One the most inspirational authors in my life Adrienne Rich has passed away. She died Tuesday. She is often called a feminist poet and if your into labels then that probably is an accurate one. I’m scared that the label of feminist might keep you from reading her. If you need a label (which I doubt you do) then i’d say she is a condition-ist, as is she documents the human condition.

She was extremely adept at looking at how souls feel as they are knocked around in this world. She has deeply and profoundly changed how I saw myself. I read what she wrote and I realized that I was not alone. It is a God experience if you want to label it. Which I don’t.

How does this apply to nonprofits? Easy.

Literature, art in general is a part of radical and lasting social change. Those of us living in the global south know that our voices are marginalized. We see in the higher poverty rates, violent crime rates, wider spread drug use, untenable living conditions, unreasonably dangerous employment, lack of access to nutritious foods and quality health care. However art out of the southern US and the global south are–as bell hooks so often talks about–co-opted by a minority elite who assists in keeping our voices quiet. I think that possibly we could consider that by co-opting our identity, commodify it, putting it out of reach it shows how our ideas are matriculated from the ‘least of us’ to the top. Our voice is being heard and it is changing things, despite an attempt to remove any radical connotations from our creative expressions.

I expressed an opinion on this once before online and it was one of the most difficult conversations that I had ever had to be a part of. I was bullied. I found myself doubting the worthwhileness of expressing my belief in the creative, as a tool to build movements and exact change. I am nervous even writing this. Since that one discussion I have not written about this topic now it is 3 years later and I want to talk about it again.

Here Is What I Believe

Don’t count out the poets, painters, quilters, musicians, knitters, and actresses. They and a whole slew of other types of creative expressions have a unique ability to articulate the absurd disparities, to those who would never otherwise hear about them. They are a core group of your constituency that needs to be used in building your organizations. Not only that but the ability to create, builds up a spirit and is an additional factor in creating resilience, among those we serve.

TIP:

Find these artist in your volunteer pool and ask them to use their ability to participate in your organization.

How Can I Use Art & Social Change for Professional Development

Use art that already exists to spark dialogue as a part of building the ideology behind your mission, vision, values and goals:

•  Picasso’s Guernica. How can you use it to talk about war and peace in our world today? How has war affected the population we serve?
• Read just about any poem by Rich and ask the question is it a feminist writer or is it a writer or is it a women writer? What do women face in our world today that impedes the goal of equality?
• Listen to old spirituals and ask, aside from the obvious connection to a higher power, what was the song communicating? You might be surprised yourself if you listen to “Wade in the Water” with the knowledge that it contained literal instructions for those seeking freedom. What are the songs used by the people you serve that express a desire to be free? My example “All the Single Ladies” its a rallying cry if I ever heard one.
• If you want to have a conversation about what we teach today and how we teach it, read this and ask how the person reading has experienced both missions:

“Universal public education has two possible—and contradictory—missions. One is the development of a literate, articulate, and well-informed citizenry so that the democratic process can continue to evolve and the promise of radical equality can be brought closer to realization. The other is the perpetuation of a class system dividing an elite, nominally ‘gifted’ few, tracked from an early age, from a very large underclass essentially to be written off as alienated from language and science, from poetry and politics, from history and hope—toward low-wage temporary jobs. The second is the direction our society has taken. The results are devastating in terms of the betrayal of a generation of youth. The loss to the whole of society is incalculable.” (p. 162) from ‘”Arts of the Possible” by Rich

So I decided as facilitator for a local group that is relatively small in number that I needed to create a monthly newsletter. The content is mostly our agenda, meeting notes and event participation. It also contains our mission & values. I haven’t ever used an email program to create a newsletter and wasn’t entirely sure how difficult it would be. I assumed it would be very difficult.

This months email newsletter is being created in Mail Chimp. I am using only the free version of the program because if your group is like ours we actually have no budget so we have to be creative. I want our group to expand our reach and to demonstrate our professionalism. One way to do that is to have professional looking outreach materials.

So far I have spent 3.5 hours on my first newsletter. Here is what I’ve done:

• 12 email addresses,
• signing up for the service,
• choosing a template,
• choosing a different template that better fit our need
• creating content for the first campaign (including adding document links and setting Twitter and Facebook links)

The user friendly factor of the very basic use of Mail Chimp is lots of thumbs up. Note that I haven’t explored beyond what I am using it for a monthly newsletter update being sent via email.

Some reasons you might want to use MailChimp:

• You use WordPress. Their set up is very similar. Not the same but pretty close. So the learning curve is small.
• They have some great pre-built newsletter, email and mobile pages
• The amount of free emails per month is huge. According to the site:

Arkansas has some serious issues with infrastructure in our organizations concerning technology capacity. Don’t let that stop you from doing research that supports your work! Don’t forget, we are a scrappy state y’all!

Yes to grow your capacity you need great data gathering skills and technology.  If you aren’t able or trained to be an organization that uses data tied to technology then OK, it just isn’t where you are right now. There are still many ways to collect data with out software to help you gather, code and interpret what you find.

