October 26, 2006 | Read Time: 1 minute
NEW BOOKS
Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age
by Allison Fine
With the rapid proliferation of cheap, easy-to-use technological tools such as cell phones and blogs, nonprofit groups must understand and use new media for social progress or become obsolete, writes Allison Fine, former chief executive officer of the E-Volve Foundation.
The current “connected age,” as Ms. Fine calls it, means that a powerful network of individuals is available to charities to mobilize for social change — as long as charities can learn how to interact with and engage their audience.
“In order for change to happen in large-scale, meaningful, and sustainable ways,” she writes, “activist organizations must change the way that they view themselves and their members; they must start to act as part of the networks of activists, not as soloists.”
In one chapter, Ms. Fine encourages nonprofit leaders and activists to “power the edges,” or share decision making with their communities. Through online petitions, forwarded e-mail messages, and free software, charities can get a lot of people involved in their work and give supporters a stronger “sense of belonging and caretaking.”
Other chapters discuss how organizations can improve the way they listen to what their constituents and other people care about, the demographic profile of the new technologically savvy generation, and successful uses of new media, like Craigslist and Moveon.org.
New technology demands agility and flexibility, Ms. Fine writes, but charities must be willing to change.
“Whether and how we embrace these developments will determine how successful we are as activists,” she says.
Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94103; (800) 956-7739; fax (317) 572-4002; http://www.josseybass.com; 240 pages; $27.95; ISBN 0-7879-8444-2.
