The Nonprofit Ferris Bueller Experience

So about six months ago there was a buzz created on Twitter & Foursquare when someone setup fake accounts for Ferris Bueller and some of the other characters from the classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The exciting part about this "event" was that the person behind the accounts paid special attention to live out the day on Twitter as if Ferris & Co. were tweeting the day away during the movie. Tech Crunch (@TechCrunch) provides a good summary of the event.

Ever since, I've had an email from my sister with the TechCrunch link in my inbox, trying to think about how this fun form of engagement could be used to benefit a nonprofit. I finally have a few ideas to share:

• If you're in the arts sector, have key members of your performance (conductor, musicians, actors & actresses, lighting director, etc.) tweet throughout the performance. On top of this, encourage attendees to - GASP! - tweet during the show! At the end of the performance, post some of your favorites from the audience on a screen and giveaway a few prizes for fun.
• In education? Have characters tweet throughout the first day of classes, the start of finals week, spring break, graduation, etc. - In a similar fashion to the art example, you can post favorites at various events. You can also promote these feeds to parents & families to engage them in what their sons & daughters may be experiencing.
• And then there's my idea for any nonprofit, provided the resources are in place to support this communications effort - Have your CEO/President "take the day off" and parallel Ferris Bueller's adventures... just enough of a parallel to be recognizable as a play on the movie, but working in tidbits about what is great about the organization. A food bank CEO might get Abe Froman (sausage king of Chicago) to donate food to the food bank. A youth group executive may be excited about heading to a Cubs game, only to lament not being able to take some of the kids from the group.

What are your ideas?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Post your ideas in the comments section below.

Take Action: Close Your Drain

So... it's a week after Blog Action Day, when I did a post on infographics re: clean water and another on an individual's water footprint.

But I actually had an idea for another post today: Close Your Drain.

Here's the idea - people regularly waste water when they let it run during shaving, brushing teeth, long showers, etc. So what I suggest is this:

1) Whenever possible, close the drain while you do these type of activities.

2) When you're finished, use a bath crayon and mark how high the water is.

3) Work to get that level lower.

Pretty simple, right? Let me know if you give it a try - I will be doing so! Together we can conserve water and have an impact on the future.

Example: Focused Campaign Within a Large Nonprofit

The attitude of leadership at large nonprofits toward mini "boutique" campaigns can often be described by one of the most famous cinematic lines of all time: Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Of course, rather than dear you would need to insert AVP, Director of Annual Giving, or some other title.

A few of my recent conversations have discussed how large nonprofit organizations could benefit from focused boutique campaigns with relatively small goals. Not surprisingly, these conversations have often been as a result of the question How can [Example University] use social media to raise money? My viewpoint is that large organizations can target small segments of their data with unique, specific, urgent campaigns and have great success. Yes, social media can be the primary component. No, it shouldn't be the only component. Things like press releases and mini-events can gain your campaign the attention that can make such a campaign successful.

The push-back associated with campaigns like these is often a resistance to dedicating resources to a campaign that is only $20,000 or something similar. That leads to how I think large organizations could succeed at raising enough money to make the dedication of resources worthwhile: developing a systematic approach and campaign calendar that provides your organization the ability to have dozens of these boutique campaigns per year. This way, your totals will start to turn into "real money" and you will not have to reinvent the wheel with each campaign.

So on the heels of one of these such conversations, I met with my friend and colleague at the University of Texas-Austin, Carolyn Connerat. She is the Executive Director of Development and Campaign Manager for the Campaign for Texas. We were discussing the opportunity for boutique campaigns to be successful at large institutions when she shared the Harry Ransom Center's campaign to save the Gone With The Wind costumes. It was a great success, gained international attention, and only had a goal of $30,000. I have included some images below to illustrate how such a campaign could be successful for other large organizations.

I realize that not ever organization or institution has Scarlett O'Hara's costume to gain attention, but I'm willing to bet you can uncover some creative, fun "small" campaigns that would draw attention.

Have you already had such a boutique campaign? Please share any similar stories in the comments section.

By the way... I know there's a pun somewhere between "boutique" campaign and "Gone With The Wind costumes," I'm just not feeling it... plus, I already used the "don't give a damn" line. :)

Learn more about the campaign & Harry Ransom Center: Web / Twitter / Facebook / YouTube / Flickr

The campaign website:

Facebook promotion of NPR story on the campaign:

Twitter examples:

A great visual thank you for those that supported the campaign (see the page here):

What's The Furthest You've Walked For Clean Water?

Visual representations from around the globe (via Google Maps) of just how far African women have to walk each year to find clean water. More info from charity:water

Click on any image for a larger view

And finally, a sad fact about children and access to water:

All of this is shared with you as part of Blog Action Day 2010 - An effort from Change.org to help rally blogs to make a difference. Check out the video for more information:

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

What's Your Water Footprint?

Did you know how significantly we over consume water in industrialized countries?

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It takes 24 liters of water to produce one hamburger. That means it would take over 19.9 billion liters of water to make just one hamburger for every person in Europe. More Info from TheWaterProject.org »

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The shiny new iPhone in your pocket requires half a liter of water to charge. That may not seem like much, but with over 80 million active iPhones in the world, that's 40 million liters to charge those alone. More Info from IEEE.org »

And, ironically, check out this app from VirtualWater.eu to help track your footprint.

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The blue jeans you may be wearing right now took 6,813 liters of water to produce. More Info from TreeHugger.com »

All of this is shared with you as part of Blog Action Day 2010 - An effort from Change.org to help rally blogs to make a difference. Check out the video for more information:

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.