I just read an excellent article on the importance of nonprofits keeping their volunteers engaged. This very factual and informative writeup suggests the following:

“Nonprofits rely heavily on volunteers, but most CEOs do a poor job of managing them. As a result, more than one-third of those who volunteer one year do not donate their time the next year—at any nonprofit. That adds up to an estimated $38 billion in lost labor. To remedy this situation, nonprofit leaders must develop a more strategic approach to managing this overlooked and undervalued talent pool.”

$38 billion…wow. I don’t have actual numbers, but I’m willing to bet that this problem exists in all types of organizations. Churches need to keep their ministries and members involved, associations need to keep their members active, and schools need to keep the parents engaged. We’re even learning that fitness and wellness programs are having more success if they provide tools to connect their members better.

Managing members is more than just keeping data about them. Technology can help all types of member-driven organizations in the following ways:

1. It keeps everyone informed and ensures that vision and goals are shared
2. Communication channels are clear and everyone knows how to reach the group and each other
3. Members feel more connected and have a greater sense of community
4. It encourages participation and sharing of ideas, which leads to refinement of objectives
5. Instant communication to users cell phones with text messaging can save much time

These are just a few examples. How is technology helping your nonprofit, church, association or member-driven organization? What can we do to help?

Many of you know @milleemassey. For those of you that follow her on Twitter, you’re already well aware of her knack for sorting through 100′s of  tweets and finding those nuggets of goodness that deserve to be passed on and retweeted. For MemberHub customers you may just know her as the friendly account representative that answers all your questions.

1. “Tinker will show you relevant real-time convos. from social media sources like Facebook and Twitter” Heard of it? http://www.tinker.com/11:23 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
2. ‘As Seen on TV’: Marketing Ideas Gleaned from Infomercials – http://bit.ly/cRImL11:19 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
3. The Next Generation and Changing Suburban Schools: http://bit.ly/10gl2q11:17 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
4. RT @brandonacox: Why Content and Social Media are a Powerful Match http://ff.im/-2Vk3S10:45 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
5. Speaking and Presenting- Your Next Actions: http://bit.ly/WXJBo // you presenting any time soon? great advice here!8:25 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
6. “… churches are beginning to feel the recession’s squeeze on the offering dollars that people place in the plate.” http://bit.ly/UP34o1:01 PM May 14th from TweetDeck
7. DOG sized or GOD sized Faith? http://bit.ly/144C6t – Love it!!11:53 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
8. Patience and Prayer: “What are you struggling to “take one step at a time” …?” So true…can be applied to life! http://bit.ly/F6AkS8:52 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
9. RT @human3rror: Just Read : Keep it Simple Stupid (and Obvious) : http://churchcrunch.com/?p=… // 8:41 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
10. Churches, Nonprofits & Associations – How many communication tools are you using? http://blog.memberhub.com/7:01 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
11. What Not to Do in Connection Card Ministry: http://bit.ly/18rbj45:59 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
12. Two halves of the value fraction // http://bit.ly/38vbw2:04 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
13. “how often do you repeat your vision to people within your organization?” http://bit.ly/LgLFF1:58 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
14. Is Voicemail Dead? http://bit.ly/18O7gB // Do you agree?1:26 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
15. A29 Bootcamp Sessions: Influence: Multiplying Leaders on Mission for the Gospel // http://bit.ly/Jn2Fw1:24 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
16. Interesting: Coast Guard Commandant Hearts Social Media // http://bit.ly/RfDzG1:05 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
17. “Cool is No Longer Cool” – http://bit.ly/jeUtE – “The American Church is not lacking for “cool” pastors”….12:56 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
18. RT @ifeelgod: Influence: Connecting with People | GiANT Impact http://ff.im/-2OVKk11:46 AM May 12th from TweetDeck
19. “Life is too short to waste. Dreams are fulfilled only through action, not through endless planning to take action.” (via@mikehanes)12:07 PM May 11th from TweetDeck
20. RT @human3rror: Just Read : The ‘Pastor’ Effect in Social Media : http://churchcrunch.com/?p=… // 7:48 AM May 11th from TweetDeck
21. My Church Manifesto … cultural shift in the church? http://bit.ly/J9MUi – good stuff, thoughts?12:43 PM May 8th from TweetDeck

Many of you know @milleemassey. For those of you that follow her on Twitter, you’re already well aware of her knack for sorting through 100′s of  tweets and finding those nuggets of goodness that deserve to be passed on and retweeted. For MemberHub customers you may just know her as the friendly account representative that answers all your questions.

Seminaries face unique challenges. Secular universities and colleges are up to their eyeballs in the new world of communications that include social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook. There are few if any filters on these offerings and they generally pose more problems for a seminary environment than they do solutions.

Does that mean that seminaries are to be left in the Dark Ages with regard to communication? Let’s hope not. One of the main needs for future pastors and church leaders is to be in constant communication with their peers and to learn how to best handle the church congregation of the 21^st century. It ain’t like your grandaddy’s church anymore .

One way that future church leaders can be prepared is to have more modern means of communication within the seminary environment itself. Of course you can provide courses to help students learn the ins and outs of how the new world communicates (and even reads the Bible for that matter) but there is nothing like learning by doing.

While seminaries are often strapped for capital to implement these types of programs there are now web based software apps that can help facilitate the communication necessary to help them grow as leaders. Of course, MemberHub is one of those options (you didn’t expect me to not say anything about that now did you?).

Here are 3 very simple yet powerful applications for web based communication tools that should be considered.

