Saying “thank you” is a simple but powerful act. It only takes a moment, yet it’s one of your most important tools for building and maintaining relationships with your nonprofit’s supporters.

After the whirlwind of seasonal volunteerism, events, and holiday campaigns, the last thing on your mind may be thanking the people who made it all possible (despite your best intentions!). But when done well, a simple “thank you” can encourage future giving and involvement in your organization. This small act can be a critical piece in any nonprofit’s overall campaign strategy. If you’re unsure about the best approach for thanking your supporters, we’ve compiled a list of ideas to help you out.

Website Shout-out

Your website is prime real estate for making public announcements, highlighting volunteer opportunities, and communicating impact. Why not capitalize on this space to thank your donors?

One idea is to create a public “stewardship” section on your website. This section would be a great place to express gratitude to a large audience. It could also have the dual purpose of boosting engagement with future donors while and increasing loyalty among your current audience.

Photographs

Photographs can help illustrate your organization’s success stories and provide updates. The strength of visual storytelling lies in the ability to quickly create a strong emotional connection between your cause and your donors — this works when thanking contributors and showing their impact as well! Humanize your photos by including the faces of the people you serve whenever possible. Mobile-phone photos are fine, but professional-quality photos are even better if you’re going to include the photos in print materials.

Appreciation Video

A video is a creative and engaging medium for showing appreciation to your donors and volunteers.. Keep the video below 2 minutes for maximum engagement. Don’t feel like you have to have the most cutting-edge technology or artistic inclination to create a successful video message. Even footage shot on your phone can be a great way to share your gratitude.

Check out this great thank you video from Charity:Water

Phone Call

Pick up the phone! A great way to cultivate both trust and a positive impression of your organization is to give donors a call and genuinely thank them for everything they’ve done to support your cause. To stay on top of this, assign someone on staff to make these calls at least twice a month. Reaching out to donors individually is an important part of building relationships with them.

Old Fashioned “Thank You” Letter

One of the most time-tested ways to thank someone is by thank you letter. You should send your letter as quickly as possible following a donation. According to NonprofitPro, anywhere between two days and two weeks is an appropriate length of time to send it. If you wait too long, you miss the chance to deepen the bond between you organization and the donor or volunteer. Check out this resource for writing a great thank you letter.

It is essential to thank your donors after your holiday campaign (and throughout the year!). Adopting one or more of these strategies can boost donor engagement and retention while promoting a positive impression of your organization. Donors want to know that you appreciate their contributions. When you consider that fundraising boils down to two sources — new and existing donors — it’s clear any nonprofits needs effective ways to keep their donors coming back year after year.

What’s your favorite way to thank your donors? Let us know in the comments!

How to Thank Your Holiday Campaign Donors was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For many years, nonprofit organizations were bolstered by the hard work of loyal, recurring volunteers. People would dedicate significant amounts of time to an organization, week in and week out, typically for a single cause. But experts have expressed that the long-term volunteer is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Now the “episodic volunteer” has catapulted to the forefront of the volunteer landscape; this change marks one of the most significant shifts of our time. These episodic volunteers serve in spurts, usually for four months or less, and sometimes only annually. While episodic volunteers play an important role, nonprofits are facing a dearth of the long-term volunteers it takes to truly support their organizations.

Nonprofits would be wise to focus their attention on building and maintaining relationships with episodic volunteers; this can go a long way toward converting those individuals into long-term supporters. We discussed building volunteer relationships at length with Rachel Eldridge, the Volunteer Services Manager at Habitat for Humanity Charlotte in North Carolina. Eldridge has been managing volunteers directly for the past eleven years and is currently overseeing Habitat’s program of 8,000 volunteers. She gave us significant insight into building and maintaining volunteer relationships, which we think will be helpful to other nonprofits.

Overcoming the Challenges of Engaging Volunteers

A survey by one of our clients, United Way of King County, found that a nonprofit’s largest reported barrier to volunteer involvement is a lack of time to manage volunteers. The national trend toward episodic volunteerism requires that more staff and resources be allocated towards engaging volunteers, but nonprofits are not always equipped to meet these needs.

Eldridge confirmed that engaging volunteers can be difficult: “Depending on the scale of your program […] you always feel like it’s never enough and you’re always being stretched in multiple directions. The challenge is taking the time to really get to know your volunteers — to get out of the office, to go see them, to spend some time on the phone with them, or to remember things from that initial interview.”

A 1994 Points of Light survey found that the most effective volunteer-engagement programs not only employ a designated volunteer manager, but also encourage the entire staff to participate in engagement activities. Eldridge echoed this when she said, “[while] it’s easy to feel overburdened, […] you also need to delegate and have other people be a part of your team and a part of your resource.” She suggests “reminding your staff that they’re all volunteer coordinators and it’s up to everyone to make volunteers feel welcome at your agency and to engage [them].”

What is Habitat for Humanity Doing to Build Volunteer Relationships?

Habitat for Humanity Charlotte tries to cultivate personalized relationships in an effort to turn episodic volunteers into long-term supporters. Eldridge mentioned the following tactics to build volunteer relationships:

• Visit volunteers. One way that Habitat for Humanity is bolstering volunteer relationships is by visiting volunteers at the construction sites and at ReStore, their donation center. This gives volunteers the chance to see and interact with program leaders, and ask to questions about the organization.
• Consider a volunteer’s strengths. You can also increase volunteer engagement by considering your volunteers’ strengths. Eldridge says that “the more you get to know your volunteers, the more you can design or think of better volunteer roles for them, which will help them stay better engaged with your organization.”
• Show appreciation. Eldridge also suggested holding an appreciation event for your volunteers. These events acknowledge their hard work and can go a long way in creating relationships. If you do not have the budget for an event, simply spend time writing thank-you notes or emails.

How You Can Use Technology to Your Advantage

Especially in larger programs, it is difficult to keep track of a volunteer’s information. Eldridge described a decentralized process where “you’re doing one thing in your database, one thing in your email, and one thing someplace else.” This can make maintaining volunteer relationships cumbersome, as their information is scattered throughout several different databases and isn’t easily retrievable as a whole.

But the existence of new technology creates a huge opportunity for organizations to connect with volunteers in new ways. Thus, technology has become a critical tool of volunteer management.

Habitat started using volunteer management software to facilitate volunteer relationships. She said, in general, “software [can] really can save you a lot of time,” especially in cultivating and sustaining these relationships. This is because software helps you personalize correspondence, as well as store information about volunteers.

