Listening, Engaging, Building Relationships and Becoming Transparent

    In chapter 5, one thing that I found to be intrusting is the importance that the writers placed on listing. This is the key for any organization to build a good relationship. It is vital that organizations understand that the key is to listen to what others have to say about them, and not just to them or even worse talking at them. I feel that Safe Harbor did an excellent job at this at the beginning of the semester when we had our meeting they wanted to hear our ideas and did not just tell us what they wanted. The book tells that “the value of listening comes from making sense of the data and using it to identify influencers, the key leverage points for spreading an organization’s message and efforts far and wide.”(p. 61) As you can tell to obtain the level of a top organization you have to make sure that you are listing to others.

     Along with listening organizations want to make sure that they are engaging with the public. There are many ways that organizations can accomplish this, such as sharing information, enter or initiate conversation, thank people for their efforts, educate and raise awareness. Through working with Safe Harbor it is clear that they do these things. They make sure that the public knows and understands they message and upcoming events by using their website, Facebook and Twitter pages.

      Organizations also want to make sure that they take critics professionally when using social media. Organizations should NOT refuse to engage in conversations particularly critical ones, this just shows that the organization does not want to listen or engage with the critics and makes them look bad.

Another tool that I learned about in this chapter is called the ladder of engagement. This tool is used to help the organizations get their supporters involved they want to get them to stay on board with their cause and even sometimes become donors. The levels of engagement are as follows:

• Happy bystanders- including blog readers, friends on Facebook, and personal acquaintances such as coworkers
• Spreaders- people who are willing to share information about a cause with other people
• Donors- who contribute financially to a cause
• Evangelists- who reach out to their personal social networks and ask other people to give time and money to the cause
• Instigators- who create their own content, activities, and events on behalf of the cause

     The book tells how the ladder gives a framework for envisioning the types of participation that organizations need to be successful.

     In chapter 6 we now turn to how to make sure that your organization is transparent. Building a greater transparency is vital for nonprofit organizations that want to embrace a broader network of individuals and organizations. This being said there are three types of transparency that organizations can fall into:

• Fortress- these organizations sit behind high walls and drawn shades, holding the outside world at bay to keep secrets in and invaders out. They have to understand that where there’s an “us” there must be a “them”.
• Transactionals- organizations provide services offered and selected by the public primarily based on cost.
• Transparents- could be considered glass houses with the organizations presumably sitting behind glass walls. However this is not transparency because the walls are still there. True transparency only happens when the walls are taken down.

    To make sure that your organization is transparent you have to have the following factors:

• Leadership is straightforward when talking to various audiences
• Employees are available to reinforce the public view of the organization and to help people when appropriate
• Their values are easily seen and understood.  
• Their culture and operations are apparent to everyone inside and out.
• They communicate all results, good and bad.

     I feel that Safe Harbor does a great job at following these points through their organizations. Through seeing their operations first hand there is only one thing that they could work on in this area and that is making sure they work on making some of their sites easier to find. An example of this would be their Facebook page for R.E.P. could be hard to find if you do not know where to look. Overall I feel that these chapters had some very useful information.