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Amplafi: A Social Network for Organizations
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
Amplafi turns up the volume on the good stuff. Our web-based communications tool allows orgs to build responsive interest-based coalitions. We harness tagging—connecting change-makers—and cut background noise to increase desired communications.
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
Amplafi is a tool that will both support and generate interest-based communities of action. Amplafi provides a robust web-based communications tool to build responsive interest-based coalitions allowing nonprofits to effect change with greater efficiency. Amplafi is an interest-based online social network for organizations not individuals. Amplafi’s features were chosen to maximize the communication signal and reduce noise. Imagine change leaders with access to both the information and the participants they need to be effective. Imagine access to news you can act on immediately. Imagine easily sorting opportunities for change by interest area and location. Imagine you have the ability to ask for help and get help the same day. Imagine being able to do this from your desk, the grocery, a meeting, a park. Now imagine your volunteers, your staff, your network, your coalition can do it too. Amplafi verifies each participant in the network is who they claim to be. Goodbye listserv, hello change. Amplafi puts the best of the web in the hands of change-makers.
Sustainability (financial) model:
Social networking sites such as LinkedIn have demonstrated the ability to grow rapidly over a short period of time. Social networking sites are centered around the individual, not the organization. Amplafi is focused on organizations being networked so coalitions stay connected even as the individuals change roles and organizations. Amplafi blends the viral growth of online social networking with the practical functions demanded by nonprofits to build capacity–organizational networking. We have created a Web 2.0 service that has viral attraction to a typical nonprofit. To reduce barriers to participation in the Amplafi network, a subscription to basic organizational networking features will be free.
There is a significant incentive for customers to invite interest-based affiliates to join the Amplafi Network and, in doing so, make the network more valuable for everyone. In addition, Amplafi will provide financial incentives for customers to expand their networks and deliver quality content to partners. This keeps customer acquisition costs down and accelerates the expansion of the Amplafi Network. A premium subscription ($50-100 per month) will activate the coalition features of the Amplafi Network – allowing a nonprofit to build coalitions and then distribute stories and communicate privately among the members of the coalition.
Potential obstacles:
We’ll have some of the standard issues with being first to market, and will need to build a customer base of early adopters of technology. Accordingly, we will face pricing challenges in the nonprofit market which is technologically risk-averse. We will need to find the pricing feature mix. It also will be important to seed our user pool of organizations in order to grow the appropriate user base. In terms of technology, we face the potential of unforeseen delays and the entry of similar products to market.
Resource Needs:
We, in addition to funding, need access to opinion influencers in the nonprofit sector. We’re looking for opportunities to talk with nonprofit technology experts at tradeshows and conferences.
Key Milestones:
An alpha release is working now. Our software and our GUI are being developed simultaneously. We intend to launch our Beta during N2Y2. Investor meetings are being scheduled beginning in April. Customer development activities are being undertaken in support of the Beta launch.
Project Summary:
Amplafi turns up the volume on the good stuff. Our robust web-based communications tool builds responsive interest-based coalitions, allowing nonprofits to effect change with greater efficiency. Amplafi helps nonprofits build capacity by leveraging existing staff and infrastructure through effective use of Web 2.0 technology. While basic features will be free, a paid subscription will activate the coalition features of the Amplafi Network – allowing an nonprofit to build coalitions, distribute stories, and communicate privately among the members of the coalition.
Imagine change leaders with access to both the information and the verified participants they need to be effective. Imagine access to news you can act on immediately. Imagine you have the ability to ask for help and get help the same day. Imagine being able to do this from your desk, the grocery, a meeting, a park. Now imagine your volunteers, your staff, your network, your coalition can do it too.
Comments
Small Organizations need Amplafi
I work for a small nonprofit and it is very difficult to get our message heard. We now compete against large for-profit health care organizations and they now even have nonprofit foundations that compete against us for resources. Amplafi can give us a platform from which to form coalitions with other organizations - both like and complementary - and in so doing develop a presence that can compete against large national entities. They say all politics is local - they should also say that all human services should be local. Amplafi can help keep it that way. Bravo!