Traditional, time-consuming methods of volunteer engagement (such as in-person check-ins, mailed thank-you letters, reminder phone calls, etc.) can be expedited by volunteer management software. Automation that allows you to to auto-fill first names inside of emails, trigger thank-you notes, send a happy-birthday greeting, update the check-in process, and collect information about causes and interests, can be harnessed to make a volunteer feel valued. These new communication technologies also provide an excellent way to keep in touch with volunteers off-site and in remote locations. All of these touches work to cultivate a sense of loyalty to your organization. Thus, software can actually go a long way in recruiting a long-term volunteer.

Converting Corporate Volunteers into Long-Term Supporters

Eldridge mentioned that she encounters a lot of corporate volunteers in her organization. Corporate volunteers, or those who serve with their company, are almost always episodic volunteers. They come to your organization one day a year for something like a Day of Impact, and then you won’t see them until the next year. So what can you do to turn these episodic, corporate volunteers into those with a long-term commitment to your nonprofit?

Eldridge says a great opportunity to foster long-term commitment is the “goodbye moment.” When you’re wrapping up a volunteer opportunity, thank your volunteers for what they did. Talk about next steps in helping your organization. Communicate in-kind opportunities, ask them to follow you on social media, and share individual opportunities in the hopes that a person from the corporate group was intrigued enough by that first volunteer experience that they want to come back as an individual volunteer.

One of Eldridge’s goals is to reach out to more corporate volunteers to thank them individually, instead of just thanking the group leader. Because Habitat is using automation, it’s easier to generate a list of email addresses for everyone who worked on a specific house. They can then use their software to follow up with each corporate volunteer after the initial opportunity.These points of contact help Habitat build personal relationships with their corporate volunteers, which may well convert them into the loyal, long-term volunteers Habitat needs.

In Conclusion

As the long-term volunteer continues to decline, nonprofits must try harder to engage their episodic volunteers. Habitat for Humanity is working diligently to engage both their individual and corporate volunteers to deepen their commitment to Habitat’s cause. One tool they use is volunteer management software, which can be an excellent resource for any nonprofit. Not only can this kind of software help you track and manage volunteerism, but it can be a great tool for personalizing communications and keeping track of your volunteers’ interests. By using a similar tool and following some of the advice Rachel Eldridge shared with us, your nonprofit can begin strengthening your long-term volunteer programs as well!

A special thank you to Habitat for Humanity Charlotte and Rachel Eldridge for their contributions.

How Habitat for Humanity Builds Volunteer Relationships was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Disasters strike in every corner of the world, during every season, and on different scales throughout the year. Nonprofit organizations serve as key players during these disasters, providing aid and resources to those affected. Indeed, hospitals, food banks, human and animal shelters, and other nonprofits are integrated into most response and recovery efforts during emergencies.

These events are often unexpected by their very nature, leaving little time, if any, to prepare. That is why it is so important to put time into planning and preparation long before the disaster strikes.

We spoke with Cameron Waldner, CEO of Volunteer Houston, about the importance of disaster preparedness. His organization has been part of the response and recovery effort following Hurricane Harvey. In this article, we’ve included information on preparing for a disaster, as well as Waldner’s advice to nonprofits that find themselves in the midst of disaster response.

What is disaster preparedness?

Disaster preparedness refers to the preventive measures taken to reduce the severity of a disaster’s effects. The goal of disaster preparedness is to lessen the impact of disasters on vulnerable populations, to ready an organization for an influx of activity, and to design a coordinated plan that reduces the waste of resources, time, and efforts. Disaster preparedness has the potential save the maximum number of lives and property during a disaster, and it aims to return the affected populations to normalcy as quickly as possible.

What is the role of the volunteer manager in disaster preparedness?

During and after a disaster, volunteer managers collaborate with local governments, emergency managers, and with other nonprofit organizations to save lives and provide aid. According to Waldner, “the primary goal [of volunteer managers] is to be the conduit between multiple organizations, and to be able to sit at the table with Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, or VOAD. Being a part of your local and regional VOAD is imperative, and if not it greatly hinders everything else.”

It is essential to cultivate these kinds of relationships in a pre-disaster environment. The chaotic and deadly aftermath of Hurricane Katrina serves as a reminder of the importance of cross-sector coordination and collaboration. The clumsy coordination, response, and recovery efforts needlessly contributed to loss of life. These failures highlight the need for strong communication and preparation before the high-stress disaster situation.

Ways to prepare for a disaster

All nonprofit organizations should create thorough documentation that prepares staff in the event of disaster. Though it may seem difficult or time-consuming to plan for the unexpected, this seeming inconvenience is far better than finding your organization in a disaster situation, rendered incapable of helping and serving your community. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it includes a few important considerations for disaster planning.

• Develop a business continuity plan. Business continuity is defined as “the comprehensive process of planning for, and retooling, the organization’s best practices so that the nonprofit can function successfully after the crisis has passed, getting back quickly to where it was before the interruption.” Continuity planning outlines what actions a nonprofit will take before the crisis situation, the immediate steps to follow after the interruption of service, and the necessary actions for restoring the nonprofit’s functionality so that they can return to serving clients in the affected population. Having a well-crafted business continuity plan will help ensure limited disruption of services to clients. The business continuity plan is an essential component of the larger disaster preparedness plan.
• Define your nonprofit’s purpose, priorities, and principles. When you write your plan, begin with an explanation of why a disaster plan is relevant to your organization, the people you serve, and your mission. This succinct explanation will help you and your organization understand where they fit into the disaster response and recovery efforts later on.
• Have disaster web-content ready to go. When asked to give advice to other nonprofits based on his experience with Hurricane Harvey, Waldner suggested that you “manage your messaging.” He explained that “we had some of our folks working on messaging, and also getting everything standardized,” stating that “that was the big piece.” He also recommended that you “have all of your graphics ready to go for a disaster” in order to “plug and place as needed.” For instance, he explained how he knew what dimensions he needed for his home page and Get Connected banner ahead of time. He had also planned content for his organization’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Having this information ready will save time later on by eliminating the need to create materials from remote locations — especially if your office is destroyed in the disaster.
• Prepare your website. In Waldner’s case, it was vital that his website was ready to go before responding to the disaster in Houston. When asked for advice on how to prepare one’s website, he said “be flexible and mindful of your user environment on your website. We were able to move our website into disaster mode. So, shrinking our Wordpress site, and moving all of our links to [point towards disaster related information]. We also had to buy additional bandwidth from GoDaddy in the midst of it, and that was already having some precautions set up.”
  Because of these changes, he said, “we were able to get our website up and going, and in that we were able to manage the influx of volunteers — we had over 60,000 people register [for Get Connected] in eight days.”
• Have a plan for volunteers. If you belong to a voluntary organization, you need to have a plan for how to manage disaster volunteers. There are two categories of disaster volunteers: affiliated volunteers and spontaneous unaffiliated volunteers. Affiliated volunteers work with specific agencies and have been trained in disaster-response techniques. Because they have training and are known to the agencies, they usually require little supervision. Spontaneous unaffiliated volunteers (SUVs), on the other hand, are ordinary citizens who want to help in the aftermath of the disaster. Despite their best intentions, SUVs can be hard to manage if you do not have a plan for doing so in place. As Waldner mentioned, he had over 60,000 people register to volunteer in only eight days! It is therefore crucial to have a plan in place for how to manage the large number of volunteers that respond in the aftermath of a disaster.

