How the Public Can Help (Ch. 8 & 9)

Chapter 8 in The Networked Nonprofit discusses the importance of crowds in helping open up a message of a nonprofit organization to the public. The important thing about crowds is that they are filled with people of all different types and all different backgrounds. This diversity is what allows concepts such as crowd-sourcing to be helpful in the public relations world because such differences allow for people with new interests to join together. These collective activities do more for an organization than any one individual can accomplish on their own. As the book states, crowd-sourcing can lead to new ideas and wisdom that the nonprofit had not thought about before. Crowds can also offer insight into what the general public feels about scenarios and issues of an organization. With a large number of opinions, this process is very helpful to nonprofits in planning future events and new ideas for the group.

Microplanning is also useful for organizations because, as chapter 8 explains, this is a way that an organization can plan programs and fundraisers with reduced risk to the organization. This includes the process of putting together projects slowly and taking little steps to the big final assignment in order to stay on top of things. Sometimes an events can move so fast that the little steps get out of control and things to unnoticed or unplanned. These little issues can lead to major problems once the big event takes place. 

Chapter 9 describes what learning loops are in the world of public relations. Learning loops are ways of discovering how an event or ad affected the public, and they are a chance to reflect on what needs to be done differently in the next event after getting such feedback. Before every project, organizations have to be able to decide what they are looking to learn when analyzing their projects and creating a learning loop. When they realize what they are looking to learn from the learning loop, they can gear their questions and responses in the appropriate way. It's always necessary to stay on top of the public opinion in order to have the best relationship with the public possible.