Social Giving

I love it when it's Friday and I find an interesting infographic to share. I've shared infographics on the power of social media has during response activities, but as organizations involved in disaster it can be difficult to figure out if/whether/how these channels should be used to raise some cash.

While the below is interesting, it's sad to see that international aid is only 2% and that disaster response/recovery doesn't make the cut.

Do you and/or your organization utilize social media as a means to raise funds? How's it working or not working for you?

Thanks to the folks over at Blackbaud for putting this together.

Coordinating Cleanup 1.0

Crisis Cleanup has a great logo

Nonprofits setting up operations in Colorado are abuzz with talk of Crisis Cleanup, the brain child of Aaron Titus, a guy who said "there's got to be a better way to organize some of the chaos of early recovery cleanup" (I made that quote up) and created a tool that's doing just that. He created a tool that works to advance how nonprofit organizations engage in cleanup activities following a disaster.

The cliff's notes version is that Crisis Cleanup is a google map populated with cleanup needs represented by pins dropped on the location of said need. Registered organizations can claim pins so that other responding groups don't accidentally send teams to a home that has already received help. There is a reporting aspect that accompanies this so that hours can be tracked and volunteer numbers logged, an innovative solution that helps manage the nonprofit aspect of early recovery cleanup following disasters.

I had an opportunity to be a user of the system after Hurricane Sandy as part of its beta testing during response and saw the potential. Since then the system has been implemented several times with what I hope are fixes and advances making it easier to use and more comprehensive from a data capture perspective.

Screen shot of the user interface -- Superstorm Sandy

With the system being used in Colorado to coordinate nonprofit cleanup activities, I'm interested in hearing from anyone who uses it to manage their infield work flow to get your thoughts on the system within the context of cleanup coordination.

And while I'm optimistic about how Crisis Cleanup can work to provide the autonomy nonprofits seek while working within a defined system, I feel that it's important to remember the need to be inclusive.

Spontaneous response in disaster and the substantial impact it has during early recovery activities is no longer an ignorable trend. Social media is being used to organize armies of volunteers to aid in response and recovery, and it's happening as I write this in Colorado. As a community of practice we must strive to include as many of these emergent groups as possible in response coordination. Not only is it key in working towards enacting the "all of nation" or "whole of community" approach to preparedness and response as outlined by Presidential Policy Directive 8, but its important for unity of effort to provide better coordinated service delivery to those affected.

As it stands the crisis cleanup tool is largely for vetted organizations, those with a response history or those who are "known" entities. And while I understand why the system is setup this way, to help ensure consistency in the work done on behalf of homeowners, I feel that there is a solution that can set an expectation as to the level of work needing to be done, while encouraging broader inclusion of locally responding groups.

All Disasters Are Local, a tired expression but one that holds truth; and while Crisis Cleanup has taken a monumental step in unifying early recovery cleanup from a nonprofit perspective, I believe that there is work to be done to ensure access to this tool makes its way down to the emergent groups on a local level. For it's those groups that have the biggest stake in ensuring that their communities make a full recovery and as such rightfully deserve to be included within the broader coordinated effort.

A tip of my cap to you Mr. Titus, I look forward to seeing how we can evolve the model moving forward.

A Brave New World of Digital Volunteers

I just posted on the subject of Liability and Volunteers in disaster in an effort to provide a comprehensive resource that would hopefully add clarity to this complex and multi-faceted issue. In my continued exploration of the subject I came across the Commons Lab at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In a nutshell, the Commons Lab "seeks to advance research and independent policy analysis of emerging technologies, with an emphasis on their social, legal, and ethical implications." They have articles on:

The Power of Hackathons

Successful Government Crowdsourcing Efforts for Earthquake Monitoring

Privacy and Missing Persons after Natural Disasters

Basically, they have lots of interesting things to read that focus on the nexus of emerging technological platforms and their role in creating social change...but the article that caught my attention is this: Responding to Liability: Evaluating and Reducing Tort Liability for Digital Volunteers, apropos given Friday’s posting. 