Waldner said that one of his best methods for organizing these SUVs was “trying to get ahead of the news and also utilizing the website.” He explained that “before we took over managing the George R. Brown Convention Center, there was a line of volunteers around the building that would take them anywhere from two to three hours just to get in to volunteer. By getting ahead of the messaging and working on it,” he said, “we were able to schedule volunteer shifts and get that back under control.”

In conclusion

When any disaster strikes, whether it be a hurricane, flood, domestic terrorism, tornado, or fire, the situation has the potential to create chaos and confusion. Effective disaster preparedness helps alleviate some of the chaos wrought by the unexpected crisis. It is critical to have a written plan in place, and for all staff to understand their role within the plan. Disaster plans should be revisited regularly to ensure complete understanding within the organization. If you follow your disaster plan, it is possible for your nonprofit to be able to get back up and running quickly and begin serving the populations affected by the disaster.

A big thank you to Cameron Waldner, CEO of Volunteer Houston, for his contributions to this article. We hope his insights and advice will help other nonprofits before they find themselves in the midst of disaster response.

The Importance of Being Prepared Before a Disaster Strikes was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In an era when charitable giving is as easy as a few clicks and a submit button, it’s hardly a surprise that nonprofits see their online donations grow year after year. Recurring donations are often automated, which makes it even easier for citizens to continually donate to their favorite causes. Interestingly, however, it seems that a growing percentage of these are donations are motivated by anger rather than generosity.

Anger? Yes. It’s 2017: Welcome to the rise of the “rage donation.” Can your organization harness this discontent to benefit social good?

What is a rage donation?

Nonprofits, charities, and foundations are acquiring new donors through episodic giving. Episodic donors are people who give to organizations in response to specific events, such as disasters, headline news, and political actions.. “Rage donations” are a type of episodic giving in which people express their emotions through donations to causes that they feel are threatened, or are poised to make a political impact.

For example, rage donations to progressive causes skyrocketed after the 2016 election. Planned Parenthood received donations at 40 times its typical rate, with 70% of those being first-time donors. The New York Times also reported that other progressive nonprofits, including the ACLU, ProPublica, the Sierra Club, and the International Refugee Assistance project, experienced similar surges in donations.

One Way to Engage Donors Beyond the Rage Donation

While episodic giving can bolster fundraising efforts, it is often difficult to retain these donors beyond over the long run. Donors are called to action because of a moment of anger or inspiration, but when that feeling fades, so does their support. Therefore, nonprofits will have to work harder than ever to keep these donors engaged.

To keep donor interested, realize that they want to know about the impact of their donation and how it has benefited your cause. Charity:Water does an excellent job of communicating a donor’s impact. They allow donors to geo-track their donation to see exactly which community in the world they’re supporting. Illustrating a donor’s impact may play a significant role in whether they will want to donate again. Visual storytelling is a fantastic way to communicate impact and keep the Millennial donor engaged!

In Conclusion

The culmination of front-page headlines, televised protests, and public tweet-storms are causing donors to pour money into nonprofits in record numbers. This is only the beginning of the rage donation, and we should expect it to grow over time. How nonprofits respond to, and engage with, these episodic donors will determine whether these will be one-off messages of support, or a recurring tributes to the causes these donors care about.

Episodic Giving and the Rise of the ‘Rage Donation’ was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’d be difficult to work in the philanthropic sphere without hearing about the Millennial generation.They make up over a quarter of the population and have been entering the workforce in droves. They’re known to value socially responsible business practices and subscribe to the belief of “doing well by doing good.” While you may know a lot about Millennials, do you know enough about the generation in their wake?

Generation Z, sometimes referred to as iGen or the Founders, is still a loose designation that generally refers to those born after 1996. They are quickly gaining on Millennials, making up 27% of the global population. Because this demographic will make up the bulk of the world’s population in just a few years’ time, nonprofits should strive to understand these future donors more clearly.

Understanding Generation Z’s Mindset

If you hope to understand “Gen Z” and their philanthropic tendencies, it’s important to consider the political, economic, and social contexts in which they were raised. The younger members of Gen Z do not remember a time before the first African-American president, while the oldest came of age in the economic turbulence of the Great Recession. Many saw their parents lose financial security, their jobs, or their homes.

According to MTV’s research, Gen Z sees the world as “dramatically disrupted.” MTV contends they grew up without the traditional safety net provided by their parents, so are therefore more risk-averse than their predecessors.

Does Generation Z Donate?

Gen Z encompasses a large swath of age groups. The oldest Gen Zs are nearing college graduation, while the youngest members are entering Kindergarten. Though the majority of this generation has yet to enter the workforce, they are already exhibiting signs of a philanthropic inclination.

These so-called “screenagers” are digital natives; indeed, most of Gen Z cannot remember a time before social media. They spend their days online, and most of the interactions they have with nonprofits and charities happen on social media. According to the 2017 Giving Report, 59% of Gen Zs are inspired to donate to charity because of a message or graphic they saw on a social network, while only 14% are engaged by an email.

Consider that 26% of Gen Zs have raised money for a cause, and 32% have donated their own money — or allowances — to charity. This generation is eager to make the world a better place; the wise nonprofit will find the right opportunities to let them.

Tapping into Gen Z’s Interests

Nonprofits should be excited to hear that people in Gen Z are adopting lifestyles that help them make the world a better place. When you consider that this generation has been inundated with more turmoil, corruption, and conflict than any other generation in American history (via social media), it makes sense that they feel an urge to contribute to a solution.

A recent study by Sparks and Honey found that 26% of individuals aged 16–19 already volunteer on a regular basis. That’s a very large pool of potential volunteers! But keep in mind the ingrained realism of this generation. To get support from Generation Z, Aimee Meade from The Guardian suggests you ‘’hand over’ campaigns to them.” In other words, allow them to offer input about how to run the campaign, and provide them with hands-on, experiential learning opportunities. Events should have specific, clearly communicated, and achievable goals for Gen Z.

Gen Z thrives on online videos. According to one study, 67% of respondents aged 13–24 said they couldn’t live without YouTube. They’re clicking on videos 2.5 times more than those aged 25 and older. For nonprofits, this means that digital media and videos should be a top priority — even more so than with the Millennial generation. Videos about your organization’s impact, in particular, will resonate with Generation Z.

