I have previously talked about how social networking tools
can be helpful for individual and businesses.
Well, they can also be extremely useful and provide unique opportunities for
social sectors; including non-for-profit organisations.
First let’s take a look at Oaktree Foundation.
(Thousands of Oaktree volunteers have standed together to create this message across Manly beach)
Oaktree is an Australian charity aiming to end world
poverty. It has started to collect millions
of poverty donations for third world countries since 2003; and has held many well-known
events including “Live below the line” and “Schools4Schools” programs.
The Significant Power of Social Technologies for Oaktree
Just like the benefits that social
media tools have for private businesses. Implementing enterprise 2.0 can also be extremely helpful for charity
organisations such as Oaktree foundation.
Mobilise resources
As a charity, Oaktrees’ majority mission is to gather financial and personnel resources to help the people in need. Like most social-sector organisations, Oaktree collects donations and always need volunteers to carry out its missions.
As a charity, Oaktrees’ majority mission is to gather financial and personnel resources to help the people in need. Like most social-sector organisations, Oaktree collects donations and always need volunteers to carry out its missions.
Find Volunteers
Through utilising the connection power of social media
tools, real opportunities arise for Oaktree to attract long term workforce support from the public.
As Australia's first and largest
youth-run international aid organisation, the entire foundation is run and
led by young people and has more than 100,000 volunteers aged from 16 to 26 nationally.
Being a foundation aims to attract young volunteers, social media platform is such a powerful tool for recruiting; since the younger generation truly embraces the social media.
Being a foundation aims to attract young volunteers, social media platform is such a powerful tool for recruiting; since the younger generation truly embraces the social media.
Obtain Donations
Oaktree has created an online fundraising campaign called “lived below the line” and has raised more than 2 million dollars utilising the power of social media.
This online campaign challenges individual online users to spend less than $2 dollars a day on food for 5 days in a row and post their experiences online while attracting online donations.
Fundraisers and donors are connected via
different online social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Channel.
Potential Power of Social technologies for Oaktree
Other than helping social-sector
organisations to collect human and financial resources, different social tools were
also known to be very helpful at information collection, mission execution and organisational operation improvement.
Collect information and insights
Oaktree is very active on both
Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook group
has received more than 10,000 likes itself.
The Oaktree Twitter also has more than 5000 followers.
Right now, Oaktree is still only using these platforms to advertise about activities and provide update on events. But there is definitely great potential for Oaktree to utilise the social power to collect information and ideas from the online community.
Right now, Oaktree is still only using these platforms to advertise about activities and provide update on events. But there is definitely great potential for Oaktree to utilise the social power to collect information and ideas from the online community.
Possibly Organisation Wide Improvement
Social media tools could also help
Oaktree to improve internal organisational collaboration and build up appropriate
leadership structures. They can also be
used to generate appropriate organisation cultures.
While living in a society loves online communication, social-sector organisations should really embrace the power of social
media; or else they will miss out on the endless opportunities that the social media brings.
Leave your comment if you would like to share your point of view on the post topic :) Thank you!
Leave your comment if you would like to share your point of view on the post topic :) Thank you!
Social Media has been important for a lot of political campaigns in the last few years. Obama used it very successfully to engage with lots of younger voters during the 2012 US presidential elections.
ReplyDeleteSo yea, use it well organisations!
Thank you for commenting on my blog! :)
DeleteI definitely think it is crucial for organisations to implement Enterprise 2.0 if they want to reach out for the younger generation.
Good read! It's amazing how big of an impact nonprofit organizations can have through social media. I would say almost every nonprofit organization relies on social media to get their message out there. Great example of the Oaktree Foundation with more than 100k volunteers.
ReplyDelete-gabriel
http://wp.me/p3jRFF-1g
Thank you for commenting on my blog.
DeleteI have had a look at your blog post as well, it's great to see another example of the benefit that Enterprise 2.0 can bring for social-sector organisations.
