Social Networks & Social Culture (Ch. 3 & 4)

Creating a social network is obviously an important job for any organization because in order to gain supporters and influence others, other people and organizations must have a relationship with your organization. This i no more important than for nonprofit organizations because the funds and help needed for these nonprofits to run is far greater then for other profit organizations. When I think of the network as described in the book The Networked Nonprofit, I think of a basic web-like structure. There is the center, which is the organization being examined, and then there are the nodes, which make up each organization or person that is connected to the nonprofit organization in some influential way. The relationships between the main organization and others are called ties. As the book explains, it is the relationships and connections which make the social network run, and it is important to take each relationship seriously in order to find the best ways to connect with each outside organization. Nonprofits need all the help they can get, and if someone is willing to help, the last thing an organization wants to do is ostracize the willing group. Hubs are a way to tie outside organizations and people together with similar interests and goals. These people are more secure networks within the web since they have more invested with one another. Having common interests among organizations bring people together and cause ideals of an organization to grow. This is why keeping a social network is so important in nonprofit organizations. When I begin to think about the major social networking tools, it is obvious that in today's world no organization should ignore facebook, twitter, and blog sites since every person is linked to these in some way. Since these sites have been developed, the social networking world has expanded to include not just local organizations, but causes all around the world. The possibilities of social networking really are endless.

As chapter 4 describes, with a growing social networking world, it is necessary for organizations to work intensely on creating a social culture so that all of the people seeing their organization can get a real feeling of what the organization is truly about. This culture is a form of letting the world know what values an organization has and what goals they are trying to achieve. By knowing this, people are able to find which organizations mean something to them and get the most out of each nonprofit. Using sites such a twitter and facebook help nonprofit organizations look "real" to the public because they can be on them all day and tell events as they happen- this means that these organizations are telling the public like it is. I think this form of social media can only expand and with a growing nonprofit market, it is very necessary to be honest with the public. If the public finds an organization shady in today's society, they will have little use for it and may even ostracize it entirely.