Lo-Fi Data Collection Strategies

A Facebook poll(s) (recognize the technology gap for our community members who don’t have access to internet)

• Questionnaires for phone, face to face, or email (make it a part of your intake for volunteers, members, clients, board members etc.)

Old case notes (know what you are looking for before you begin, choose a limited number of files that represent your ideal population, gather a manageable amount of information)

• Focus Group (Identify your ideal audience, create leading questions (this means they don’t have a yes or no answer) and record the session with your iphone or computer)

• Text a multiple choice question

• (don’t hate me) Excel or Google Docs spreadsheets for organizing findings

• Internet search for reports/findings in Arkansas on the subjects you are looking into. The data may already exist.

You will get a lot of information if you consistently ask the same questions to your stakeholders. Know what you are looking for and how you will use the data you get. Don’t just gather to gather. KNOW WHEN TO STOP. You aren’t a University research center and you aren’t supposed to be. The data you gather needs to be manageable in amounts and applicable to your set objectives.

Tip:

One of the best things you can do when you know you will be collecting data for a program is to collect data before AND after you implement a program. It will help you assess a truer impact of a program. This in turn will help you communicate your successes to your funders. It will also help you adjust your programs, not with a shot in the dark approach rather based on something more substantial.

For the love , please give anyone who willingly participates in a focus group some good coffee and snacks!

Everything has a cycle, there is a 24 hour news cycle, life cycle, bicycle and so on including data. So far we have talked about what Arkansas Organizations and Citizens groups face when talking about data in this post.

The data cycle has 5-ish parts.

• Collection (Which we touched on here)
• Managing Data You Collect
• Transforming &/or Merging Your Data (I’m not so totally sure what this means either)
• Creating Visualize models of your data
• Using your data

How To Data?

There are a hundred or even thousands of ways of executing each and every point on this list. There is a sorrowful few resources to assist in the “HOW TO” of data collection and the following cycle. There is a need to learn how to use data but there is another way! Don’t reinvent the wheel.

TIP:

Use other peoples data! Collaboration means that the work we do is shared with those we connect with. This can and does include data. If you don’t have the resources to collect significant amounts of data or it isn’t in your plan as a group or organization find other peoples data!

1. Go to your foundations (if you are grant sponsored),
2. Go to your partner organizations,
3. Go to your board members
4.  Ask your volunteers
5. Is there a University in your town? They have data and they need someone to use it!
6. World Wide Web!

All of these are potential data sources. You don’t even know what you are looking for sometimes until you find it. If you do know you want, say the outcomes of a successful project involving the Arkansas State Legislature, somebody might have that. Put the word out on the street you would like to see it. And for the love, thank publicly anyone who contributes data.

So before we get the technology we so desperately need, we have to understand the form and function of the data we will/do gather.

As I said in the last Process: Data post, I have seen this reluctance to jump into data collection from other rural-ish nonprofits. Not because people were incapable but because they haven’t seen data collection work for them. And who has time for something that doesn’t work!

Data, Who Dat?

To make data work we have to understand Data  and its place in the cycle of information used by our organizations. The NTEN webinar “Becoming a Data Driven Nonprofit” helped to articulate the very basic cycle needed to be effect Data gatherers and consumers.

What are the best practices for collecting data. They are different for every kind of issue and need. Public health data collection is a different process than a community needs assessment. What data are you collecting? What other organizations have done it well? Use their methods adjust them for your cultural and social realities.

Collecting Data

You can gather a ton of information on how to do this but I recommend looking at 2 or 3 best practice suggestions in your field. Take what you like and leave the rest. This is an experiment to create an organization that can illustrate your mission & visions relevance in a language understood on a national and international level.

Tip:

Start with the simplest kind of data collection. Paper questionnaires for your employees. Or a Facebook poll. A few simple (4 or 5) questions is a starting point. And keep it manageable 20 people MAX on your first data run. You will get information, I promise. But not so much you can’t use it

Tip:

Use the finding you get. Even if what you find is that Elmo is the favorite Muppet of all time. Send everyone a Muppet themed birthday card for the next year. You know they like it. You implemented the data and you will see the response. YOU HAVE TO HAVE PRACTICE!

*We love exposure, so feel free to re-post. All we ask is that you credit the author by offering a link back to the article on our site. Subscribe to us by looking to your right and filling in your email address!

**This website is licensed under a creative commons license, For us, this means please use our articles, without changing their content.

Now go volunteer!

CollaborateAR by Rachel Townsend is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

 Oh To Have Processes That People Use. A Dream Come True.

Every organization struggles with processes. Or if they aren’t struggling with process then one of two things. One, they are working in a chaotic environment. Two, they already have processes that they use.

NTEN which I talked about on our facebook page but will reintroduce you to. NTEN is a great! I mean really GREAT! It is a resource for nonprofits needing and wanting information about technology.

