Blog Name: Small Dots
Blog Topic: Social media and other useful technology tools for nonprofits and the people who love them
About the Author: I am the Director of Communications and Technology for the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College, I pursued graduate studies in geology at Syracuse University. When I was 28, I bought a nightclub, euphemistically known as a “live-musicvenue,” in upstate New York and operated that for several years before returning to Cape Cod in 2002. I then worked for several years as a freelance editor for Random House Publishing, Sterling Publishing, and several scientific academic journals, and served as the Director of Communications for the Harwich Junior Theater before joining the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod in 2006.
I’ve been in communications since 1997, nonprofit communications since 2004, and I’ve been blogging since about 2003. I started blogging on a personal blog, and quickly branched out into writing weekly columns for several humor blogs (all of which are now sadly defunct). I’m a darn good public speaker, an enthusiastic baseball fan (but not for the team you would expect), and an ex-professional chef. I am also an expert sock-knitter. Yes, expert.
What’s one lesson you’ve learned from blogging? Be yourself. You can be no other.
If you could lived on any street, which street would you live on and why? Perry Lane. It’s the dirt road on which my great-grandfather’ s house still sits — an 1840 farmhouse on Cape Cod, only a few miles from where I live now. My grandfather had to sell it a few years ago, and none of us had the scratch to buy it from him at the time. I’d love to buy it back from the (very nice) folks who bought it, and then settle there. I mean, those ghosts are MY ghosts.
Who would be your dream real-life neighbor? Annie LaMott. She’s one of my favorite writers; she writes great fiction AND great non-fiction on the subject of writing, and I think we would make terrific neighbors. We have a lot in common, including a certain level of neuroticism, and a peculiar sense of humor.
Why do you blog? I’m a compulsive blogger, and I have been since I first started in 2003. I love to write, and I love how blogging keeps my writing skills sharp. I love the community of people that I have met through writing a blog and reading blogs. Blogging makes me global.
What’s your favorite blog post and why? The one where I compared CEOs (those who are averse to social media) to the Tiv tribe in Africa: Lost in Translation – Social Media and Hamlet. I was remembering that old Intro to Anthropology essay that we all had to read, about the young anthropologist who believes that Hamlet is universal and transcends cultural differences, and she faces hysterical obstacles in her quest to translate it to the indigenous population she is working with in Africa. I like it because it’s typical of the way I think, drawing strange metaphors and parallels from seemingly unrelated disciplines. It’s what we liberal arts college graduates are best at, I think.
Look out next week to see who else has been nominated in the neighborhood!
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This continuous weekly series highlights different blogs and their respective bloggers in the blogosphere neighborhood. Following the great Mr. Rogers, who tells us to ‘Get to know your neighbor,’ this series introduces us to our blogger neighbors, making for a more unified, collaborative voice for the social sector. Like to nominate someone or be featured yourself? Contact me @ socialbutterfly4change@gmail.com.
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This may not be the one thing the group Finger Eleven was singing about, but Rosetta Thurman of the blog Perspectives from the Pipeline asks about a certain one thing….
Now, I know the question asked specifically about the non-profit sector…but what is the nonprofit sector? What is the private sector? or the public sector? Why divisions and not more communication and more collaboration? How do the three relate? I think the non-profit sector needs to infiltrate the other sectors through the tools of collaboration…and social change for the welfare of the public may be heightened.
*I will also note that this concept of collaboration is one I continue to explore and educate myself on as it is one area of my research, so I encourage comments or suggestions.
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“If (we) knew all about this one thing……wouldn’t that be something?!?”
]]>“On the FLiP homepage there is a great article about how, in many respects, traditional philanthropy is actually reinforcing the status quo. In my comment to that article I quoted Martin Luther King Jr, “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropists to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice that make philanthropy necessary.”
What are your thoughts on that? Are too many of us in the nonprofit sector offering programmes that are far too reactive, vs actually examining and addressing the socio-economic issues that require our ‘programmes’?”
This discussion topic is followed by another that asks about philanthropy education programs. And, to my surprise and after some research, there are many, and growing: IUPUI’s Center on Philanthropy, NY University School of Philanthropy, Columbia’s MA in Fundraising, Hebrew University of Israel’s M.A. in Community Leadership and Philanthropy Studies, Bay Path College in Massachusett’s M.S. in Non-Profit Management and Philanthropy, St. Mary’s graduate program in Philanthropy and Development, and MORE! The programs listed include degrees surrounding fundraising, non-profit management, leadership, governance, development, philanthropy and othe-related terms….yet social marketing termed programs still lack.
Upon this brief internet browsing, I reflected on what the definition of what ‘philanthropy‘ means. Are the terms philanthropy and social marketing interchangeable? What is this term social-change philanthropy? We’ve been talking a lot about the identity crisis in communications, and it appears that there is some overlap. Social marketing does take in the marketing process, but it is also – as the Facebook Poster said – can be applied to looking at socio-economic issues.
Feel free to share as this thought is still developing….how do the two relate to one another and what does this mean for the field of communications or in the non-profit sector?
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