Social Media, The Nonprofit Gap, and Leadership

Once I had a lunch meeting with one of the most powerful nonprofit advocates in my city, a lawyer of considerable reputation who sat on the board for several charities. I came with a 40 page marketing plan about how to best use social media for the nonprofits in my city.

He asked me if the internet was actually capable of uploading pictures, and I put my plan away. 

According to Lester Salamon, one of the lead researchers in nonprofits and technology, nonprofits are seriously behind the other sectors (2010). 71% of respondents claimed that they had moderate to considerable lack of expertise with IT technology (2010). 

So while we talk about the amazing opportunities that the web presents, we must face the fact that there is still a big gap in technological literacy – especially with the leaders in the nonprofit world where I do business.
 

Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky, in his keynote speech to the Web2.0 Expo, tells us that the phase we are in now is one of radical experimentation and growth, where everyday people are equipped to create massive change. He says, “Someone working alone with really cheap tools has a hope of carving out … a resource that you couldn't have imagined existing five years ago” (2008). By this he means that individuals have unprecedented opportunities to create tools that can help society. It suggests that a massive wave of progress is just around the corner, something that people will pick up easily.
 

Jane McGonigal

Jane McGonical talks about how gaming can solve large-scale issues such as global hunger and poverty, and she sees the same potential that Shirky does. McGonigal says gamers, “are getting good at something” (2010). To prove this she compares the 10,000 hours of gaming that most students do before they reach 18 with the 10,000 hours of time that Malcom Gladwell says is necessary to create virtuosos, and suggests that this large amount of time gaming is developing a large untapped skillforce. However, she admits that there is still a problem translating this to the real world (2010). 

As eager as I am to see the world they envision come about, when I look at the facts presented by Salamon I think that both authors are biased too much toward the prosumer. Despite all the innovation they offer, there will continue to be not-so-techy people in the nonprofit world, and it will continue to lag behind.
 

Sadly, it seems to me that in exactly the place where visionaries like Shirky and McGonigal claim there is the biggest chance for social change we are suffering from the largest inability to adapt. The leaders of these organizations need to play more and become online virtuosos themselves if they hope to successfully leverage emerging technology. 

Links:
Salmon: http://www.ccss.jhu.edu/pdfs/LP_Communiques/LP_Communique20_IT.pdf
Shirky:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2708219489770693816#
McGonigal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM