1stfans: How Much Is Your Nonprofit's Online Presence Worth?

Today on the TechSoup Blog, we discussed the Brooklyn Museum's new 1stfans program, which offers members-only content on social media sites like Flickr and Twitter.

Do you think we'll see more programs like this in the near future? Are nonprofits ready to start offering donors social media as a premium?

Happy New Year,
Elliot

Hi Elliot,

Thanks for posting - Will Cary and I will be posting more of a response on the Brooklyn Museum blog in the next week or so, but I wanted to quickly address something you've said here. Will and I created this membership package to do a couple of things.  First, to create a very low-barrier-to-entry membership program at a price level that is affordable for people who may want to support us via the web. Second, to create benefits for this group that we hope they will appreciate.  As you know, the Brooklyn Museum has fully committed to free content via many channels (via our Flickr account w/ creative commons lic'd photos, via YouTube, via the Flickr Commons, via our Brooklyn Museum Twitter, via our collection online, etc).   Yes, the 1stfans Twitter Art Feed is only for members, but that's just it, it's a benefit of membership. In fact, it's the only benefit of membership that works for people who've joined at this level, but who are mainly supporting us via the web, don't live in Brooklyn and could never get to a 1stfans event at First Saturday.

I too am a big supporter of WFMU and while you are correct, they don't keep their archives under lock and key, they do offer DJ premiums and other awesome swag to get people to donate every year and you don't get the benefit of that stuff unless you donate at certain levels.  While I never dontate to them to get the cool stuff, I do appreciate the thought and work that goes into it and I do love getting it as a fan of the station and knowing that when I wear those shirts it says to the world that I've supported something that I belive in.  As you probably also know, WFMU does some cool naming rights to various station fixtures on their Flickr feed, which I think is an innovative way to get people to give and encourages people to take ownership over the physical place that they may never see - you can see that stuff as non-giving user, but you can't get your name on it without a donation at a certain level.  In the coming months, our challenge with the Twitter feed is going to be to share just enough in different ways, that some of the content is accessible.  While I can't say much about that now, just know it is in our minds and we do intend to think about creative ways to do that.  As we go along some of that content may be accessible in some ways, while still providing something really special for our 1stfans that is exclusive to them.

Shelley, Brooklyn Museum

I go to places like LACMA, Ghetty, and MOCA a lot, and in many of these cases, I'd donate something for that sort of personal interaction and updates.

It will be interesting to see if and how groups launch something like this.

Hi Shelley,

Thanks a lot for showing up! I love being able to summon people I'd like to talk to into the forums just by blogging about them.

First of all, I hope you (or anyone else) didn't read my blog post as a slight against you guys. In fact, I think that what you're doing is fascinating, and my enthusiasm about the project increased exponentially when I read An Xioa's proposal and got a sense for how you'll be using the members-only feeds not just for announcements, etc., but as a medium for exhibiting work.

As part of my job is reading numerous nonprofit blogs, I get buzzword fatigue when I see lots of people saying that every nonprofit should use X social media tool. There's always more talk about how cool those services are than what nonprofits could or should actually be doing with them. Or, more to the point, what conversation does this technology enable that phone calls and knocking doors doesn't? Most nonprofits' Twitter feeds I've seen aren't bad exactly, just underwhelming. With the exception of some awesome disaster relief and citizen journalism efforts, I don't see a lot on Twitter that could not happen without Twitter.

With 1stfans, on the other hand, you're using a medium to exhibit work that's tailored to that medium. That's really cool, and represents an approach outside of the nonprofit world's social-media-as-marketing/social-media-as-communications dichotomy.

And by the way, I love the stuff that WFMU gives out. Pretty much every year, they trick me into giving more money by having a prize in the second week that I need.

Cheers,
Elliot