You should also adopt volunteer management software to engage with Generation Z, as well as track their volunteer hours.Gen Z are digital natives; software that was designed with the best practices of social media and social sharing in mind will be particularly useful in engaging them. Some key features that will appeal to Gen Z include a modern-looking interface, gamified badges, and the ability to share achievements on their social networks.

Conclusion

Young people in Generation Z, much like the Millennials, are often characterized as being out of touch, short of attention, and disengaged. But Gen Z may be rising to be one of the most philanthropic generations yet. Forward-thinking nonprofits will find creative ways to engage and cultivate loyalty in this generation early. Generation Z is eager to make the world a better place; let’s let them.

Do You Know Enough About Generation Z? was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In recent years, reports have increasingly linked business success with corporate social responsibility. Corporations are teaming up with the nonprofit sector more than ever before, and they are proving to be a powerful ally to nonprofits. In fact, a recent Conference Board survey concluded that, for roughly two out of three large North American corporations, using philanthropy to advance their business goals is a top priority.

The recent natural disasters in America have sparked a new influx of corporate giving. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that companies have pledged over $157 billion in disaster-relief funds to organizations responding to the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. These estimates continue to increase as contributions pour in. Employee donation-matching programs are bringing in even more funds. As Marc DeCourcey, the Senior Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce Foundation noted, “The corporate response thus far [has] been strong.”

Here is short list of companies that have pledged to help the victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma:

Apple: Pledged $5 million to the Hand in Hand effort, in addition to $3 million donated to the Red Cross.

Bank of America: Employees donated $754,000, which the company then matched. Bank of America then donated an additional $3.5 million to relief efforts of both storms.

CVS: CVS announced that they will donate $200,000 in in-kind and cash donations, as well as $50,000 to both the Greater Houston Community Foundation and the Red Cross. They will also donate $25,000 to the Salvation Army and match employee donations up to $25,000.

Dell: Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies, pledged $36 million to relief efforts. This is the largest donation to date that is aimed at disaster-recovery efforts.

Google: Google gave a $250,000 grant to the Red Cross and will also match employee donations up to $250,000.

PepsiCo: Pepsi has donated $1 million to the Red Cross for relief efforts in Texas. It will also provide purified drinking water to areas impacted by the storm.

Verizon: Verizon has donated $10 million to disaster relief efforts.

PetSmart: PetSmart will be giving $1 million to animal welfare agencies that are working to rescue and relocate animals that were affected by Hurricane Harvey. They will also donate in-kind donations of pet food and supplies to these organizations.

Walmart: Walmart has committed to a $30 million donation to hurricane relief.

Large corporations are taking the lead in terms of donating to disaster recovery organizations. But this doesn’t mean that your own business — small or large — can’t contribute as well! Consider implementing an employee donation matching initiative to encourage employees to donate to the relief efforts. Every donation will count in the months and years ahead.

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Face of Disaster was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey touched ground in a rural area of southeast Texas. Over the next four days, parts of Texas received over 40 inches of rain, causing unprecedented flooding and displacing over 30,000 people. Volunteer assistance was needed — and fast. Many volunteer efforts seemed to spring up overnight, with churches, corporations, other organizations, and individuals stepping up to help. One such effort was by Volunteer Houston, who mobilized its Disaster Response Module (DRM) in Get Connected to register and manage disaster volunteers.

As I write this, a much bigger hurricane — Hurricane Irma — is bearing down on Florida. Predicted to be even more catastrophic than Harvey, Irma will require untold numbers of volunteers help with response and recovery. As with any hurricane, Irma’s path is unpredictable, and we don’t yet know what communities will experience flooding or where volunteers will be needed.

If your organization serves a community that may be facing disaster, your Connect site may soon face a significant increase in both needs and volunteers. Your site may experience higher traffic, as Volunteer Houston did, and that can be overwhelming, so it’s important to be prepared. Even if you don’t have the DRM, your Connect site can still be an effective tool in managing and mobilizing volunteers. This article offers ideas and best practices for effectively managing disaster-response volunteer opportunities by using tools outside of the DRM — tools that are available to all Connect site clients.

Before the Disaster: Find Out Who Wants to Volunteer

Did you know that your volunteers can update their profiles to say that they’d like to be contacted in case of a disaster? You can also ask new volunteers to provide this information as well. Here are some ways to learn who wants to be notified of volunteer opportunities during a disaster:

• Send an email blast to your volunteers and give them instructions for editing their profiles. (The Contact me in the event of a disaster setting can be found under Settings in the Edit Profile area.)
• To capture this information from new volunteers, update the user-registration form. Go to your site manager panel and click Settings > User Registration. From there, you can click to enable the Contact if Disaster? registration item.
• Keep in mind that you can add custom questions to the user-registration form. Custom questions are useful if you want to know volunteers’ emergency contact information, blood type, skills, past disaster-response experience, etc.
• Because any custom questions you add will show up in all volunteers’ profiles, your existing volunteers can update their information as well.

Later on, you can send disaster-response email blasts to only those volunteers who have indicated that they’d like to be contacted, or who meet certain custom criteria. See “Contact Your Volunteers” below for more information.

Set Up an Initiative

To ensure that your disaster-response needs are both easy to find and easily recognizable as disaster response needs, you’ll want to begin by setting up an initiative for disaster response. Here are some things to keep in mind as you set up the initiative:

• The Initiative Banner: Title and Description. Each need within the initiative will be displayed with a banner, which will include the initiative title and description. Your title should be clear and communicative: “Disaster Response Needs” is a good generic title, or you may want to name the disaster (for example, “Disaster Response: Hurricane Irma”) so that volunteers know exactly where their efforts will be focused. In your description, include any useful links, warnings, and other important information.

Read on to see what this banner looks like in the volunteer view.

• The Initiative Banner: Color and Icon. In addition to communicating with words, use the banner’s color and icon to clarify that these are disaster response needs. This might include using a bright shade of red (such as hex code #ce2029) to indicate emergency/disaster needs, and an icon that indicates the same. Your Connect site has several options, such as the attention, megaphone, heart, and fire extinguisher icons, that can be used for this purpose. In this example, we’ve used the suggested hex code with the fire-extinguisher icon:

• Customized Notifications. Remember to add disaster-specific information to your confirmation messages. This is particularly important if you want to provide links for further information or a way to get updates on the response efforts.
• Custom Questions for Disaster Response. Once you’ve submitted the initiative, you’ll get the option to add custom questions for that specific initiative. You can add an unlimited number of questions. Here are a few you may want to include:
• Special skills, services, and tools. Are you in need of volunteers who speak Spanish? Who have access to certain tools or types of vehicles? Who are certified in a particular trade? You can create a custom question asking volunteers to provide information about the skills and services they offer. When a volunteer responds to a disaster-response need, they’ll be shown any custom questions as part of their response form. In this example, the site manager has created a checklist to learn what languages a volunteer can speak.

