Feedback

I know that now that the American election is over, many of us are happy to return to nonpolitikin' lives. But as the pundits conduct an endless postmortem of the winners and losers of this election cycle, Business Week has actually provided us something useful-an article that walks us step by step through how various social media tools were front and center.

I like this article not only because it is a social media campaign "how-to", but because it points out an important aspect of all successful social media campaigns--allowing your voters, donors, consumers to express things you may not want to hear.

"Social media also made it easy for some voters to express their frustration with aspects of the electoral process."

I wonder if fear of feedback is what is holding so many of us from getting into the social media fundraising game.

Will starting a blog mean that some of our donors might publicly be able to express concern about how/why we do things? Does facilitating a discussion group mean donors might start giving us advise? Will donors band together and, fear of all fears, want to provide INPUT, become engaged, expect to be a part of the process? Just imagine, this virtual mob, all wanting to say something to you!

Feedback. When I worked at AOL we worked tirelessly to collect it, sort through it, act on it, analyze it. We looked for the negative so that we could act on it to improve our services. How many nonprofits have "donor feedback" as a strategic priority? As part of their yearly plans? Should we?