June 24, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Beth Kanter and Allison Fine have become prominent champions of the idea that nonprofit groups can more effectively achieve their missions by embracing social media as a tool for connecting with supporters.
Now in their new book, The Networked Nonprofit, they liken many nonprofit groups to fortresses that aren’t fully participating in conversations about the causes they represent.
In their book, they challenge organizations to tear down their institutional walls, lest they lose relevance in a rapidly changing world.
In the latest issue of the The Chronicle, Ms. Kanter, the author of the popular Beth’s Blog, and Ms. Fine, who hosts The Chronicle‘s Social Good podcast series, write:
“Fortresses work hard to keep their communities and constituents at a distance, pushing out messages and dictating strategy rather than listening or building relationships. And that is the model of how nonprofit organizations have historically worked in the United States: They are organized and financed as solo entities, each starring in their own Sisyphean tragedy, rolling their own boulder up the hill, alone, every day.
“These habits and assumptions stop nonprofit organizations from effectively building communities to solve complex social problems. And almost all social problems are complex, outstripping the capacity of any single organization or person to solve them. Only networks, ecosystems of individuals and organizations, can solve social problems.
“Fortress organizations are losing ground today because they spend an extraordinary amount of energy fearing what might happen if they open themselves up to the world. But that trajectory changes when organizations learn to use social media and actually become their own social networks.”
Ms. Fine and Ms. Kanter will be available to take questions about this idea—and others they articulate in the book—during a live Internet call-in show today at 3:30 p.m.
I’ll be hosting the conversation, which I hope will offer an enlightening look at the intersection between social media and social good.
The show will also be archived for those who cannot attend the live event.
