katyaandresen
Nine Core Principles of Engagement
Sometimes, blog entries write themeselves. This post is one of those entries.
Yesterday evening, I attended an excellent pop education workshop called "Finding Our Way to Action: Tactics for Mapping Social Change," organized by the Center for Community Organizations (COCo) in Montreal. The workshop itself was incredibly well-conceived and presented. I'll be blogging about it in more detail next week.
For now, I want to share "nine core principles of engagement," distributed in leaflet form at the end of last night's workshop.
Santropol Roulant is one of Montreal's most effective community based organizations. It brings "people and groups together across cultures and generations" through an "innovative meals-on-wheels service and intergenerational programs."
Since 1995, their vibrant community of staffers and volunteers has braved -40 degree weather in winter to deliver meals across the island of Montreal.
In 2003, the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation endeavored to find out what qualities make Santropol Roulant tick. The key findings of their 30-page study, entitled The Southern Wall: Organizational Engagement at Santropol Roulant were summed up in the leaflet distributed last night.
I feel strongly that all of the insights published below are equally important online as offline, including the reference to how physical space affects engagement. A welcoming space needs to be reflected online through images, videos, and appropriate graphic design.
For nonprofit tech professionals, I recommend pairing Santropol Roulant's "nine core principles of engagement" with Katya Andresen's Seven Things Everyone Wants: What Freud and Buddha Understood (and We're Forgetting) about Online Outreach. The two documents together offer a picture perfect view of how and why organizations should use social media to reach and engage constituents.
Santropol Roulant's Nine Core Principles of Engagement
People as gifts - Each person who comes in contact with Santropol Roulant is seen as a whole person with many dimensions that, when given space to flourish, feed the organization's vibrancy, capacity to innovate, and overall effectiveness.
Relationship-building - Creating the space and skills for healthy interpersonal and group communication are essential and highly productive aspects of our organizational life.
Comfort with change - We embrace change and uncertainty as opportunities to learn and evolve. For a youth-run organization such as Santropol Roulant, staff and volunteer turnover are necessary and positive elements of our organizational rhythm.
Cultivating individual learning and organizational creativity - We value personal growth, curiosity and play as essential to Santropol Roulant's dynamism and productivity.
Collaborative leadership - We strive to be deeply participatory, sharing decision-making and leadership in a way that contributes to everyone's learning and growth while we deliver on our mission.
The importance of space - We pay attention to the state and arrangement of the physical space as it affects the way people relate to the organization and each other.
Gravitational structuring - We invite people to involve themselves in the tasks, projects, conversations, and decisions that they are drawn to based on their own interests and curiosities.
Coherence - We aim to live our deepest values in all our relationships: with clients, staff, board members, volunteers, funders, partners, neighbours, etc.
Community building - We strive to become a living expression of the change we want to see in the world, rather than simply an instrument for that change.
Read the full report, The Southern Wall: Organizational Engagement at Santropol Roulant >>
Santropol Roulant's "nine core principles of engagement" were posted here with permission from a staff member at COCo. Please let me know if further attribution is required.
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"If I Knew Then About Social Media What I Know Now"
For anyone who missed this thread started by Beth Kanter, several nonprofit social media gurus have been posting their thoughts on the questions:
"What if I could start all my social media and nonprofit work over from scratch? What would I do differently? What lessons have I learned that will stick with me for 2008?"
Katya Andresen of the Non-Profit Marketing Blog:
- It’s not that hard, and I should have gotten over the intimidation factor sooner
- It’s about “social,” not “media.”
- Social media takes "word of mouth" to a new level
- Think before you build something new, because we already have overdevelopment in social media.
- Don't Join New Social Networks Without Thinking
- Size doesn't matter
- Deep engagement in one community is better than being spread too thin across many communities.
- Translation skills are really, really, really important. (translation meaning converting geek talk into a common language)
- Comments are small, but powerful tools
- Have a purpose for each of the social networks you join
- A blog can be a website too
- Information overload is real
If you have the time, I definitely recommend clicking on the links above and reading the full versions of these three posts. Katya, Beth, and Britt know nonprofit social media inside out.
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