We are trying to harness the power of microchips to eradicate poverty, while at the same time empower businesses.

We have working models in Kyrgyzstan and Malawi, and are looking forward to implement it in more places!

http://villagersprogrammingmicrochips.blogspot.com/

@ John Tracey Check out the Kenny (Shane Jacobsen) video at http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=1dYefCCHGoE – I found it this morning. Who knew it was the UN year of sanitation!?

Firstly, I know there are concerns about identifying specific campaigns, workers, locations, countries or causing political unrest or dangerous situations to world vision workers. No blogger wants this. The truth is, we (the general public) don’t care WHERE world vision workers are exactly, we just care that THEY ARE. They are out there putting donations to good use. They are out there changing lives, and they are out there taking action that many of us would love to but are not brave enough or able to achieve.

Most bloggers blog because they love to tell stories and share ideas. About things, about their lives, through photography or art. They love to share.

Most people read blogs for exactly the same reasons. The goal of becoming an interactive part of the blogging and social networking internet communities should be to share stories, although it may not necessarily be the types of stories you expect that people are really wanting to read.

It will be great for world vision to share where they are in the world, and small snippets of information about politically sensitive areas. I mean who doesn’t want to know that a new village was built, or a years supply of rice was provided, or 12 children are now at school. We all do, and this is a great way to share that information. What’s vital for World Vision to understand is that we won’t read, or share your stories any LESS because they don’t identify individuals. In fact honesty about the fact those things can’t be shared, but telling part of the story that is able to be told actually makes World Vision seem more real and transparent.

So don’t name people who can’t be named. Don’t give exact geographical details or politically sensitive information if it’s dangerous to do so, but do share the minute, tiny details about a child interacting with a world vision member, do give details, the tiniest ones that warm our hearts. Do share details that chill our blood. We need to know. Even if we may not know the exact details, let us know that your people are out there in the world at “location A” and that something dangerous happened. If you are continually sharing information with us, we will learn to trust the information, respect it and rise up to support it even when we can’t know details.

We know about the sick, starving communities, and we know World Vision is out there, but we don’t know about the small details.

(ok so that was a bit long!! Sorry but I hope it makes sense in developing communications)

A year ago I started a blog with a goal to focus on world environmental and humanitarian issues and these are some things that would have definitely helped me to feel more connected to the organisations I was wanting to get behind and support.

FROM WORLD VISION:

Web 2.0 should be huge in the interaction of world vision with its supporters.

Micro Blogging:
Twitter is an amazing micro blogging tool where everyone from world vision office staff, to staff out and about on the field could be sharing the mundane and exciting parts of their day, after all it’s all important! Twitter can be accessed from a mobile phone, or online and could share ANYTHING and everything to do with worldvision, from “setting up a mail out” to “delivering rice to a village”. It’s the real things that happen behind the scenes that we are interested in. I want to know what’s going on and be able to say to people “hey you should follow world vision on twitter, today they did x, y, z” or “did you know World Vision have a new campaign coming up about A,B,C?” It would help people feel like part of the family and stay connected.

Plurk – This is similar to twitter and could be used the same way.

Social bookmarking – Once you have the blogging community onside and active, then this is a no brainer. Bloggers love to digg, stumble upon and fave in technorati (not to mention all the other social bookmarking site, these are just a tiny selection) These buttons need to be integrated into your website and blog so that they appear on every page and blog entry. If world vision is talking about and supporting bloggers, bloggers will love the attention and digg their busy fingers off bringing some great attention and huge page rank to any sites for worldvision (not that it’s probably an issue for your sites).

Social Networking – As a blogger, I also want to be able to show my non blogging friends that I support World Vision. Sites such as Facebook and myspace , even youtube can reach millions of people. From Company profiles, specific campaigns for the latest World Vision promotions, to “subscriber only” competitions. But it shouldn’t stop there. World vision should follow in the steps of other companies who are creating their own community portals.

There are sites such as NING that allow you to utilise their technology and infrastructure to establish your own community, or starting your own from scratch. Sites such as this could work for World Vision in it’s entirety or for specific campaigns such as 40 hour famine etc. This is better than a basic forum because people can generally blog within the community, share photos, music and really interact with each other. It would also be a great way to get close and personal with world vision staff and volunteers.

