WHITE PAPERS

Download white papers to learn how your organization can effectively use social media and social networking. Have a white paper that you wish to share? Contribute!

The Social Institute's White Paper Titles:

  Engaging and Growing Donors via Social Networks

Read this paper for top-level considerations in creating successful online communities that effectively engage -- and grow -- donors. Topics covered include:

• How to manage donor relationships effectively in the dynamic exchange that social networks exist on.
• How to ensure authentic and compelling virtual experiences that allow donors to both be involved and get others involved.
• How to use social networking as a means to deliver new and additional programs and services that allow organizations to truly differentiate themselves.
• How to successfully harness the two-way communication exchange between donors and organizations.

> Download "Engaging and Growing Donors via Social Networks" White Paper

  How to Write a Social Media RFP
Co-Authored by: Sherry Budziak,President,.orgSource and Suzanne Carawan, VP Marketing & Strategy, ThePort Network

Download this white paper to discover how to plan, create, and release a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a social-networking community. Throughout the white paper, questions will be discussed that include:

• How do you write a compelling RFP?
• What should be in the RFP in order to get the highest-quality responses?
• How do you narrow down the list of potential vendor candidates once the proposals are in?
• What are the “must haves” to look for?

> Download "How to Write a Social Media RFP" White Paper

What You Need To Know Before Launching an Online Community

This whitepaper includes a wealth of information about how non-profit and association organizations are researching, building and deploying white-labeled, otherwise known as private, social networking communities. What would you expect to accomplish with your own online community? Should your social networking provider specialize in serving organizations such as yours? Would you know how to go about seeding a community?

>Download "What You Need to Know Before Launching an Online Community" White Paper

Evaluating Social Networking Platforms

Download this new whitepaper to learn how to properly evaluate and identify social networking platforms that contain functionality tailored to nonprofit organizations, can scale with your organization as more of your constituents embrace social media, and are hosted in a truly secure and reliable data center.

>Download "What You Need to Know to Evaluate a Social Media Platform" White Paper

Creating Socially-Enabled Campaigns with Integrated Communities

Download this new whitepaper to learn how ThePort enables nonprofit organizations to implement communities integrated with their Blackbaud and Convio constituent management systems and create socially-integrated campaigns, actions, causes, events and groups.

>Download "Creating Socially Enabled Campaigns" White Paper

Association Goals for 2009: Solutions with Social Media

At the 2009 ASAE Membership & Marketing Conference, ThePort Network asked 123 association executives about their organization's goals for 2009.  Download this exclusive whitepaper to learn what the top associations are working on for 2009 and how social media can help associations accomplish these objectives.

>Download "Association Goals of 2009" White Paper

Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report

Social networking has become an integral part of nonprofits’ online strategy, according to a survey recently conducted by NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort. In this online survey conducted in March, 2009, 929 respondents representing nonprofits of all sizes and from multiple vertical seg- ments indicate that nearly three-quarters (74.2%) have a presence on Facebook, and 30.9% have one or more social networking communities on their own web site.

>Download "Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report" White Paper

How Nonprofts and Associations Enhance Offine Events Using Social Networking

Attendees of association special events, annual conferences and local chapter meetings approach them with fairly universal goals and typical expectations. In a simple yet profound way, members look forward to events and calendars are highlighted because events are the hallmark of a positive membership experience.

The question is, how can online social networking positively supplement and reinforce an event before, during and after it takes place? How can social media create a more valuable experience for attendees at every level?

>Download "Enhancing Offline Events with Social Media" White Paper

Using Social Networking to Convert Website Traffic Into Members

This whitepaper discusses tools and best practices for converting website visitors into members of an online community. Presented are practical tips that help you engage visitors, drive them to revisit your website, and begin the process of converting visitors into members.

>Download "Using Social Media to Convert Website Traffic into Members" White Paper

Membership Acquisition and Retention: A Social Media Perspective

Trade or professional groups and philanthropies share a common challenge, which is the increasing competition for their supporters' time and money. Non-profits are all chasing the same donor dollars and trying to keep their cause top of contributors' minds. Similarly, industry associations are striving to keep their members interested and active in order to continue the influx of annual dues. Today, it is getting harder for people to focus their attention and find time to get (and stay) involved.

Compounding this problem for trade and professional associations in particular is the Internet, which is challenging their longstanding position as the sole purveyor of industry-related information. Members can now find a lot of what they need through an online Google search, thus diminishing these groups' value. For this reason, associations need to find ways to enhance member services and regain their role as the critical hub for their masses.

>Download "Membership Acquisition and Retention" White Paper