Continuing our series on how nonprofit organizations can tap into the human capital potential, I thought it might be helpful to pull together some resources that will help nonprofits avoid common pitfalls and follow best practices when working with volunteers.

Whether you are a nonprofit just starting to use human capital or have already established internal structures to manage your volunteers, engaging them in meaningful and productive ways can be both rewarding and challenging. 

In tough economic times marked by cuts in funding, many nonprofits remain in need of technology and business solutions that are beyond their grasp. According to the Community Corps, 40% of the 1.5 million U.S. based nonprofits claim to lack the technology they need to effectively serve their constituents. 

Looking for a way for your community members to contribute information to an online collective database? Why not consider a wiki? A wiki is a website that allows multiple contributors to easily add, edit, and contribute content, images, web links, and more. Wikis are specifically designed for collaborative editing and are used as public websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and for knowledge management systems.

A few brief notes to start (or "old business" for all of you Robert's Rules fetishists):

Social media practitioners must understand what not to do in the space, as the grassroots are extraordinarily unforgiving and interconnected. Don't be a weed. To wit, I received a message from a friend on Facebook, and immediately it struck me that he was shooting himself in the social media foot with an uzi. The message which I received was sent to 18 persons whose first name begins with the letter R. One can only assume that this instance of his message recurred many times, hence the uzi. It comes across as spam, however well-targeted it might be. It is a formula for failure.

As many of us know, or have heard, Jeremiah Owyang brought down the house with his keynote presentation at the Seattle! Yep Web Community Forum on December 5th. Special thanks go to Beth Kanter for casting a spotlight on Jeremiah’s contributions toward our better understanding & appreciation of social media.

James Thomas is the Senior Director, Corporate Product Marketing at Business Objects. He talks to us about tools for better decision-making, collaborative models, scalability and doing more with less. 

 
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