1. Classes can have collaborative activities that strengthen their learning and help to reinforce what is covered in the class
2. Seminary wide communication can be taken beyond just e-mail lists and there can more information disseminated in a more efficient and effective manner
3. Seminary staff and departments can have greater continuity with less face to face meetings and more time doing what they do best; equipping.

Is your seminary living in the past in the way that it communicates with students and staff? Could there be greater learning and preparing taking place if there were quicker and cleaner communication for these groups? Could seminaries be using software to help improve communications and prepare students for using technology once they go out to shepherd their flocks?

We think so. Tell us what you think.

Ok, so I’m mostly doing this post as a test. But, this video is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen about Twitter. Seriously, there’s so much humor and truth in this thing. Watch this!

The main thread (no pun intended) that holds together many online groups is some form of a discussions feature. Groups need a dedicated space for their members to participate in online private discussion threads. But, I’ve had people ask me before why a group needs to use the Discussions feature in MemberHub. “Why not just use your regular email?”, they ask. Here are 5 points to consider:

1. Not Everyone has Everyone’s Email Address

How many times have you ever wanted to email a group of folks, but soon realize you don’t have everyone’s email address? So what do you do? You go digging through your inbox looking for the last email that someone sent out to everyone in the list, so that you can reply. If your new message has a different subject, you tweak the subject in the new new mail message and then delete all the text from the thread.  Does this sound familiar? Heck, sometimes you want to email everyone in a group and you can’t remember someone’s name. That’s never happened to me…   If all the members are grouped together in a hub, all you have to do is remember ONE email address. Every Hub in MemberHub has a private, email address and whenever a member needs to reach the group, all they have to do is send an email to the Hub to reach everyone in the hub!

2. You Can’t Change History

Do you keep emails around, in you inbox for a long time because they are important for one reason or another? I am bad about this. I’ll leave a message in my inbox because I need to come back to it or it’s significant. But after using MemberHub for our business (yes, we “eat our own dog food”), I’ve found that I have less anxiety about removing messages from my local mail client.  I know that the history of these discussions are “in the cloud”, within the hub. Cool.

3. Opt In; Opt Out (Customize Your Notifications)

Have you ever wished that people would just forget about the Reply All button? Some discussion thread gets going through email and you’re just not that interested; meanwhile you’ve got 15 new emails in the last 10 minutes. Well, if the discussion is taking place in a mailing list then you can opt out of discussions for the time being and come back to the Hub to read about it later. Remember from the last point – you can always access the Hub and view past discussions.

4. Recognizing the Communication Channel Will Encourage Participation

Communication is key to the success of any organization! The more you can get your members, staff and volunteers actively communicating, you stand a much better chance of reaching your goals. By making it easier for folks to communicate, you increase your organization’s chances of success. Recognizing the communication channel and encouraging its use can help improve real communication.

5. Centralize Discussions With Multiple Groups

One of the greatest strengths of MemberHub is its ability to aggregate all the groups in your life. So as a member of Hubs at your church, Hubs at your non-profit and Hubs at your sports league, you can move in and out of organized discussions with the people in each Hub.  Now, the 4 benefits above apply to each online group in your life!

There’s much to say about “online community” these days. Multiple resources are available to learn how to create online community and there are an exorbitant list of tools at your disposal to create one. Millions of people are connecting through Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. But I insist that community; the real thing, is built outside of technology. I agree with John Saddington that using technology does not prove that you have community. In fact, I would even suggest, as many have done before me, that community should build relationships and relationships should change lives. Social networking should ultimately lead to a real in-person uniting where people can actually meet each other. I’m pretty sure Chris Brogan has suggested something like this before.

And for those groups of people that are already in “community”, I would suggest that you don’t need software to “build” community. You need software to enhance your community. For example, it has been proven that Facebook enhances face time. This makes sense, because you’re able to keep track of the day-to-day lives of your friends, and then touch on those important points when you meet in person. The small-talk can be cut out and friends can get to the “meat” of a conversation.

In a similar manner, groups, teams, ministries, volunteers and people involved in member-driven organizations need software to help them with the day-to-day logistics, planning and coordination of their groups. Many times you don’t need to build community online as much as you just need to take care of the business of being a part of a community. When everyone is informed, up-to-date and accessible then the community can grow stronger. When you can take care of the business of being a member online, you can leave time for real community when you’re together in person. In other words, you won’t have to worry about passing out schedules and documents,exchanging notes, reminding people of events and general planning during real community; you can enjoy each other.

When members are face-to-face is when they can really focus on their relationships; which builds community; the real thing. Do you agree?

Are your groups organized? What are your ministries, small groups and other teams in your church using to handle the logistics, planning and coordination that makes each group tick? What about  your volunteers? Does your group communications remind you of this closet?

For many groups, it’s like this:

• One person maintains an email list (likely an email group in their mail client)
• Other members must dig for an old email to find the entire list to start a new thread
• People are keeping an array of emails locally that contain important information
• Each person has an outdated version of an important document
• Each person is responsible for remembering events and keeping their calendar
• Some people miss events
• One person remembers to send everyone reminders to events

Here’s what it can be like for those groups:

• Each person can send a message to the entire group, quickly and easily
• No one has to maintain that list, all the members are always in it
• All discussions that take place in the group are preserved
• A file repository contains the latest version of shared documents
• As people add calendar events everyone is notified via email
• Members are automatically reminded of events with emails and text messaging
• Members can be reached instantly with text messaging to cell phones

Ah…each compartment (group), organized and all in the same place. Eureka!

Does this sound nice? Do your groups have this now? What are you using? Will you try MemberHub and let us know what you think? If you’re using MemberHub now, will you share you feedback with us?