to these objectives. Haydon also discusses the steps social media 'engineers' must use in connecting their goals and activities with those of other groups with parallell interests in order to benefit from their audience and resources. By using the audiences and goals of sympathetic groups and institutions, the Shepherds would be able to reach and motivate a greater audience than would be possible if they relied exclusively on their own media outlets and audiences.The article also provides useful technical advice regarding the construction of social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc) that will aid in attracting an initial audience (google keywords, linked content, etc), keeping them involved and interested, and to motivate them towards action and participation in the SOGH's operations.