Arm your tribes with a digital tool that allows them to share their passions for your cause and your organization.

Johnson & Johnson is offering a free widget for individuals and non-profits. The customizable &you widget offers one central location for information on volunteer and job opportunities, events, news, and donation capabilities. Place the widget on a website, blog, or Facebook and other social media to keep friends and followers updated. We like that it makes volunteer opportunities so easy to find.

Google is collaborating with acclaimed art museums across the globe to display artwork online. Each museum was able to choose the number of pieces and information to include in The Google Art Project. The high-resolution images are copyright protected, and thus far, 17 museums are participating including MoMA (New York), Tate Britain (London), Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam) and The State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow). In its first month, the project recorded 10 million visitors and 90,000 people registered.

The museums are benefitting considerably from displaying their exhibits for free online. Christian Ghiron at Italy’s Ministry of Culture told the New York Times that the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence, has seen its web traffic rise from an average of 5000 visitors a day to  between 30,000 and 40,000 since the project. The more they digitize, the more people want to see it live, he says.

These art galleries are reaching wider to nurture the passions of their Tribe. The Tribe responds.

Think about your organization. How are you supporting, developing and cultivating your Tribes?

Last week Google launched Google for Nonprofits. The program allows you to sign-up for the many Google products in one-application. If approved, your organization is given access to products for free or at discounted rates, including:

• Up to $10,000 a month in advertising on Google AdWords
• Free or discounted Google Apps
• Premium features for YouTube for Nonprofits
• Google’s mapping technologies

Included in the offering are resources to connect with other nonprofits. As well, the Google for Nonprofits Marketplace connect nonprofits with certified partners offering services at a free or discounted rate.

Could you use a few Google tools in your organization’s toolbox?

We like the creative approach Urban Ministries of Durham is taking to raise awareness of poverty and homelessness. The organization has teamed up with ad agency McKinney and created an interactive online game: Spent.

Down to their last $1000, players must make difficult budgeting decisions, trying to survive to the end of the month. At various levels unexpected costs creep up and participants can connect through the game with friends on Facebook to request assistance. At the end, players are asked to donate, volunteer or play again.

What makes this a success?

It’s educational: Statistics and facts on homelessness inform the player at every level.

It’s built to spread:  Because it’s a game there is a higher chance of challenging your friends. And connecting game levels to Facebook is brilliant.

It engages a new demographic: The organization casts a wider net, employing social media to appeal to a younger Tribe that can donate their time and/or money.

Remember our piece on social gaming?  Well, are you playing yet?

Thinking outside the box is great. But sometimes you can’t execute your outside-the-box idea because of budgets constraints, lack of resources, or limited manpower.

Here’s a different approach. Rename the box!

The small town of Speed, Australia, raised funds for its Lions Club by teaming up with the state’s Transport Accident Commission (TAC) on an awareness campaign to highlight the dangers associated with speeding. They jointly created a Facebook page, ‘Rename Speed’, promising to change the town’s name to SpeedKills if they received 10,000 ‘likes’. Speed would be renamed for a month and the TAC would donate $10,000 to the local Lions Club.

The Facebook campaign has collected 31,000 ‘likes’ so far. After getting their 20,000^th ‘like’ the TAC doubled their donation. And local farmer, Phil Down, has promised to change his name to Phil ‘Slow’ Down for a month. The official renaming ceremonies take place on February 18.

How do you see your box?

Talk to your donors about new ideas
Test if a topic or campaign has potential by asking your donors about it. Ask for feedback. People who support your organization will be the most honest (sometimes brutally). But your donor’s perspective will give you a good feel about the acceptance of an idea. And you may receive better ideas or ways to tweak your own. More importantly, the donor will appreciate your willingness to include them in the idea process and letting them feel more involved with the organization. And involving donors at the early stages of planning builds excitement around the project. Which leads to the next point…

Encourage conversation through special access
When you give someone a sneak peek, they are often eager to tell their friends. After all, they knew it first. Make your donors feel special and let them be the first to know about news and special events. They will be inspired to talk when they feel they’ve got something exclusive or rare to share. Treat them like ambassadors and look for opportunities to connect them with new potential donors.

Don’t make it all about you
Hogging a conversation and making it all about you is rude! Instead, listen and talk about your donors, too. Understand and appreciate the emotions of your donor and introduce them to others with similar passions within the tribe. It’s a simple way to get your donors talking: help them to talk about themselves.

Get your own talkers
Do you have someone in your organization to chat with your donors, especially in the social media sphere? Dell has made listening to their customers a priority. They have launched the Social Media Listening Command Center to manage real-time conversations about Dell. Your organization may not need a team. But why not put one person in charge of listening?

Bryan Tenenhouse at AFP Congress 2010:

Nicci Noble at AFP Congress 2010:

This year, the Legion took the traditional Poppy Appeal mobile and created a mobile application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. For 59p (Gold) or £2.99 (Platinum), users could download a poppy seed, water it, see custom animations and watch it grow to full height leading up to Veteran’s Day. The application allowed users to donate directly to the Legion. It also gave users the ability to share via social media and invite others to download.

The mobile sphere is growing and your organization should leverage mobile to increase your revenue. We’ve blogged about ways you can start.

Talk to us about how your organization can fully embrace mobile innovation.

Need some extra funds to launch your organization’s next big campaign? If your non-profit is registered in the US, let Pepsi know about your idea and win funding. [Come on, Canadian corporations! Get on board!]

Pepsi is giving over $20 million through the end of this year to individuals, businesses and non-profits working to better their communities. It’s a popular trend in which corporations use social media to get people involved in giving back to social issues while marketing their product to wider audiences. Recent campaigns include the Starbucks Love Project and Disney’s Give a Day, Get a Disney Day promotion.

It’s great when businesses give back to their communities and we encourage non-profits to take advantage of opportunities to create partnerships with corporations.

Here’s one way: visit the Pepsi Refresh Project website, submit your idea, promote it through your networks to gather votes, and let us know when you win.

Good luck!