Responding to Liability: Evaluating and Reducing Tort Liability for Digital Volunteers

Full Disclosure, I didn't know what a Tort was...so for those of you who aren't up on your legal terminology a Tort is:

A civil wrong which unfairly causes someone else to suffer loss or harm resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act, called a tortfeasor. (Thanks Wikipedia)

The article focuses on Digital Volunteers and the liability issues that come with engaging in this brave new digital world in a post-disaster context. Because of the application of Volunteers in this way is so new, courts are still evaluating the potential exposure individuals and groups face by engaging in these types of activities. In the absence of definitive guidance, the article outlines challenges and opportunities related to Liability and the innovative work being done along the digital frontier.

An aspect of the article that surprised me though is that it focuses on the group rather than the individual and encourages as a mitigation strategy the instituting and formalization of processes and procedures through incorporation. For some reason I see this strategy as running counter to what makes this form of Volunteering so attractive to so many: anonymity and autonomy. While it’s easier to plug in and help an already established structure that has definition than acting on your own, I feel that one of the aspects of virtual engagement that appeals to so many is the freedom to do and act how they see fit given the context. It’s with this belief that I find the focus on the group over the individual surprising.

As more discussion and opportunities to see firsthand how Virtual Volunteers engage in response, as both individuals and groups become available, the ability to forecast how best to indemnify these good Samaritans will become clearer.

Until then, if you are interested in lending a digital hand the hashtag #SMEM (Social Media Emergency Management) or groups like crisis mappers, Ushahidi, or VOSTs (Virtual Operation Support Teams) are good ways to learn more about the opportunities that exist.

One thing is for certain, the way in which Volunteers engage in response and recovery efforts are changing, and while it may be difficult to accurately foresee all the speed bumps along the way towards their seamless integration, the energy and desire to help those in need is always welcomed.

'Liking' your way to impact

Social Media is a powerful tool; it has the ability to sway public opinion and shed light on issues that would otherwise never see the light of day: Kony 2012 anyone?

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, donations to the charitable sector stood at 2% of the gross domestic product and posited that if everyone gave up a morning coffee, $220-billion more could go to charity on a yearly basis. Easy, direct, and something that won't break the bank...but we're not doing it...why?

Because social media, has created a "new" way for individuals to feel like they're making a difference-through likes and retweets. The buffer that the social media sphere has created insulates many from actually doing...as a result, liking something on Facebook or getting something retweeted is the new way of defining impact...what I don't understand is, how can you claim impact when a 'like' doesn't really do anything.

While exposure to a message is good, as Unicef so cleverly illustrates, it means nothing if there is no action to back it up. The awareness generating machine that is social media can quickly create exposure for a cause or group (Kony/Invisible Children), however, the goal of the charitable sector is creating impact and change, and that can only be accomplished through action, and likes or retweets aren't designed to do that.

So why, if likes and the social currency generated from them, are doing little to actually advance the missions of charitable organizations, is so much time and energy being placed on getting more of them? When you read about the US State Dept spending $630,000 on Facebook likes, it makes you wonder, to what end? Are those likes influencing foreign policy? Do they really matter? Couldn't that money have been better spent elsewhere?

Some social media campaigns like tweetathons, or text to give, when successful, generate revenue, a clear cause and effect relationship that enables groups to continue carrying out their mission. The success stories while few and far between offer a foundation upon which growth and lessons learned can be derived from. However, with the ubiquity of social media, taking a stand no longer means sticking your neck out and running the risk of being associated with an issue by attending a protest, rally, community meeting, etc...it means changing your profile picture to this:

While supporting issues you believe is important, and social media enables broad exposure, what are you actually doing? Are you writing your congressperson? Are you donating money to support the causes that align with your societal views? Are you Volunteering your time to causes that make you warm and fuzzy? My guess is no...and therein lies the problem.