Featured Bloggers – Choose some of the top bloggers in Australia or some of the smaller bloggers for that matter and allow them to interview people from World Vision. Give them time to allow their readers to submit questions and once the finished product is ok’d, publish it on the blog. Perhaps this could take place monthly? This way the blogging community really gets to ask what they would like to know. (of course not everything can be answered but its another way to connect)

Allow bloggers to apply for this position. Publish the results on the world vision page also, this allows bloggers (who pass the application process) to get some great publicity of their own as well as great back links, something bloggers crave.

Add a widget to the World Vision website that tracks blog posts made with certain tags. That way, when bloggers are writing about World Vision, they are rewarded with their link showing up on the World Vision website for a time, once it is tagged correctly.

FOR BLOGS:

Banners & Buttons – This goes without saying that bloggers need a variety of banners and buttons to use on their blogs. 125 x 125 is a popular size, as are vertical banners that fit nicely down side bars.

Rss Feed Widgets – Supplying bloggers with a choice of rss feed widgets they can place on their blogs would be great. For example greenpeace have a widget that shows all their latest headlines. It sits nicely on my blog and updates automatically. You could have one all inclusive widget feeding news for the entire site, or separate widgets dedicated to particular campaigns. Bloggers love interactive and self updating goodies to put on their sites

Donation Buttons – It would be amazing if bloggers could register for their very own donation button that would track exactly what money was raised for world vision via their blog. Bloggers definitely love to get behind any good cause, having some idea of just exactly how much their campaigning is helping would be wonderful. World Vision could even have competitions based around the blogger with the highest donations via their blog.

Contests – Competitions are always good, and they don’t need to have expensive prizes to attract blogging attention. In fact, promotion and links are often enough motivation. Allow people to become the blogger of the month and work with world vision staff to feature some discussion on what’s happening with World Vision and their thoughts and ideas on the matter. Just another way bloggers can help share the stories of the world.

Opt In Form – Firstly the opt in form on the world vision website is hard to find, but have a version for bloggers to put the World Vision opt in newsletter form on their blog. Greenpeace do this and it’s great!

Overall, for World Vision to become more personalised, its definitely about sharing your stories. The one’s you mention that are sitting dormant. If there is a way to share those stories by removing details that can’t be shared, don’t be scared to do so. It seems that is your major concern, but I honestly just want to hear the story(even if there’s sensitive information removed). Meet the people. Are they mother’s like me who still take time to go and help the world? Are they young, old, have they always worked for World Vision or have they made a change from the Corporate world so they could do something to make a difference?

These are the details that matter and by using the strategies and services above, a great campaign could be formed. Not just a once off, but by blasting World Vision into the social networking scene and letting your people share their hopes, dreams and experiences with the public.

Thanks for your time and good luck. I can’t wait to see this wonderful World Vision journey take place.

- Jason
[Sydney, Australia]

Hello, my name is John Tracey and I live in Brisbane, the capital city of Australia.

I suggest something like the following.

A good (non commercial) blog needs a large pool of writers, the more the better. This means there is something new and different every day, or at least several posts every week. This keeps a blog alive, it moves and changes and readers want to keep up with what is going on. It is not just a notice-board for occaisional communiques but an organism with a life of its own.

A post can be as simple as a few sentences commenting on an interesting link somewhere else so regular writers do not have to take on too much of a burden and, again, the more the better to minimise individual workloads.

The Andy Warhol principle, celebrity creates celebrity.

* Host high celebrity special guest bloggers, preferably writers who are prepared to answer (even a few) of the comments. Let readers know that they can have a direct interactive engagement with the celebrity (e.g. ABC’s Q&A program).

*Live blogging special events , not necesarily World vision events but anything central to the “target groups”, e.g. World Youth Day, election day, big concerts, sporting events, Australia Day, etc. There have been many very boring attempts at live blogging by simply opening up comments during an event. However a bit of creativity such as immediate photo (or video) download or getting a celebrity associated with the event to join the real time discussion will liven it up. There is heaps of room for experimentation and innovation in live blogging. The bar is very low at present.

