To say that the last week was “intense” would be an understatement. From the minute the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement pulled out all stops to help the people on the ground.

Communications is only a small part of that response and social media an even smaller part. Nevertheless – here are my observations:

http://sm4good.com/2010/01/24/haiti-earthquake-social-media-response/

The Red Cross Red Crescent created a Flickr slideshow with photos from Haiti after the earthquake. This will be updated continuously.

If you want to add it to your own blog, you can use the code I posted here:

http://sm4good.com/2010/01/14/slideshow-blog-red-cross-red-crescent-phot...

I have been using Flickr for about two years to increase visibility of the work of Red Cross Red Crescent. Today, I’d like to share some of the lessons I’ve learned.

Why Flickr?

I believe that most non-profits spend too much time preaching to the choir. Flickr is a great website to show what your organization is doing and why it is doing it to people whom you haven’t been able to reach.

http://sm4good.com/2010/01/11/flickr-nonprofits-lessons-learned/

In somewhere around 100 different ways on this blog, I've tried to stress the importance of showing over telling. Very recently I was happy to speak with Bryan Tighe of Collective Lens, a beautiful and comprehensive web-based photozine that helps small nonprofits and causes show their stories and impact in powerful and touching ways. The site does a wonderful job of realizing and putting to work the impact of the visual, especially with regard to telling the story of an initiative, a people, and/or a country, and shows a lot of potential for helping organizations find support by sharing their impact visually.

Briefly, a poetic Tweet-of-truth brought to us by NetSquared family member Joe Solomon:

"Everybody's a social media strategist; the web needs social media soldiers too."

Now! Onto the meat.

This month's Net2ThinkTank question was, How Can Nonprofits Use Flickr? Below is a round up of your answers:

Joe Solomon recommends checking out Beth Kanter's Flickr and Nonprofits Primer, and the socialmedia4change wiki for examples.

Beth Kanter points to the TechSoup article, How Nonprofits Can Get The Most out of Flickr, and suggests asking Steve Bridger, the Flickr for Good Evangelist in the UK, for ideas.

Steve Bridger writes that one of the ways nonprofits can use Flickr is to capture evidence:

Joseph Kimojino is the head of tourism & anti-animal harassment for Mara Conservancy. He does a great job of using his Flickr account to capture photo evidence of poaching & then demonstrates the impact of supporter giving through his blog.

Just a quick reminder to email the URL of your Net2ThinkTank post to me at bbravo@techsoup.org by tomorrow, August 27th, at 5 PM PT ( I extended the deadline from Noon).

This month's Net2ThinkTank question is:

How Can Nonprofits Use Flickr? 

You can see the original post with further directions for how to participate at, Join the Net2ThinkTank: How Can Nonprofits Use Flickr?

Last night at Net Tuesday San Francisco, Tara Kirchner, Senior Marketing Manager for Yahoo! Inc., and Carol Rudisill, Director of TechSoup Stock, presented about Flickr for Good. Flickr for Good is donating 10,000 1-year Flickr pro accounts to nonprofit organizations in partnership with TechSoup Stock.

They have some lovely examples on the Flickr for Good site of how nonprofits are using Flickr, and are looking for more, which inspires this month's Net2ThinkTank question:

How Can Nonprofits Use Flickr?

Share your ideas about how nonprofits can use Flickr in a blog post on your own blog, or here, on the NetSquared Community Blog. Any registered user can post, here's how to post on the NetSquared Blog.

Please tag your post, "net2thinktank" and send a link to it to me at bbravo@techsoup.org by Wednesday, August 27th at 5 PM PT. I will post a round-up of links to folks' answers by Thursday, August 28th.

This is Brenda Hough, blogging live from the NetSquared conference, currently attending a session on Flickr and community. The presenter is Gail Ann Williams, community manager at the WELL.

Gail feels that Flickr is a great tool use for many things. Thinks a big part of its success is that there are multiple ways of finding people and sorting things. Another cool thing is that people have developed multiple expressions of culture around them.

I'm thrilled to be going to Net Squared this year to share some of what I've learned by using and exploring Flickr!