Hey everyone, a few weeks back I spoke about how Enterprise 2.0 has provided success for many large organisations, more specifically Cadbury and maybe its time we look at how non for profits have been able to take use of this social trend. So I thought we could explore Oxfam’s Enterprise 2.0 strategies and the social value levers applied.
First of all who and what is Oxfam?
Oxfam is actually a group of 17 organisations working in approximately 90 countries worldwide to find the solutions to poverty and related injustices around the world. Oxfam works with the communities and seeks to influence the powerful to ensure the poor can improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them. Each piece of Oxfam works together internationally to achieve a greater impact through their united effort.
Some interesting Stats
Before we got into Oxfam I thought it would be interesting for us to look at some statistics pertaining to the non for profit sector; extracted from this interesting study.
- Non for profits have a 98% presence on Facebook and a 76% presence on Twitter
- The average donation through social networks increase every year
- Fundraisers who tweet generate up to 10 times more revenue
- $161.30 is the average value to a charitable organisation from one Facebook Like
Leveraging Social Technologies
Oxfam and its various sub organisations as a collective are avid users of social technologies. Oxfam uses these social technologies to market and sell their message as well as conduct operations and distribution tasks. The use of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Oxfam’s various Blogs are part of the greater networks used by Oxfam; with each having a clearly driven purpose. Oxfam looks to tell a story through the use of social technologies, in the process hopefully influencing the public.
Oxfam uses both Facebook and Twitter to share stories from the field and reflect on news items relating to social justice as discussed on a recent post by Josh Catone. An impressive example of this was a well thought out campaign as mentioned on one of Oxfam’s very own blogs: “Within an hour of the birth of the royal baby, there were more than 1 million mentions of it on Facebook. Before the big event, we knew there was a good chance that social media would be buzzing with royalists and republicans alike. So we made the following shareable image to see if we could ride the wave and get people talking about meaningful global issues. And it worked. 2,774 likes. 11,867 shares. A reach of more than half a million people on Facebook. And lots and lots of comments”. Below is the shared image:
In addition Josh Catone post mentions “The most compelling use of social media coming from Oxfam America has been their use of YouTube to help tell the story of what’s happening on the ground in areas of the world where people are facing extreme poverty, violence, hunger, and injustice.” YouTube allows Oxfam to quickly tell compelling stories about what is happening to people in places where they face inequality and injustice, and Facebook and Twitter allow them to react quickly to issues and get vital information out to followers.
Donations to Oxfam are always welcomed and ecommerce functionality is built into all Oxfam’s web pages to cater for online donations. It should be noted that Oxfam does not plaster donation messages around its social networks, rather it continues to live by its social technology strategy of storey telling which generates greater interest and looks at the viewers to take the initiative to donate.
Megain Weintrub Oxfam’s Online Media Specialist has said: “As an international relief and development organisation, our work often demands that we respond quickly to urgent global humanitarian crises,”. “Social media gives us a way to grow our constituent base as well as to mobilise them effectively when we’re addressing the immediate needs of people worldwide.” So while marketing might present itself as the core leveraging element to Oxfam’s social strategy operations and distributions benefits greatly from the technology.
The Fitting End
So we have looked at the influence of social technologies for non for profits, it can be seen that Oxfam utilises Enterprise 2.0 technologies to increase their marketing and operation streams to assist them towards reaching their vision. A vision of a just world without poverty, a world in which people can influence decisions which affect their lives, enjoy their rights, and assume their responsibilities as full citizens of a world in which all human beings are valued and treated equally.
So if you like what Oxfam does click here to see more and maybe donate: https://www.oxfam.org.au
Well hope you had a fund read and feel free to comment.
Until next week!
Dillen
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P.S Click on the Images to go to the owners site’s
Dillen Alahendra 