As I see it, live blogging comes to life immediately after the event, as a follow up to the event when people have gathered their thoughts about what happened but are still buzzing.

As others have suggested, there should be widget link things, twitter and RSS and all those things for others to put on their sites. An invitation to do this should be prominent in all special events or guest bloggers, encouraging readers own connection and identification with the celebrity event.

Bloggers are always willing to promote other blogs in particular special events such as live blogging. Asking supportive bloggers to pre-advertise a special event in itself helps build a network.

You can wait a long time for a network to come to your own blog if you don’t give it help to find you. Identify the blogs in the target network and participate in their discussions, make yourself known to the network. If you have something like a special event or a celebrity guest blogger you are offering the network something that it is interested in rather than trying to convince them that they should be interested in your blog and organisation.

Interactivity

* Construct some blog articles as unresolved questions, not just a good story, to encourage discussion amongst the punters – a good blog has a life of its own above and beyond the bloggers own contributions. While there are times for information sharing – communicating facts as well as presenting coherent opinions, throwing open ended questions to the readers to give their own perspectives and discuss amongst themselves encourages ongoing relationship with the blog.

Non-internet promotion of the blog/website – “branding”

*bumper stickers
*billboards
*paid advertising in TV and print media

* systematic issue of media releases about issues covered in the blog including details of the blog as an info source on the issue. Also, any new developments on the blog itself can be media worthy – where the blog itself is the news story (e,g having a celebrity guest blogger).
*Hand leaflets about the blog to high school and university students.

Youtube

- put a very, very funny short video on youtube, Something bizzarre and outrageous but within the issues of world vision and with the blog/website clearly promoted in the video. Better still, get a celebrity comedian to do it, but doesn’t have to be. could even be a cartoon. If this youtube is outrageous and funny it will be reproduced on thousands and thousands of websites of fellow travellers around the world.

Check out “Grocery Store Wars” as an example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVrIyEu6h_E

Check out the other “FreeRange Studios” clips on youtube.

Hope this helps.

JT

Strategy is great, but in my dealings with non-profits… there tends to be an overwhelming amount of discussion around ’strategies’… which results in wasted time and either little, costly or no ‘actionable’ ideas.

As Steve Hopkins pointed out the “need to drop ‘orange curtain’ of world vision and let the blogging (read:social/world) community see the real people working to alleviate poverty” is a MUST…

So here are my ‘actionable’ strategy ideas for World Vision, which they can implement NOW, for very little cost which will drop the curtain..

TWITTER

Create a twitter account where World Vision (WV) can tweet little bits of information about poverty and what they are ‘doing’ to combat it.

For example:

“The WV Africa team, just helped build a toilet in ____ today.”
“Did you know that ________ happens somewhere in the world ever ____ seconds”
“Thanks to our ____ team, they gave a village in ___ water today. 476 can now drink”

I think this would be something a lot of people would follow as it would be a constant (somewhat subtle) way to be constantly reminded of the greater world we live in… and that there is more important things in the world then what “@Scobleizer is doing right now”

FACEBOOK APPLICATION

A Facebook application could do a similar thing to the tweets mentioned above… You will find a lot of people would ‘install’ this application to simply “look” like they are happened, but even if that’s the case, social proof is a powerful force.

The WV Facebook app, could be a great tool for participants in things such as the 40hr famine, to generate sponsorships and encourage their ‘network of friends’ to sponsor them. It could list ‘their funds’ raised so far and which of their friends have sponsored them (there’s that social proof thing again – If Scott sponsored Sarah, I should too)

VIDEO BLOGGING

KIVA STYLE PROJECT FUNDING

Similar to Matthew Patterson’s suggestion above. Create a social network style platform, similar to KIVA.org where people can sponsor individual projects, it can show the % of goal collected so far etc etc

I did see that you link to KIVA on your http://www.worldvision.com site, so maybe the JV you have in place is enough… but funding a ‘WV project’ is a lot different to the mico lending that KIVA does.

People could then link to, add banners/buttons on the ‘project’ they are trying to support on their own blogs… So their viewers/readers can get involved.

