Gillo Cutrupi is an Amsterdam based freelance technology consultant for nonprofit organizations. After working with Greenpeace International and setting up the group's first blog he has now set out to assist a broader range of organizations develop Internet and public engagement strategies.

He advocates a shift from the one-to-many relationship organisations have with the public, to a many-to-many, where supporters become integral part of campaigns. He blogs at TotalTactics.org and is currently working on bringing new communication technologies into the international discourse around climate change.

Marshall:

Gillo - I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences with the Net Squared Community. Can you begin by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Gillo:

Thanks for having me as guest. I'm Italian, which most likely influenced everything I've done in my life. I have a weird cultural background as I initiated my studies and works in visual arts, film-making and ballet.

Then something happened, maybe an instant growth. I began being very involved in politics, activism, and computers so, from a visual art Uni, I ended up in Computer science, while at the same time coordinating volunteer groups for national non-profits everything combined in an unusual way when I started working as Internet Developer for Greenpeace International. That was probably the start of everything I'm doing now, as I collaborate with NGOs to develop their outreach work, especially using new media tools.

Marshall:

Can you tell us about what you did at Greenpeace International?

Gillo:

I collaborated with Greenpeace Italy at the beginning, as part of its action teams and local groups coordinators. The activist experience helped me out understand more the needs of Greenpeace as well as other NGOs working on similar issues. More recently, after few years spent in the New Media Unit at Greenpeace International, I worked on very interesting projects aiming to combine online and offline activities.

Marshall:

What were the needs that you identified that led you down the path you've traveled?

Gillo:

When I started at Greenpeace International, I was asked to work with someone who became a good friend and is now working for Greenpeace China, as he was the only one maintaining the content of the main Greenpeace website http://www.greenpeace.org

Non-profits have always struggled to build constituencies of volunteers, activists, supporters. They are the blood of the organisations. Now that tools like the Internet allow NGOs to reach out to a wider number of people in an easier and faster way, it's very important to understand the basic as well. It's not just about fundraising [for example], although it's a big part of it.

Marshall:

How are new Internet communications affecting the basics?

Gillo:

I think it’s all about Informing, Motivating, Activating and Recruiting. These are the steps that are made easier to achieve through the Internet. It's easier to inform through websites and other one-to-many channels. It's easier to motivate through newsletters, mailing lists, etc. It's easier to activate through cyber-actions and viral marketing and it's easier to recruit once you have the constituency, since at this stage you've built a community around you there's a good potential to fund raise or ask for donations. So the process is actually linear.

But, above all there's the whole "virtual community" concept that is something NGOs have to deal with it. In good and in bad.

Marshall:

Tell me about that.

Gillo:

Following the process I mentioned above, an organisation has to deal with a community that is more difficult to control than one built in real-life, since members can interact between each other quite easily, even organise themselves independently.

In a way this is great, because if the organisation is doing good stuff then the interaction among its supporters strengthens the community - but if the organisation makes a faux pas, critiques are easy to come and links between people weaken, the whole network of supporters does.

This is quite different from real-world organising where, more or less, supporters/volunteers act under the "controlled umbrella" of the organisation.

That's why there's now a lot of interest in people who can help in maintaining these communities without doing it for financial purposes. But I'm afraid the corporate world, in the meanwhile, is catching up and has started a good process to manipulate the online audience.

Marshall:

So it sounds like there are two issues there. Online community maintenance requires certain skills and there is a risk of corporate interests antagonistic to social good seizing control of the chaos.

What sort of skills do you believe are most important in helping NGOs deal with this new, uncontrolled global online community?

Gillo:

Of course techies ruled and will keep ruling the scene. They are the innovators and the pioneers of all new tools, so a technical background is very useful.

However, being just a techie is not enough. There is a huge difference on how tools are used in the non-profit world and in the corporate, hence the need of understanding the concept of campaigning, social change and public mobilisation.

Furthermore, with the latest social networking tools, knowing the basics of social science helps understanding the dynamics of the community.

But the biggest job is done at an organisational level, because those who deal with this technology also have to interact very well with others in the organisation: the IT folks, the web-editors, the campaigners, the communication people and so on. If they work in isolation, you can have all the skills but the output will be bad.