Social Networking for Organizations
This makes a lot of sense because social networks for individuals are great but don't really foster any group actions. Social Networks for organizations can connect groups that advocate for a common goal. This can really help create grass roots movements for social change. We need a simple way to stay in touch and spread the word, and being able to do it in those spare moments when we are on the go, will allow a larger number of people to get involved. Hopefully this would allow new organizations to connect up quickly and allow established organizations to expand their reach more deeply.
How to find out more about us...
Somehow in the process of displaying our proposal here, our website and location information got dropped. Here it is:
URL: http://www.amplafi.com
City: San Francisco, Half Moon Bay, Mountain View
State/Region: California
Country: USA
Every day brings new challenges... and rewards
I just wanted to share with all of you today's fun. We have a launch customer that we've been working with since we released our Alpha version in February. Today, we did a training & demo presentation for the (not very technical) program director who will be piloting the Amplafi service for a particular campaign and partners. The look of delight in her eyes when she realized the sort of things she could do with Amplafi - well, it makes it all worthwhile.
Today's experience just reminded me that one of the most satisfying aspects about being in this business (after 27 years of doing this) is seeing the reaction of folks (who don't have a technical background) to the magic we can perform with technology. And when you can bring that technology to nonprofit and advocacy groups - it is doubly satisfying.
Joe Falcone
Amplafi - the good stuff
Lots of potential
I think your idea has lots of potential. I'm curious about the specifics: how do you coordinate people, resources, interests, organizations to build what you call "interest based coalitions." Do you have an image (screenshot or other visual) that can help explain this?
I think in order to attract various organizations, you need to articulate why your service (or tool) will be useful -- and an improvement over the other tools out there. Good luck!
How we are different....
Hi David --
One of the biggest issues organizations face is coordinating coalitions. Currently, the "solutions" in use are: person-to-person contact (phone or individual email), yahoogroups (or google groups) and email blasts.
All are poor solutions to being able to react to urgent issues. These methods usually result in burning out the 'dependable' volunteers because those volunteers are always turned to when things are urgent.
The web and other technologies are ignored because they are not readily accessible. The other members of the organization are also not utilized because the effort required to reach them doesn't have a guarenteed payout.
Our software service addresses this need by making it possible for organizations to coordinate both message and action without demanding the commitment of time and energy that installed software demands. This means that the most technically unsophisticated organization will be able to coordinate with the most sophisticated.
Right now we are in early alpha -- so the screenshots look really ugly!
Anything else?
Pat,
Perhaps some nonprofits are only aware of mailing lists or Google Groups as a solution, but it's simply not true that they are the only ones.
There are bunches of tools and software used by nonprofits to achieve these objectives, from issue-specific tools like Green Media Toolshed and Care2 to general packages like Drupal (and the CivicSpace package) and Joomla (and the Nonprofit Soapbox package) to networks like change.org. Moreover there are literally dozens of proposals for similar services on this very website.
So I think what David is asking for, and what I would like to see, is a little differentiation from all these many, many solutions that exist already. If you think your software is doing something none of these other things accomplishes -- which I assume from the fact that you don't mention them in comparison -- then you need to make that explicit.
A partial response...
(As rachel said ... thanks... your questions help us refine our message.)
Rachel will get back to you with more detailed answer ( unless this turns out to be enough. )
While it is true that some non-profits are more sophisticated than others when it comes to managing their web site, many are not. So we really do regard googlegroups/yahoogroups as part of our competitive landscape (as well as the obiquitious "do-nothing").
Now my answer will be a little broad-brush to some degree, but I hope not overly simplistic.
Broadly speaking the categories of existing solutions are:
1) installed software (drupal, civicspace, joompla) and the hosted variations of those.
2) portals (change.org)
3) point tools by market (Green Toolshed) or technology ( various email blast services some operated in-house or external services.)
--- Installed software ---
Great if you have someone technical, not so great if your organization doesn't have that person. And what happens if the volunteer moves on? The installed services cost money that is significant. This helps with the initial getting started and backend services such as backup, etc. but realistically people will need to be trained to some degree to use the service.