“I blog for free because I like it.. so if you want to say thanks to me, sponsor the project I support by clicking here”

BUILT A LIST

On any of the WV sites I looked at there is not a clear or obvious way for people to join the WV e-mailing list.

I know there would be thousands of people who would supply their email address in an effort to be kept-updated on all things WV. You can’t expect people to continually visit the site(s) for updates… Get their details and keep them abreast – the world is too busy, and Facebook is too distracting.

The real asset WV (or any business has for that matter) is it fans/supporters… The WV brand is only as strong as it’s ‘followers’ (theirs a web2.0 cliche) so make it EASY for these people to become part of your community buy having a ‘join our mailing list’ box prominently on your homepage.

AND yes, a mailing list is a community.

RUN SOME CONTESTS that cause viral epidemics.

Get a major to sponsor a ‘best viral video’ award each year, with the winner getting a round the world flight.

Give away a MacBook Pro to the person who creates the best ‘online flash game’ that revolves around poverty.

With every major ‘marketing/awareness’ campaign you choose to embark on, get the marketing material created via a ’social contest’ – It removes the ‘advertising budget’ WV would otherwise invest, it creates a community, it gives budding artists/designers/videographers a chance to build their portfolio and it generates lots n lots of buzz

Go to the elance.com ’s of the world, get them to ‘advertise’ the contest to a GLOBAL marketplace of budding artists.. and you never know, you may just find the winner comes from a third world country that needs the support/exposure – Not all poverty is financial.

Hey, here’s an idea… Instead of trying to create your own Web 2.0 social network community (which will ALOT of hard work)… just piggy back off the ones that exist… Simply go to every major web 2.0 community site, find out what there niche is and leverage off that.

http://www.AllRecipes.com could run a contest around the best recipe made from a ‘poverty stricken countries’ main produce… Creates exposure, conversations and donations.
http://www.LinkedIn.com could sponsor a Kiva style ‘mico-lending’ project… Creates exposure, conversations and donations.
http://www.iminlikewithyou.com could create a game around ‘third world countries’ and poverty
http://www.travbuddy.com/ – where do I start with these ideas.

Cheers,

Pete Williams
Melbourne, Australia

I see there is a request “I’d especially like to see (in entries from now) how we can go about that whilst ensuring the safety of our staff placed in hostile environments. Cracking how to create a blogging strategy that is safe for our staff will go along way to giving us the ability to enact all your suggestions above.”

I am assuming some of the problems here would be

+ Identification by specific country authorities
+ publishing information authorities deem sensitive
+ carry equipment that could be used to to publish sensitive information

My suggested solution

The internet does not require a face to create a personality. The recent explosion of micro-blogging from the Twitter platform can be done under a picture of anything. Microblogging is quick, to the point and very very personal.

Recent twitter successes that I would point to would be Roz Savage’s Ocean row http://twitter.com/rozsavage?page=6 .
She posted from a remote location (middle of the pacific ocean) had 5000 people from all round the globe hanging onto her twitters with many MANY more carrying her RSS feed to their blogs.

This can be incorporated into the meat of the World Vision blog and be expanded on with larger stories from people in less sensitive areas.

In 140 characters you can impart information like “Going to a village where there is no food to help a sick woman” and have the distilled information without the identifying marks. Mix that in with “just played kick ball with some local children and laughed ourselves silly” and you have the stuff that people love to read on Twitter

Allison Reynolds
Sydney

Thanks to the great folks at World Vision Australia for setting up this incredible competition.

If we can change one person’s world, we can change the whole world.

World Vision Australia do a lot to help ease poverty around the world and they deserve out respect and support. I hope every Australian blogger gets behind this initiative and writes a supporting post – even if the prize is not up your ally, it may be perfect for one of your readers.

Cheers Darren for promoting this and good luck in getting everyone on board

les

Thanks for your amazing advice so far. Keep them coming, we have appreciated all the advice and opinions so far from all entrants.

I think one of the most interesting, and resonating, points many of you have made is about the need to drop ‘orange curtain’ of world vision and let the blogging community see the real people working to alleviate poverty.