• Mobile phone numbers. Not everyone includes their mobile phone numbers in their user profiles. If you want to be able to reach a volunteer by phone (or text), include a custom question for a phone number where they can be reached during this response. (Note: If collected as an initiative question, mobile phone number will be attached to the user’s response, not to the user’s profile. To store the phone number with the user’s profile, ask them to update this information there, rather than as part of their response to a need.)
• Group represented. Chances are, you’ll see new groups of volunteers in response to the disaster. Since you may not already have user groups set up for these volunteers, consider adding an open-ended question for people to inform you of what group (if any) they are volunteering with. This information will be useful in reporting later on.

• Blood type. If you will be looking for blood donors, this information could be important! Later you can send out an email blast to volunteers who have indicated that they have a certain blood type. (Note: As with mobile phone numbers, you may want to add this item to the user profile rather than as an initiative question.)
• Travel, transportation, and lodging. Do you need to know if a volunteer is traveling to your community from out of state? If they’ll need lodging of any kind? You can later run a filter on these volunteers to determine what, if anything, will be required to meet their needs.
• Disaster-response training or experience. It may be helpful to know how skilled your volunteers are in responding to a disaster. If you ask this question, consider making it a text field so that volunteers can provide brief details on their past experience or training.

Set Up a Spotlight

You want your disaster needs to be easy to find, so go ahead and set up a spotlight and link it to your disaster-response initiative. Even if you aren’t yet ready to begin posting needs, it’s good to prepare a spotlight in advance. Keep the spotlight inactive until you’re ready for people to begin responding to the initiative’s needs. Here are a few tips for setting up your disaster-response spotlight:

• Use the same color, icon, and title for the spotlight banner that you used for the initiative.
• Move the spotlight to the “Spotlight 1” position. Keep it inactive until you’re ready to begin linking to disaster-response needs.
• Remember to enable the Show in Navigation option so that volunteers can access the initiative page from both the spotlight banner and your navigation menu.

Once the time for disaster-response is over, simply deactivate the spotlight.

Contact Your Agencies

Let your agencies know that they can continue to use your Connect site to post volunteer opportunities. Here are some steps you may want to take in order to manage agency-posted disaster-response needs effectively:

• In your site settings, you can give agencies permission to tie their posted needs to any initiative. You may want to turn this setting on or off, depending on the level of control you want to have over what is or is not included in the initiative. To access this setting, go to Settings > Main Settings and scroll down to the Needs area.
• You may want to change your site’s settings for approving new needs. If you don’t normally auto-approve, you may want to begin auto-approving so that the needs can get posted ASAP. On the other hand, you may want to manually approve all new needs coming in to ensure that they are a good fit for your site, and for your volunteers. While different organizations’ situations vary, we recommend reviewing all new needs that come in before allowing them to be seen publicly on your site.
• If agencies will be posting requests for in-kind donations, encourage them to select the “in-kind” interest when posting the need. As the site manager, you can then create a second spotlight pointing specifically to in-kind donation requests.

To contact your agencies using the email blast, begin by running a filter on Volunteer > Agency Manager > is an Agency Manager.

Reach Out To Your Community

Let your volunteers know that, should they wish to help with disaster response, they can find needs on your site. Post the link to the disaster-response initiative on social media and on your main website to let everyone know. Send out a press release, and make sure the initiative link is included on other sites that list ways to help support the community during this time.

You can also send specific messages to those volunteers on your site who are particularly interested in disaster response.

Has your site been collecting profile data on whether volunteers would like to be notified in case of a disaster? If so, you can set up an email blast filter for only those volunteers who wish to be notified. To do this, run a filter on Disaster Response > Disaster notification > volunteers who wish to be notified.

Another option is to email only those volunteers who have indicated disaster response as one of their preferred causes; to do this, run the filter on User Data > User Causes > is > Disaster Response. (If you’ve overridden this default cause with another one, you won’t have this option.)

Later on, you use the user filter to reach out to all of the volunteers who responded to needs within this initiative.

Conclusion

Even if you don’t have the DRM, you can still use your Connect site for disaster-response needs. While initiatives wasn’t specifically designed for disaster response, this tool does offer a number of features that you can harness for that purpose. By setting aside an area of your site for disaster-response needs, customizing questions for disaster volunteers, and setting up a spotlight so that the needs are easy to find, you can help to make the process of gathering and managing volunteers a little easier.

If your community is facing a disaster and you have questions or need further guidance in managing disaster-response volunteerism on your Connect site, send our support team an email at support@galaxydigital.com, and include the words “disaster response” in the subject line. Your request will go to the top of our priority list, and you’ll hear back quickly from one of our Connect site experts.

Using Your Connect Site for Disaster Response was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the past two decades, a new methodology known as photovoice has emerged on the anthropological, documentary, and public-health scenes. More recently, it has been used within the field of service-learning. When a service-learning curriculum is coupled with the photovoice methodology, students can be better engaged with the course material and their volunteer experiences. Using John Wood’s course There and Back Again: An Anthropology of Witness as our model, we will explore the benefits of photovoice and briefly discuss how to implement a similar methodology in the classroom.

What is Photovoice?

Photovoice is a form of participatory action research in which the traditional subjects of photographs become the photographers. By using community-based research activities, the photovoice methodology is designed to empower people who are marginalized or silenced by mainstream society, whether for their race, culture, class, disability, sexuality, or another reason that labels them ‘Other’ (Palibroda, Krieg, Murdock, & Havelock 8). These groups then work together to “identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique” that is “based on the theoretical literature on education for critical consciousness, feminist theory, and nontraditional approaches to documentary photography (Wang and Burris 185).

Photovoice allows members of marginalized groups the opportunity to tell their own story, and contribute their own voices to the narrative that surrounds them. By giving these individuals cameras to document their experiences, they can create photographic evidence that will allow for insight into the way they see their communities and the world (Palibroda, Krieg, Murdock, & Havelock 8). Photovoice projects typically culminate in an exhibition of the photographs, which encourages critical community dialogue, empowerment, and action (Hernandez, Shabazian, & Mcgrath 1948).

The History of Photovoice

Photovoice is a relatively new concept in education. In 1992, Caroline Wang from the University of Michigan conceptualized “a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique.” She originally called this practice photo novella (Ross,1948).

