One of the biggest challenges of running an all-volunteer organization is, as you might imagine, recruiting and retaining volunteers.  While the membership of my nonprofit is pretty engaged, it's still a major challenge for the board to communicate its specific needs and make it as easy as possible for willing and competent volunteers to step up. 



Otherwise what usually happens is a small, isolated group of ubervolunteers ends up taking on the day-to-day operations of the organization.  Now, this may seem like an ideal solution in some ways — the cream rises, right? — but aside from being an unfair burden on the few, it also weakens an organization founded on volunteerism in the end.

Social networking seems like it should be the answer for this, but the truth is... um, not so much.  Turns out there are a lot more factors at play that seem to undermine the promise of social media.  Until some one-stop-shopping solution presents itself, the world of social media seems too niche and next-big-thing for a nonprofit like ours to utilize it effectively.

I'm thinking of this today because I got yet another email from a well-meaning member about yet another social-networking site — this one — for hooking up volunteers with volunteer opportunities.

It's a great idea, don't get me wrong.

Here's the problem: there are several others like it out there, and in order to really get the word out we'd have to post on all of them.  And that's another full-time job. Which is how social media, rather than making it easier for an organization like mine, actually makes it harder.  A lot harder.  With very little return on investment.

And we're not exactly dealing with the early adopter crowd here, either.  Those of us who aren't early adopters are rightly wary of the nowest thing, whatever it may be.  By the time we've mastered it, the world has moved on.  And not only that.  The world is scoffing at us for still being stuck on Friendster when they've moved on to facebook.  Never mind the stink-eye from the Diaspora* crowd.

When I got a message the other day that my facebook account had been hacked into I thought, here's another thing I didn't want to do in the first place that I now have to think about doing now. 

Of course, the occasional blast from the past makes facebook worth it.  Yesterday I got a friend request from a long lost and very dear friend from the Ukraine, whom I hadn't seen or spoken to in years.  And a couple weeks before that I got one from a very hot Israeli I shared a cab from the airport with a decade ago (true story).  Facebook is now so big, even guys you shared a cab with a decade ago can find you on it. 

Which proves my point.  Facebook is essentially the Wal-Mart of social networking sites.  All the little mom-and-pop start-ups are great for the compartmentalized personalities we cultivate in an ever more connected yet increasingly fragmented age, but in order to be of any real use for an organization like mine, a site has to be big — by which I mean popular — enough to promise return on investment.  Managing multiple social media sites that each appeal to a niche market is just not an option for us. 

Because, ultimately we're not in the social media business.  Social media is not our mission. We just want to use it to further our mission.  And that may be the crux of the problem here.  Putting social media to work defeats its purpose.  People use it at work, sure, but not to work. 

Yes, it's shocking the amount of time folks spend twittering about on 2.0 of their own free will.  But for those of us who look at it as work, well, we just don't have that kind of time.