This is great advice, but I’d especially like to see (in entries from now) how we can go about that whilst ensuring the safety of our staff placed in hostile environments. Cracking how to create a blogging strategy that is safe for our staff will go along way to giving us the ability to enact all your suggestions above.

Thanks again for the comments, keep them coming!!!

Steve from World Vision and Learn About Poverty

But poor me, I can’t participate just because of the physical boundaries. I as well as other bloggers, I hope, around the world would like to see this type of competition be organized so that we can also participate.

Gosh, I have to miss such interesting traning session.

Not cool.

I made a few suggestions on my own blog entry. I’ll reproduce them here. (I’m not sure if they necessarily speak about poverty as they all imply internet access. Though I hope they will be of some assistance anyway.)

Shared Experiences: Sometimes there is solace to be had just by knowing you’re not alone and connecting with other people who share similar interests or similar challenges. The nature of most sites allow you to observe others (viewer of a video, reader of a blog) or contribute yourself. Type “Depressed” into YouTube search, for example, and quickly you are presented by people who are genuinely depressed. This isn’t the stuff of nice Public Service Announcement type videos, this is real user-generated content! You will also find more specialised content if you seek it, such as resources relating to specific medical conditions (manic depression, dissociative identity disorder) or living conditions (youth, gay and lesbian, rural living).

Information: Peter Costello recently remarked on a disagreement (about a historical event) he had with his children. In order to determine who was right, Peter went to his library. His children went to the internet. This is true of a lot of people. The internet has the potential to be a great resource for information on specific conditions and treatments, as well as for practical strategies for coping with stress, trauma and grief. The challenge, I suppose, is that anyone can publish anything, so identifying trusted sources is very important. It may be more comfortable for people to research topics that might have stigma associated with them in this way, rather than borrowing a book from a library or discussing it with a medical profession.

Interaction: It is my hope that text-based chat programs would be set up to rival the telephone counseling hotlines we are already familiar with. This would be of benefit to people who appreciate the relative anonymity of the internet. It might also be of benefit for people who feel more comfortable communicating via text, or whose living arrangements might make articulating problems and concerns aloud difficult. Similarly, through social networking sites and the blogs and videos mentioned above, individuals can make contact with other people dealing with similar challenges.

Reference Points: The online world can point us in the direction of resources in the offline (real, or IRL – “In Real Life”) world too. Support Groups. Doctors. Other forms of media not available online (books, DVDs). Being able to identify what is available quickly and easily helps us organise a course of action. Technologies such as Google Maps and WhereIs help us identify where those things are, once we establish what they are!

Shared Experiences: Sometimes there is solace to be had just by knowing you’re not alone and connecting with other people who share similar interests or similar challenges. The nature of most sites allow you to observe others (viewer of a video, reader of a blog) or contribute yourself. Type “Depressed” into YouTube search, for example, and quickly you are presented by people who are genuinely depressed. This isn’t the stuff of nice Public Service Announcement type videos, this is real user-generated content! You will also find more specialised content if you seek it, such as resources relating to specific medical conditions (manic depression, dissociative identity disorder) or living conditions (youth, gay and lesbian, rural living).Information: Peter Costello recently remarked on a disagreement (about a historical event) he had with his children. In order to determine who was right, Peter went to his library. His children went to the internet. This is true of a lot of people. The internet has the potential to be a great resource for information on specific conditions and treatments, as well as for practical strategies for coping with stress, trauma and grief. The challenge, I suppose, is that anyone can publish anything, so identifying trusted sources is very important. It may be more comfortable for people to research topics that might have stigma associated with them in this way, rather than borrowing a book from a library or discussing it with a medical profession. Interaction: It is my hope that text-based chat programs would be set up to rival the telephone counseling hotlines we are already familiar with. This would be of benefit to people who appreciate the relative anonymity of the internet. It might also be of benefit for people who feel more comfortable communicating via text, or whose living arrangements might make articulating problems and concerns aloud difficult. Similarly, through social networking sites and the blogs and videos mentioned above, individuals can make contact with other people dealing with similar challenges.Reference Points: The online world can point us in the direction of resources in the offline (real, or IRL – “In Real Life”) world too. Support Groups. Doctors. Other forms of media not available online (books, DVDs). Being able to identify what is available quickly and easily helps us organise a course of action. Technologies such as Google Maps and WhereIs help us identify where those things are, once we establish what they are!