To some degree this is unavoidable with CMS systems that have lots of options and can really sit-up and dance.
While Amplafi does have a content-management component it is not the main focus.
--- Portals ---
Web browsers visit change.org *not* your organization's website. Portals direct traffic away from your organization and make the focus themselves. General 'theme' portals suffer from dilution of message. There is also no verification that people are who they claim. Look at the various 'MySpace' profiles of random organizations. Is the person who created that profile any way affiliated with the real organization? no way to know.
Amplafi makes existing web sites better - and more.
--- Point tools by market ---
So I can use Green Media Toolshed if my organization is an environmental organization, great. Who is the keeper of the purity standard? What happens if my organization is working on a particular issue with an "evil" organization, how can we use this? ACLU does work with Cato Institute. Sierra Club does have some common issues with NRA.
--- Point tools by technology ---
Email blast services do nothing to help keep your website up to date.
===== End of the Day =====
But at the end of the day, the $64 million question is: how does your organization coordinate effort with other organizations? Inward focusing tools, while necessary to maintain a website don't help with the coordination across organizations. Email blasts to your organization's members don't reach coalition organization members.
This is what Amplafi does.
We are not quite ready for a public launch that would help answer some of these questions more satisfyingly. :-( We are working really hard to change that!
And oh by the way we are not claiming to cure world hunger, nor are we claiming to be a panacea... we are taking a different focus though...
Empowering nonprofits
(sorry for the two comments -- I posted the one below and then realized I had more to say)
I could be wrong about this, but the organizations you mention -- the ACLU and the Sierra Club -- do not strike me as the organizations involved in or served by NetSquared. By and large it seems to be mostly made up of small nonprofits. You suggest that this is a focus of your proposal, but your examples of why nonprofits have to work with "evil" organizations suggests a dependence on coalition building and political scope that I think is beyond most nonprofits involved in NetSquared. Local environmental groups are not going to work with the NRA, and if they are, there's nothing in GMT that prevents them from doing so (and again, since you're so vague on what this communication is, I'm not really sure how it would or would not fit into that system).
In any case, though, I don't know that this is the best way to empower nonprofits. Personally I would rather fund a project training nonprofits in free, open-source solutions like Drupal or Joomla than fund a for-profit corporation that locks nonprofits into proprietary software that is dependent on market forces and limited technical staff for growth. I look at nonprofits forced into Kintera by some middle-management decision five years ago and despair about what they could be accomplishing with that amount of time and money.
Fundamentally I just don't know if it's in the collective interests of nonprofits to create a new, fee-based, proprietary system to become dependent on. Perhaps Drupal or Joomla are not the answer, but I am doubtful that anything outside of FLOSS is an empowering solution. There is certainly a high bar for disproving this, and without more concrete answers or explanations I don't think you're going to reach it.
Very vague
It may be that it's just too early in your cycle for this. I am still confused about what "coordination across organizations" actually IS in your software — what actions are you talking about? You mention all of the things it does not do (doesn't focus on CMS, doesn't do email blasts, doesn't create a social networking profile) but I don't know what "coordination across organizations" means to you.
Further, I'm confused about each of your rebuttals. It's true that CMSes require training (the ones I mentioned are free -- for full service, unlike your tiered service), but...are you suggesting that your service requires no training? How is that possible? What makes you think that your software requires less training than other fully-packaged services like CivicSpace or Nonprofit Soapbox (or, again, any of the dozens of other proposals here)?
You say your software doesn't draw people away from an organizations site, which confuses me about what the software even is -- is this a framework for content on an organization's site, or a node/profile/space/page on a site run by you? If it's the former, how is it not a CMS? If it's the latter, how is it not drawing people away from the organization's home page?
I just feel like there are really fundamental issues not being addressed here. If you can't answer them yet, that's understandable, but I don't think it's the time to seek out institutional funding and support then, either.
Great questions!
I'm working on a chart to compare all of the entries in the Alliance/ Common Cause category.