Wang and her partner, Mary Ann Burris, first used this methodology with women in the rural Yunnan Province of China. They gave the women cameras and asked them to depict their lives and environment over the course of a year. At regular intervals, they met to view and discuss their photos as a group. The project concluded in a photo exhibition, viewed by both the public and policymakers, that addressed the policies and programs that affected the women (Rabinowitz).

Since then, photovoice has been used in communities all over the world. It’s been implemented by refugees in San Diego who sought in-person medical interpretation programs. It was harnessed by Dr. Laura S. Lorenz to support her work with brain-injury survivors (Strack, Magill, & McDonagh 49–58). And in 2016, it was used by John Wood, Ph.D, at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, to promote the healing of Vietnam veterans. In this paper, Wood’s course will serve as the primary example and illustration of this methodology in action.

The Benefits of Incorporating Photovoice Methodology into Service-Learning

According to a study by Scientific Research Publishing, a teaching strategy that connects students’ lives to their educational pursuits results in increased learning potential. This link can be effectively solidified through the educational approach of service-learning (Hernandez, Shabazian, & Mcgrath 1949). This non-traditional model is “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development. Reflection and reciprocity are key concepts of service-learning” (Jacoby 5).

As our exploration of Wood’s course project will show, photovoice — like service-learning — also connects academic study (reading texts and examining photos produced by a community) with community service (working with individuals to effect policy change and critical dialogue within the larger community). When asked about the link between service-learning and photovoice, Wood explained, “The whole idea [of the photovoice methodology] is to be in service of communities, to help communities themselves tell a story they want to tell. […] You work with communities that say ‘we want to make sure that people understand this about us,’ or ‘we want people to know that we’re being hammered by this industry,’ or ‘we want people to know that we have people who are hungry.’ […] Photovoice is there to facilitate them telling their own story.” Students therefore engage in service by listening to and assisting in the telling of a story for the betterment of the community, and ultimately, for the betterment of the students themselves.

While service-learning typically involves volunteerism, photovoice takes one step closer towards understanding the worldviews of the communities being served. By using the pedagogical tool of photovoice within a service-learning curriculum, students gain the opportunity for a shared human learning experience. In this manner, students can begin to understand, relate to, and reflect upon individuals and communities in a way not always achievable by service-learning alone. The result is often a more engaged student with a more thorough understanding of course themes.

Using Photovoice Methodology at UNC Asheville

Dr. Bruce Kelly, a primary care physician at the Charles George VA Medical Center in Asheville, NC, began working with a group of Vietnam veterans as part of the Medical Humanities Program. Though skeptical at first, the veterans met weekly to write poetry about their experiences of war. The goal of the program was to promote healing through the arts. At an exhibition of their work, one of the men described the experience as the “[…] closest thing to a miracle that’s happened in [his] life” (Bathanti 2017).

Two years later, when the the VA Medical Center ran out of space for these men to continue, Kelly approached Wood and asked if he wanted to hold a photovoice class with these same veterans. Wood, a professor of anthropology, agreed. Thus, he partnered with the VA Medical Center for his service-learning designated course, There and Back Again: An Anthropology of Witness.

Wood taught his students grassroots photovoice methodologies to help the veterans record and share their experiences with war, as well as the difficulties associated with assimilating into civilian life. The course instructed students on how to use photography, interviews, oral history, active listing, transcription, and curation as an avenue for storytelling (Wood).

When asked about how he structured the course, Wood said that half of the class was spent with only his students. They read texts about war and photovoice, learned about the methodology, and thought critically about the ethics involved in this process. The other half of the class was spent interviewing and working with the veterans. Students organically gravitated towards a veteran partner, and each pair worked together to tell the veteran’s story. The classroom and lab combination instilled students with a foundational knowledge that they used in the service and photovoice components of the course.

This course was interesting in that it diverged slightly from photovoice norms: the veterans did not take photos in the present moment. Rather, the students and veterans worked from photos of their time in Vietnam that depicted certain events that were meaningful or pivotal in their lives. These vintage photographs served as a springboard for discussion, interviews, and healing from past traumas (Wood). The students then used Adobe’s Final Cut Pro (a video-editing software) to create multimedia videos that included audio and visual components to tell the veteran’s stories. The class culminated in a sort of ‘parting ritual’ where the veterans and their families came together to eat, drink, and view the photos, interviews, and videos put together by the students (Wood).

See examples of student work here: http://www.veteransvoices.space/

Impacts

The course evolved into something quite special for the veterans, the students, and Wood. Wood shared that “because that class seemed to be so meaningful to the veterans, to me it was a beautiful thing to witness. [To see] the students getting something out of a curriculum that seemed real instead of abstract and book-like. [The students] got to touch real people who had been through real trauma, and were struggling with that. And they got to be witnessed […] It was beautiful because I got to be present while it was happening — to see it. It was a beautiful thing to watch. It really was, it was the most meaningful class I’ve ever been involved in.” A student echoed these sentiments when she said “I got so much out of that class […] I never really knew how much bearing witness to someone else could change you. It was the most impactful course I’ve taken in [my undergraduate education].”

Wood continued, “There’s a value in being witnessed, and there’s a value in witnessing. Whether you’re talking about it in terms of photovoice methodology, or ethnographic methodology, or service-learning methodology, when people get to come into the company of each other on more or less equal terms, and be human with each other, develop a relationship that is sharing and reciprocal, that’s what being human is, at its best. […] If I were to talk to anyone about doing service-learning, that’s the piece I think I would want to communicate. That, in some ways, not to be distracted by the particular service. This is ideally about relationship building, and about learning how to have relationships that are equally fulfilling for all parties. In a world like we have, that doesn’t happen automatically.”

How to Build Your Own Service-Learning Photovoice Curriculum

Though there are no hard and fast rules to organizing and implementing a photovoice-themed service-learning course, a structured approach will set better expectations for the professors, students, and community members involved (Wood). The following is a suggested way of structuring a course.

Step One: Organize the Assignment and Project

A useful way to begin organizing a photovoice-themed project is to figure out the shape of the final product. There are many ways to present the results of a project: an exhibition at a local coffee shop or art gallery, for example, or a presentation at a conference. In Wood’s case, he created a Squarespace portfolio of the students’ and veterans’ work and held a closing reception to display the final product.

It’s also a good idea to decide how the project will be incorporated into the student’s course credit. For example, what assignments will students be expected to complete, and when? Will students be expected to journal or submit reflections throughout the class, and will that count towards their overall evaluation? Is it necessary for a student to complete a certain amount of volunteer hours? Will these hours need to be tracked for their final grade?

