University of Massachusetts researchers Nora Barnes, Ph.D. and Eric Mattson have released preliminary results of a survey of the largest US charities regarding their adoption of new social media like blogging, podcasting and wikis. The researchers concluded, based on similar research their Center for Marketing Research has done with Fortune 500 corporations, that the charitable sector is exhibiting more substantial adoption of social media than its corporate counterparts.
This directly contradicts the widely held belief that the charitable sector is tech-conservative, risk averse and focused only on using proven methods to raise money.
The study focused exclusively on big players, the Fortune 500 and the Forbes 200 top charities. Small businesses and nonprofits are another matter all together. When big organizations with strong brands adopt a technology in a visible way, though, it can’t help but lend that tool-set some credibility.
It’s interesting to see that video is the most widely used social media on the list. In as much as charity work is dependent on communicating emotionally with potential donors, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
Corporate America can hang its head today for being surpassed in innovation, risk taking and communication with constituents. In theory the corporate world is where the action is supposed to be, and the charitable sector is in charge of making sure that life is tolerable for the most marginal among us, right? I think we could all benefit from more blogging, though, whether it’s directly lucrative or not. Thanks to Nedra Weinreich in LA and Beth Kanter in Massachusetts for unearthing the study. Just look at those nonprofit bloggers go! We were very fortunate to have a guest post from Beth about the challenges of nonprofit social media adoption here on ReadWriteWeb in September.
