Using Our Powers for Good
The Social Venture Network’s Fall 2009 Conference in La Jolla this past weekend was a truly remarkable experience that seemed filled with the potential for world changing collaborations to happen and where words turned to action. It was was an amazing experience. Seeing Amy Goodman from Democracy Now engage with Arianna Huffington from The Huffington Post. Eric Utne from Utner Reader making himself  available to give me notes on love and life. Seeing venture capital firms and investors alike measuring organizations not just on their balance sheets, but on their socially responsible activities as well was refreshing.

Some of the brightest, hardest working and most passionate entrepreneurs trying to make a difference in the world today were there this weekend. They had important things to say. They are fighting for causes we all care about, that affect our lives and the lives of billions around the world. The Responsible Endowments Coalition for example, works to shift billions of dollars in university endowment funds into socially conscious and responsible investments. The Genocide Intervention Network, which empowers individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide around the world. Lots of for-profit businesses doing significant work for our environment, local communities and others in need discussed collaboration and ways to make more of an impact.

Successful companies like Seventh Generation and Birkenstock spoke on the evolution of businesses and profitability through sustainability, diversity, philanthropy, and transparent business practices. SVN is truly a place where people do business with their heads and with their hearts. Yet, it also was never more apparent to me that social media is a quickly evolving beast that remains out the grasp of many ambitious entreprenuers.

It seemed to be one of the prevailing topics quietly discussed over the weekend: how to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the online channel, attract fans and promote awareness. I was amazed to hear about the struggles these unbelievable organizations have to go through to generate engagement and activate people to join their cause even as they are do incredible work for the world.

I attended my first SVN Conference last October and came back completely energized and ready to take action, to make the business green and looking for new clients who embodied similar ideals. Since then, we’ve worked on the Barack Obama campaign with great success to spread important content to voters under 30 in the swing states utilizing social media. We worked to mobilize street teams and potential fans to see the Sundance Award winning movie FUEL by building their social media platform. Currently we are working with the non-profit Conscious Alliance, an organization that runs food drives at major festivals and concerts to donate to Native American reservations. The list is growing and I could go on and on about the impact that SVN had on me and the business.

Once again I’m completely renergized from the conference this year and see some very actionable ways that we can help our community. We here at GMS are digital channel experts and have spent substantial time researching, building, and anticipating the future of digital marketing and social media. We are further along in our thinking and experience than much of our competition and believe that our ideas, tools and processes should be used for the power of good. Couple that with the goals and objectives that SVN members are striving to achieve, we feel like we can do some amazing things together.

The SVN Fall 2009 Conference this year opened my eyes to the impact I can have on others businesses in the socially responsiblity space. Especially for non-profits looking to grow their donor lists and boost the average donation without a serious increase in infrastructure. The beautiful thing about social media is that there is huge potential to grow marketing programs with accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. To make that magical combination happen, the mission, goals,  ideas, efforts, essentially the brand, need to translate into a content strategy, get it out there and share it. Listen to what the digital inclined have to say about it and build from there. Match up those things with our tools and best practices, and the technology suddenly becomes less daunting.

We’ve been developing a social media toolkit for SVN memebers and non-profits. We’ve been building this toolkit and best practices to be easily implemented into your current marketing efforts. This subset of the GMS digital marketing platform will give a big boost to your marketing and communications efforts. Reach out and let us know how we can help you make this happen.

We will be posting more strategies, tools and tips here with you in mind. Stay tuned.