In Arkansas there is a black hole between our organizations and technology. We struggle to build our capacities through the use of technology. We work with ineffective software, out of date equipment, minimal access to USEFUL database software and forget about building complex databases tailored to our organizations needs.

Tip:

With one significant exception! NWA Give Camp. They will develop technology for your organization specifically for you. Oh and its free! It’s too late for you to participate in recieving tech help, this year if you aren’t already signed up. You CAN  volunteer with them and begin the process to be a recipient for their next event!

The Arkansas Struggle

To have these tech things would be wonderful. To understand their usefulness, integrate them into our missions, use them to assist us in developing programs, that my friends would be divine.

Truth time, I worked in an organization that had a data base. It was connected to all the computers in the office, kind of.  We (three years and multiple attempts) never were able to use it. We tried and lost information. Lots of it. We assumed it worked and there was no training. Why? You know why!

I am not even joking when I tell you that I had a man attached to a Navy Seal Team as a technical something or other. He set up highly complex technology equipment for the United State military and was good at his work and his conclusion: “your database hasn’t ever worked and I can’t fix it. It is out of date.” **Disclosure this was my brother (hi extra smart sibling)!

So this post is about identifying the problem. I have seen this reluctance to jump into data collection from other rural-ish nonprofits. Not because people were incapable but because they haven’t seen data collection work for them. And who has time for something that doesn’t work!

Tip:

Go to NTEN and check out their upcoming and past trainings. Use the resource to inspire you in terms of data.

*We love exposure, so feel free to re-post. All we ask is that you credit the author by offering a link back to the article on our site. Subscribe to us by looking to your right and filling in your email address!

**This website is licensed under a creative commons license, For us, this means please use our articles, without changing their content.

Now go volunteer!

CollaborateAR by Rachel Townsend is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

What does a Creative Commons license do?

The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all

 

How do you get a licenses to protect your work?

There is no registration to use the Creative Commons licenses. Licensing a work is as simple as selecting which of the six licenses best meets your goals, and then marking your work in some way so that others know that you have chosen to release the work under the terms of that license.

Tip:

Click the link below and choose the best license for your organization.

I am so appreciative of others sharing their knowledge to help me better this resource. I got an email a few days ago from Emily Puckett Rodger who works as a Open Education Coordinator for Open.Michigan.She told me about licensing the content of the CollaborateAR blog.

We spend a lot of time and resources as organizations creating material (written, visual and audio).  How can we ensure that the money and time we put into creating materials is not lost? Answer: We can expand our reach by letting people know how they can and can not use our resources.

If you are wondering if you should copyright your organization  materials, here is a good explanation from Emily about why it wouldn’t hurt if you did.

 

“I was reading over the CollaborateAR blog today and I noticed that you encourage folks to re-post your blog. Something you might consider doing is adding a Creative Commons license (creativecommons.org) to the copyright notice on your blog. It tells others how they can use your content (and is legally sound and crosses international jurisdictions).

This way you’re giving folks proactive permission to use your work certain ways and you still keep your copyright. Otherwise, if you keep the blog “all rights reserved” and someone wants to repost, they might accidentally do it in a way that infringes on your copyright. Creative Commons licenses are super handy because if someone uses your blog content in a way you don’t like, you can point them to a clear (legal) explanation of what you let others do with your blog.”

Tip:

One important point Emily made was to be “proactive with permission.” It is so, so, so true that part of your job as an organizer, organization, volunteer, member etc. is to make action step as simple as possible.

So now I have a creative commons license for this website  & you can see it posted at the bottom of this blog.

We love exposure, so feel free to re-post. All we ask is that you credit the author by offering a link back to the article on our site. Subscribe to us by looking to your right and filling in your email address!

Now go volunteer!

CollaborateAR by Rachel Townsend is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

We love exposure, so feel free to re-post. All we ask is that you credit the author by offering a link back to the article on our site. Feel free to contact us at rachelanntownsend@gmail.com for any reason at all.

Now go volunteer!

CollaborateAR by Rachel Townsend is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

As I told you about below I attended Amy Porterfields webinar on the changes coming to Facebook. The main reason I wanted to hear what she was talking was for 2 reasons 1. I wanted to know what new features the Timeline for Pages was going to have 2. I wanted to know how to make my dang cover photo not all pixel-y.

I highly recommend that you check her website (it is all Facebook focused, nothing but the FB!). She may offer this training again and it was VERY practical. It didn’t descend, into a time suck of information, beyond this novice’s reach. I don’t want to share all her tips….since that would be wrong but I do want to share one.

TIP:

The cover photo problem I mentioned earlier was solved! Amy Porterfield gave the dimensions for how big your photo needed to be. A jpeg that is 851 x 315 pixels. So there you have it. The most prominent part of your new Facebook timeline can look crisp and clean.

We love exposure, so feel free to re-post. All we ask is that you credit the author by offering a link back to the article on our site. Feel free to contact us at rachelanntownsend@gmail.com for any reason at all.

Now go volunteer!