• Decide on logistical aspects early in the process. Here are a few questions to consider:
• Will you use disposable film cameras? Or is it necessary to purchase digital point and shoot cameras?
• Do you need to gather consent forms?
• Will the film need to be scanned and edited?
• How much will the equipment cost?
• Can you secure a grant to cover the cost of materials?
• Will students need recorders to document the oral narratives, or will they simply take notes during their interviews with the participants?
• Will the class need to be broken into smaller groups?

Wang, the University of Michigan researcher who used photovoice with women in China’s Yumman Province, advises breaking large classes into smaller units “to allow for practical ease and in-depth discussion” and suggests that “seven to ten people is the ideal group” (Ross 3).

Step Two: Partner with a Community and Recruit Participant Photographers

After the organizational and logistical details are solidified, it is time to partner with a community who is interested in participating in the photovoice project. Educators may find community partners through their campus’s volunteer management software, existing partners, or through their academic and community networks. Wood had an ideal situation in that the community partner (Dr. Kelly of the VA Medical Center) approached him with the need for the project.

Typically, the students do not act as photographers; rather, the goal of photovoice is to capture the perspectives of the people who live within the community the class has partnered with. Identify community members who are willing and able to be participant photographers.

Step Three: Consider the Ethics

Before putting the project into action, instructors should be prepared to teach their students about the ethical treatment of marginalized or stigmatized communities. Wood described how “a lot of times, volunteerism and service learning involve a kind of politics that doesn’t get scrutinized, that doesn’t get attended to. […] The service provider tends to have a kind of power over the service receiver. […] There’s also a presumption that I have something you need. […] It sets up an interesting dynamic.”

He continued, “We have a responsibility to be mindful of those inequalities and try to mitigate against them. [One way] to do this is to empower people who are supposedly ‘receiving.’ If they’re asking for it, they have that power.” With these power dynamics in mind, Wood avoided telling the veterans what they needed, but rather waited for them to tell him what they wanted.

Ethics should be constantly attended to throughout the photovoice course. And while there is no rulebook, Wood stressed the value of being mindful and anticipating some of these issues. At every step, check in with the community being served. To guard against exploitation, make sure that participants are empowered by this process, and are in positions of power throughout. In this manner, the community is placed in a position of power, rather than simply being the subject of someone else’s inquiry (Ross 3–4).

Furthermore, Wang and Burris suggest creating a document of informed consent that is explained and distributed to participants. The document should describe the project’s significance and activities, the potential risks and benefits to the community, the voluntary nature of participation, and that people can choose to leave the project of their own volition at any time, for any reason (Wang and Burris 188).

Step Four: Have Participants Collaborate on a Project Theme

It is critical to allow the community to take the lead in deciding the story they’d like to tell about themselves (Ross 3). The theme of this story will help the project stay organized and will focus the material produced by the participant photographers. Students can propose a theme, but the final decision should be left to the community and the participants involved. By discussing a student- proposed theme with the community, students can begin to see the difference (or similarities) between their assumptions about a community and the reality. Students should write regular reflections throughout this process, as they begin to see how well (or how poorly) their original assumptions matched the community’s experience.

With the help of the veterans, Wood’s class decided to focus their course around the theme of transitions. Students interviewed the veterans about how they transitioned to military life, how it felt when they landed in Vietnam, how they transformed from young men into soldiers, and what it was like when they came home. This theme helped focus the multi-media projects that the students worked on throughout the class.

Step Five: Distribute Cameras

Once the theme has been chosen and students understand the ethics and the methodology involved, students should give the participants their cameras. You may wish to include simple instruction on how to use the device. Here are some other topics to consider covering with participants:

• How to best approach a potential subject of a photograph.
• How and when it is appropriate to ask for permission before photographing a child or stranger.
• The best ways to approach a subject of a photo.
• What it means to photograph another person, the implications of the photo being viewed by the larger community, and when someone may not want to be photographed.

Take care not to dictate the type of images that you want the photographers to capture. Rather, allow the participants to interpret the theme within an ethical framework (Ross 4).

Step Six: Share the Photographs

Depending on the technology used to produce the photographs, students must either import the photos to a computer or develop the film. Regardless of the method used, two copies should be made — one for the student, and one for the photographer.

Following the development and distribution of the photos, set aside a space and time for the students and photographers to discuss them. Ask the photographers to discuss the stories behind their favorite photos, and how they tie into the theme of the course. Take note of these conversations and pay close attention to how the photographers have depicted their communities and the theme. Students will learn about the photographers’ world view during this step. Students should record their thoughts and impressions throughout (Ross 4–5).

Step Seven: Compare Original Assumptions with the Outcome

After viewing the material produced by the photographers, students should compare the final product with their original assumptions. How do the photos differ from what was anticipated? Students in Wood’s class, for instance, were surprised by the emerging theme of survivor’s guilt in the veterans. It was a subject that manifested in the photos, but was not anticipated at the outset.

This step is valuable in that it exposes the original biases and stereotypes made by the students, and helps deepen their understanding of the community being served. Photovoice is unique in that it offers students the opportunity to confront what they thought they knew, which they must then reconcile with reality. Coming to understand the complex emotions involved in surviving war, for instance, was invaluable in understanding the veterans’ experience. It allowed students to take a step closer towards understanding the worldview of the veteran community being served. A great way to facilitate this deeper reflection is to ask students to talk or write about what surprised them about the content produced by the photographers.

Step Eight: Presentation of Findings and Final Reflections

After the group discusses the images and the photographers’ stories, it is time to present the project to the broader public. The mode of presentation should be consistent with what was decided in Step One. In Wood’s case, students held a closing reception and presentation of the multimedia project they had posted to an online portfolio.

This step may also include both individual and group evaluations that take the form of reflection papers. The final reflection is a critical component, as students will be asked how the photovoice model has challenged and deepened their understanding of the community served.

Conclusion

Coupling service-learning with the photovoice methodology has many benefits for service-learning students. Students are more engaged with the course material because of the deep reflections that take place throughout. We saw that Dr. John Wood’s course helped the Vietnam veterans heal from the traumas of war, while giving students an ethical and hands-on volunteering and service experience that taught them the transformative power of bearing witness. After serving as witnesses, students are more likely to become advocates for policy changes that affect the communities they serve.

Most importantly, photovoice is an effective and ethical mode of service-learning in regards to the marginalized community. It allows the communities being served to control their own narrative and take charge of their representation. We hope that more educators use the photovoice methodology within their service-learning curriculum.

Special thanks to Dr. John Wood for his contributions to this article. We wish him luck in his next big undertaking: a work of ethnographic fiction entitled The Anthropology of Bees.

References

Bathanti, Joseph. “Reflecting on ‘Brothers Like These’ — Staged reading at ASU featured Vietnam veterans.” Watauga Democrat. Mountain Times, 27 Apr. 2017. Web. 22 July 2017.