The videos could be about how they have seen something on TV that has shocked them enough to sponsor a child, or how they have travelled to India and seen children forced to work to help their parents pay for food, or how someone has taken on the World Vision 40 hour famine and recording their thoughts and feelings as they complete it.

This type of competition would highlight the poverty problem from many different perspectives and how ordinary people are getting behind the cause and doing what they can to support it.

Nick (Schoonzie) Schoonens
from Brisbane, Australia.

The greatest doubt that everyone has when giving to charity, is how much what they’re giving is actually profiting the needy. How much is absorbed by marketing and bureaucracy?

World Vision must obtain the confidence of people. This is what makes blogging such a potentially powerful medium for them.

I know a few other commenters have already said some of this, but it’s so true. If they can get regular people on their staff to blog about their lives as a charity worker, rather than blogging about World Vision itself, they will gain trust in their own audience.

When people see ‘World Vision’ it looks too clinical. But, if they can get to know ‘Joe Bloggs’ who works for World Vision and get a glimpse of his life, if he sells himself and what he does well, then others will want to get involved.

People don’t become guilty when they see the work that a ‘charity’ does. But, they can be moved out of their comfort-zone when they see what the ordinary Joe Bloggs is doing.

See footage of poverty in third world countries, can be very moving. But, how about members of World Vision Australia going to the streets of the cities, and finding the poverty stricken on our doors steps? How about using video, and getting those in poverty to give testimony of the horrors of having nothing?

How about offering competitions on WV blogs, where the prize isn’t some unrelated trip to Google, but a trip into some aspect of what World Vision does? Something like that would probably change the individuals attitude toward the charity forever, and if they’re a blogger, then they’re likely going to share it with the world, and they will have an impact on all their readership too.

If I thought about it for long enough, I could probably come up with a heap of ideas for an online marketing plan, but I trust this has been at least a little bit helpful.

And yes, I’m in Australia :-)

The strength of developing this stratagem for fighting poverty will be in recognising the power of “one to one”.

Right now you are facing the dilemma in every direct mailing of wanting to fight the broadest front to gain the attention of the masses for the cause of crushing poverty.

With social networking you are handing the swords out and allowing the bloggers to fight in hand to hand combat on your behalf. To a certain extent this presents major trust issues for your organisation, however if you can encapsulate a concise thought in a video or text version of a life experience blog release or testimony and can hand it to trusted identified blog visionaries, then you have the potential for a strong multiplication factor with reduced translation issues.

My strong belief is that a ‘corporate’ identity can’t expect to engage or contract the social networking solution, it has to participate. To formulate a development plan will take research and identification. The systems, outlets and topical matter will move as the social agenda, technology and the temperature of our own community works through its own transitions. To forecast future positions and be there before the crowd you will need passionate social networkers who will do two things for you.

1. RESEARCH: Actively participate in the community and contribute to the discussion. This ensures that you are developing an understanding of the focus and triggers of the community. What are their writing priorities, emotional buttons and life direction? Through participation you aren’t dealing with a research snapshot but instead you have built a window into your audience.

2. IDENTIFICATION: The key to a good grower is finding the healthy branches. Out of social networking participation comes the ability to find new multipliers in the form of bloggers who will be active, attuned and alert to the needs of World Vision. As a grower, you recognise the DNA of your own fruit. To that end you are the best organisation to look for like minded DNA. Being able to choose bloggers who area aligned with your goals will come out of participation not putting up a vacancy sign.

BTW – in the social networking scene the role of a charity should not ‘on the surface’ be about the numbers. In any social networking scene driving the ‘group’ towards signing up to reach numerical goals diminishes the intent of the mission and becomes a game. It may garner momentum but not results. Keep it personal and about the difference it can make in the life of the one.

World Vision, I wish you well as you develop this program. I’m excited by your desire and your approach.

Regards,

Andrew Pitchford (I am in Australia)

REMEMBER: If you want action never lose sight of the power of telling a personal story. Personally relayed experience cuts through the corporate clag. A well sculpted blog can tell that story many times.