Social Media, Foundations, and Grantees

From her own blog, Beth Kanter reports from this week's Center for Effective Philanthropy conference where she participated in a panel discussion about social media, foundations, and grantees.

I shared a few points about nonprofits use of social media, including a maturity of practice model called “Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly.“ This prompted discussion about the similarities and differences in practice between nonprofits and foundations and how to move to the next level. There were questions about social media policies as well as content and engagement strategies and handling mistakes. It all comes down to intention, capacity, and audience as Jacob Harold observed.

Paula Goldman shared some thoughts about foundation intent in using social media, particularly amplifying grantees work and thought leadership. In addition, Kathy Reich, mentioned the potential of using social media to help inform and improve grant-making strategy and broader field impact.

Jacob Harold discussed how social media can be of value to a program officer: it is an easy way to stay informed about grantees activities with anecdotal information. It can also facilitate informal communications with other people in the grantee organization. He also added that it is important to have structured information.