Hernandez, Kortney, Ani N. Shabazian, and Cathy Mcgrath. “Photovoice as a Pedagogical Tool:

Examining the Parallel Learning Processes of College Students and Preschool Children
through Service Learning.” Creative Education 05.22 (2014): 1947–957. Web.

Jacoby, B. (1996). “Service Learning in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices.” The Jossey-Bass
Higher and Adult Education Series, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Print.

Palibroda, Beverly , Brigette Krieg, Lisa Murdock, and Joanne Havelock. A Practical Guide to
Photovoice: Sharing Pictures, Telling Stories, and Changing Communities. Winnipeg: Prairie
Women’s Health Centre of Excellence, Mar. 2009. PDF.

“PhotoVoice » Vision and Mission.” PhotoVoice. N.p., 2017. Web. 22 July 2017.

Rabinowitz, Phil . “Section 20. Implementing Photovoice in Your Community.” Chapter 3.
Assessing Community Needs and Resources | Section 20. Implementing Photovoice in
Your Community |Community Tool Box. University of Kansas, 2017. Web. 15 July 2017.

Ross, Sheryl Tuttle . “Show and Tell:Photovoice as International Travel Pedagogy.” Show and Tell:
Photovoice as International Travel Pedagogy. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2017. <file:///C:/ Users/Owner/Downloads/889–1–1296–1–10–20140706.pdf>.

Wang, Caroline C. “Photovoice: A Participatory Action Research Strategy Applied to Womens
Health.” Journal of Womens Health 8.2 (1999): 185–92. Web.

Wood, John, Ph.D. Personal interview. 20 July 2017.

Incorporating Photovoice Methodolgies Into a Service-Learning Course was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It seems like a no-brainer: for people to share your nonprofit’s content, you need to create materials they’ll love. When people share your content in their online communities, your reach increases exponentially. Your post could even go viral!

But it’s not always that simple. With the 2 million blog posts, and hundreds of millions of videos, status updates, and photos posted every day, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. Use some of these tips and your followers won’t be able to resist sharing your nonprofit’s content!

1. Be Relevant

It’s never a bad idea to tap into what’s trending among your followers. When a topic is “trending,” that means that a significant portion of social media is talking about it.

Trending-related content is more likely to be shared because it is relevant to your followers. You can find trending topics on both Twitter and Facebook in their sidebars. Google Alerts is another way to stay on top of trends in your industry.

2. Know Your Audience

A crucial, though often overlooked, step of creating social media content is knowing your audience. If your audience doesn’t have an interest in the topics you cover or the pieces you create, they won’t share your content.

To get to know your audience, ask yourself if you’re speaking their language. Are you focusing on topics and ideas that will resonate with them? Also, when is your target audience online? Timing is a crucial component of content strategy. You don’t want to create awesome content that no one will see because they’re not online.

3. Include Visuals

The human brain is wired for images; we process images 60,000 times faster than text. In fact, 90% of information transmitted to our brains is visual. This tendency towards visual literacy is why it’s so important to include photos in your content.

On Twitter, for instance, people are 94% more likely to share your post if it includes a photo. Including photos will increase the scope of your message which will in turn boost engagement, galvanize support, and inspire action.

Not a photographer? No problem! There are plenty of free stock image sites like Unsplash and Pexels. Infographics are another way to share a large volume of information in a visual format. Canva and Piktochart are two free online tools that create professional looking infographics quickly and easily.

4. Make it Easy

If someone really likes your post, they will likely share it. But if you don’t empower your audience with easy social sharing options, you’re doing yourself a disservice — people won’t do it! Make your Facebook and Twitter sharing options highly visible to increase the likelihood of a share.

A click-to-tweet plugin for your blog is another great trick to increase shares. This tool allows you to select a portion of text and make it shareable with a single click. Interesting facts, data points, or quotes make for great tweetable content. Include this plugin on your Wordpress site and watch your shares multiply!

5. Use a Call-to-Action

Sometimes, people need to be reminded to share your content. A solid call-to-action like “Retweet if you support the United Way!” is a good way to encourage social sharing. The numbers show that this works. Pinterest pins with a call to action get 80% more shares, and Tweets that ask followers to retweet get 51% more shares than those who don’t.

Conclusion

These are just a few ideas to get you started on the road to viral success on social media. There are dozens of other tips and tricks out there that were not covered in this article. Some of these tactics may be better suited for your nonprofit than others.

Just remember: Creating shareable, engaging content takes a lot of work, trial and error, and persistence. Keep at it, and you’ll find what works best for you!

Originally published at Galaxy Digital.

Go Viral With These 5 Content Tips was originally published in Galaxy Digital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’re thrilled for our clients to know about a project that has been in the works for over a year now: Galaxy Digital has entered a strategic partnership with OneEach Technologies!

We think this partnership will enable our clients to better share their message, drive engagement, and track and manage important relationships in their communities.

Who is OneEach?

OneEach is one of the world’s leading digital service providers for nonprofit organizations. They create websites and mobile apps for some of the largest nonprofits and volunteer centers in the country. Learn more about OneEach by checking out their website.

What does the integration do?

Starting in June 2017, OneEach’s website and mobile apps can be integrated with Galaxy Digital’s Connect Products (Get Connected, Community Connect, Corporate Connect, and Campus Connect).
This means that if you’re tired of your nonprofit’s website, it’s the perfect time to switch to a better design. After all, OneEach’s websites are fully compatible with your Connect product!

If our clients opt to upgrade to a OneEach site, they will be able to easily and seamlessly manage their websites and Connect platforms with a single login.

The integration will pull Connect platform opportunities and content directly into a OneEach website, combining volunteer management with public engagement. Together, Galaxy Digital and OneEach Technologies will offer you a way to centralize and quantify your nonprofit’s outreach, which can accelerate decision-making and drive success.

What do the CEOs have to say?

Doss Church, CEO of Galaxy Digital, said, “I’m tremendously excited about Galaxy’s partnership and integration with OneEach Technologies. It was evident from our first conversations together that our two companies shared the same heart for helping our customers succeed through simple, user-friendly software and exceptional customer service. I am proud to be partnering with OneEach, and know that the integration between our two platforms is just the beginning of many benefits we will offer to our mutual customers in the future.”

Tony Fineman, CEO of OneEach Technologies, said “The new partnership between Galaxy and OneEach offers benefits for every nonprofit with a website and a volunteer base to manage. It will save time for our mutual admins, allow them to capture and centralize key relationship data, and will vastly improve our customer’s ability to reach and engage their communities through a shared CRM and brand new mobile app. Most importantly, our combined passion will offer even more support to
nonprofits worldwide.”