I'm glad that this much support can be generated through social media, but I'm curious as to the future of social media use. Do you think it is possible to use data from social media to target areas in need?
ReplyDelete- James Terry
www.enterprise-activa.com
Thank you for commenting on my blog :)
DeleteI definitely believe so. Right now Google and many other websites are showing different types of advertisements for users based on their search terms and browsing histories, so it wouldn't surprise me if they decide to use social media data to customise services.
A well written post!
ReplyDeleteIts great to see a youth based non for profit organisation has been able to make use of social technologies.
Taking into consideration Oaktrees target audience, do you think that social networks could be used as the cornerstone of their marketing campaigns?
Looking forward to your next post.
Thank you for commenting on my blog!
DeleteI would definitely say so while taking consideration that Oaktree is an organisation runs by young people.
The younger generation loves internet and enjoy communicate online.
Actually, most of them would prefered find out about a charity online themselves, and do a bit of research (maybe talking to other friends online) before they decide to join as volunteers or make donations.
And where would the youth participate most online? Of course, it's social network platform.
Hi Hellen,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting about OakTree, its always interesting finding out about large Australian non-for-profits.
You should mention what OackTree actually does. You mentioned "it gathers financial and personnel resources to help the people in need", but you didn't mention how it helps people. Do they directly help those in need by building houses or do they advocate politically? I think this information is really important as people want to know what their donations will be used for.
What is your opinion about two organisations running very similar campaigns? For example, every year World Vision runs The 40 Hour Famine, where volunteers fundraise money by going without food for 40 hours. This is very similar to Oaktree's Live Below The Line. Since both campaings have the same goal, is it inefficient to run two very similar campaigns as it doubles the costs of advertising and administration fees etc?
Thanks Hellen!
Felipe
First I would like to thank you for commenting on my post!
DeleteNow to answer your questions and concerns.
I believe many people who focusing on the subject of charity itself would be really interested at what Oaktree has done with the donation, unfortunately this post is really focusing on how Oaktree has utilised social network tools to help with their business need (As a charity, gathering donation would be it's main business need).
After reading your comment: "You should mention what OaCkTree (and a spelling error there indicating commenting without thinking too much I suppose?) actually does. You mentioned "it gathers financial and personnel resources to help the people in need", but you didn't mention how it helps people. Do they directly help those in need by building houses or do they advocate politically? I think this information is really important as people want to know what their donations will be used for."
If you have read the post carefully you would realised that I was just talking about Enterprise 2.0 and its relationship with charity organisations and I have used Oaktree just as an example, and I am NOT focusing on where the donated money has gone to... it could be ended up at Africa and anywhere around the world with people needing the money I suppose...
Unfortunately I don't agree with your opinion about I should mention what OakTree actually does, I did provide short introduction about Oaktree and briefly mentioned its business goal. Furthermore, I have provided links to 2 of the well-known Oaktree campaigns, and I think there is absolutely no need for me to write any further in detail about its business activities. Afterall, this is not a post regarding to Oaktree's business!
But if you would like to find out more about where the donations has ended up with, if you really would like to know whether Oaktree is using the donation to directly helping those in need by building houses or do they advocate politically?(Like what you have mentioned in your comment?!) There is nothing stopping you from visiting their website at: http://www.oaktree.org/ (And yes, I did include this link in my post)
As for the situation that there are other organisations running similar campaigns, I don't think it's "doubling" the costs, advertising and other fees since they are totally different organisations (so they are spending their own fund, it is not the same organisation running two very similar campaign, so I am NOT sure what do you mean by doubling???).
Simply because one business is running TV advertisement, it doesn't mean other similar companies cannot do the same thing.
Organisations and businesses are competitors to each other, and I see absolutely no reason stopping them from running similar campaigns from each other, I mean if it works well and raised more money for the people in need, why would any of us be worried at all???
Thank you.