Social Networking for Non Profits

I’ve been trying to make the experience for Water For People constituents more interactive utilizing social media, to which I am fairly new. But today I had a breakthrough (not without a little help from Jon Gosier). Using Twitter, Yahoo Pipes and Feed Burner, a non-profit can have someone out in the world making notes of their experiences on Twitter, then Yahoo Pipes will separate the Tweets into separate RSS feeds, then FeedBurner will give you code so that you can post the constantly updating feed onto a web page specific to the keyword that you filtered against if you want this on your web site as content. I can think of so many possiblities here – the local humane society could set up “easy” breed-specific adoption feeds for potential new pet owners to know the instant a dog/cat/ferret of their choice comes up for adoption. The local political committee can parse out feeds depending on their constituents interests. The homeless shelter could send out up-to-the-minute requests for what they need that day (food, blankets, volunteers, money, etc.) and specifically reach the people that can offer those resources. It’s really quite amazing. Of course you don’t have to use Twitter, but why not put the information out on an application that is growing widely in popularity and gain followers for your organization that way as well as have people subscribe to your RSS feed? If this is all old news to some folks, then I completely understand. And it’s quite possible there’s an easier way to do things than the way I mentioned (please comment if there is!) – but my point is more that social networking is going to do a world of good for non-profits in order to get out our message in a free, and in many ways “cutting-edge” method. I thank Jon (mentioned above) for opening my eyes!