Social media is making it so that everyone is a brand, and how we market our brand has become more important than what we stand for. As Nilofer Merchant, from the Harvard Business Review so succinctly puts it: "Your Brand is the Exhaust Fume of the Engine of Your Life." 

The Digital Divide

While the rapid evolution of technology appears to be the panacea for what ails communities struggling with preparedness, response, and recovery issues, it's important to remember that not everyone has the same access to, or comfort with existing or newer technological innovations. While the technologist is pushing the envelope and creating new opportunities to utilize technological platforms following disasters, there are a lot of people out there who don't fall under the digital umbrella.

Dubbed 'The Digital Divide,' the below infographic does a good job of highlighting some of the remaining challenges to the widespread adoption of technology; however, what the infographic fails to include is the aging population and how the internet usage of those 65 and older are only at 42 percent according to livescience.com. Given that the focus of so many organizations following an event is on addressing the needs of vulnerable populations like the elderly, their lack of access to reliable communications has, and will continue to hamper the communication of critical information before, during, and after an event.

As we look to technology to spur innovation and enable resource strapped muncipalities to do more with less, we must remember that crucial stakeholders aren't currently a part of the preparedness/resilience conversation. I believe that civic engagement and tech innovation are essential to mitigating the loss of life during an event and leveraging the support given after, but that it's up to the communications providers to put the infrastructure in place and offer reliable services so that the innovations can have an impact.

Hacking our way towards Resilience

The concepts of preparedness and whole of community are being pushed to the forefront of the conversation when talking about creating community resilience; transforming them from abstract ideas and words used in grant proposals, to tangible ideas and actions.

Civic engagement and the growing base of concerned and motivated individuals rallying around the idea that they can create a tangible impact on their community through technological ideation is spurring a wave of innovation. It's casting a broad net that is reaching a new breed of disaster practitioner--the technologist. An example of this transition can be seen in the integration of technology in civic activism through groups like Code for America and events like the national day of civic hacking. These forms of civic engagement have also worked to influence disaster response and recovery.

http://h4d2.eu/ (Hackathon for Disaster Response 2.0)

http://codeforamerica.org/2013/05/31/be-part-of-something-big-this-weekend/

http://hackeroo.io/

http://rockawayhelp.com/

https://www.hackerleague.org/

The recent surge in civic engagement has predominately come in the form of Hackathons; a hackathon being an "event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon). The focus or theme around these events is to address a community-based issue and they are drawing bright, young innovators to the table and are producing some surprising ideas and apps centered around the idea of Peer-to-Peer disaster recovery / survivor-centric response. 

With the recognition that technology and mobile platforms are rapidly changing how the business of disaster response and recovery is conducted, the focus of some of these coding marathons is to address the challenges communities face as they work through the turbulence of community-wide recovery. The resources are out there as well as a loose infrastructure needed to galvanize a community around the cause of streamlined/expedited disaster response and recovery...all that remains is the will to push it forward and make it a reality.

Given the popularity and explosive growth civic hacking has experienced, I believe there is  an opportunity for National VOAD and FEMA's Innovation advisory team to sponsor a disaster hackathon of their own. Organizing and leveraging the ideas and spirit of civic engagement to address the common challenges of community-wide response and recovery, is a way to create resilience and engage a constituency that has the 'local touch' and can provide the context needed to make the apps relevant with the backing of national coalitions and entities that can push for widespread adoption.

The proof is in the analytics and sweet infographic

While saying: "Social Media is a big deal and we need to start paying attention," it's interesting to see statistical data gleaned from the real world to back it up.

In addition to the below infographic (compliments of USF's MPA program), Patrick Meier posted a breakdown of the 2.1 million tweets in the first 48 hours after the Moore tornado...providing data that will reaffirm your burgeoning love affair with social platforms.

University of San Francisco Online Master of Public Administration