Marshall:

I would really like to hear more about the differences in corporate vs ngo world. It seems that so much of the innovation emerging is coming from the corporate sector. I tend to be a proponent of the NGO world looking to the corporate world for strategic inspiration in terms of tool use, some methodology, how to set up military dictatorships to facilitate resource extraction, etc.

Just kidding about the last part, but really!

What are your thoughts on the unique approach to these tools needed by NGOs that the corporate world does not prioritize?

Gillo:

It would be very shortsighted if non-profits didn't look at what's happening out there. New tools, luckily, present elements that can be used for different purposes: revenues, community building, information. It depends where you want to stop. Companies use all the features because of their financial interests, but a nonprofit organisation can take advantage of these innovative tools according to their needs. The tools are the same for everybody, they are just used in a different way.

Marshall:

So where in your estimation are the tools today relative to organizational needs? Should blogging be a must-do practice? Are wikis nuts and to be avoided? Will RSS be usable in 3 years but not now?

Gillo:

The question is should the organisation do it? Or should the organisation encourage its community to do it? This is the shift. In 2002 I started the first Greenpeace weblog http://weblog.greenpeace.org and I think at that time it was probably the only one done by big NGOs, organizations can now build a network of campaigners, who can be multipliers in using all these tools. And yes, all those you mentioned (wikis, RSS, etc) are needed. They are different channels and NGOs cannot afford to miss any of them.

Marshall:

Do you work to convince organizations that these tools are needed or do you just work with people who were already convinced?

Gillo:

I'm an activist myself, so there’s no doubt on the direction of my work. People who are convinced should know the right tactics already. Most likely these are well-staffed but new, or smaller, NGOs need more help and I can see a lot of effort being done to support them, also on a voluntary basis. Besides, it's much more satisfying convincing people to do the right thing, than sitting at meetings where everybody say the same things.

Marshall:

What are some key steps that can be taken to help that connection be made, between voluntary or professional support in the use of new tools on one hand and long-term, effective use of the tools by organizations?

Gillo:

First of all let me say how pleased I am to see that, especially in the US, the NPTech [nonprofit technology] world is growing more and more. Techies, consultants, creatives are all working to push the need of using new media tools for social change purposes. This is quite a shift since at the end of the 90's techies were focusing mainly in doing quick money with the big bubble. Maybe Bush helped the NPtech movement to step forward, who knows, but above all, the Net gave social and environmental issues more visibility, and people got more interested. It is also a new segment, and pioneers are needed.

On the other hand, there are the NGOs, which are slowly adopting the suggestions and the solutions of the NPTech community, while before they were just going to big web development/design companies - asking to have a website made and being charged a huge amount of money.

Open source played a key role in [bringing us to where we are today] and it has practically become the lingua franca between the techies and the NGOs.

Marshall:

And the landscape is continuing to improve?

Gillo:

Absolutely, and investments are coming, which is always good for the development of new tools tailored to non-profits needs

Marshall:

Can you tell me about that? I focus on spreading use myself, and know that in that department it is a big risk to make investments in the use of new tools - but tell me what that landscape looks like to you in terms of development. s are changing generally

Gillo:

NGOs know the Net (but also mobile devices) is the best, easiest and cheapest way to communicate and gather support. No doubt about that. However, there are always two issues: Financial resources - non-profits don't have many and they'd rather spend them in campaign activities. Fair enough. Second, resistance to change. Say what you want, but innovation is not at the top of NGOs skills. At least in big NGOs, where they think they have well-organised plans and are afraid of modifying them, because they have an image and a role to protect and cannot take risks.

On the other hand, you have groups young enough, or more open-minded, to test new things. Probably because they don't have the support of a big constituency yet.

Marshall:

And yet the many-to-many paradigm does seem most well suited to large groups. How do you respond to that all-too-common risk aversion?

Gillo:

A company takes always into account risks. But risks, for a company, are of financial nature. They make mistakes, they lose money and then they hop to another product

An organisation is careful about taking risks, because it won't just lose funds. It would lose people's support - and this is difficult to get back. So, it's an internal struggle. They understand the many-to-many paradigm, but there's a huge fear of losing control. The "What if" scenarios. Of course this is something that I dislike, since I have high confidence in the wisdom of crowds.

Marshall:

What are some key practices for NGOs seeking to use new media and work with "the wisdom of crowds?"

Gillo:

First of all, I think NGOs need to develop community tools that interact with external social networking tools. If they build something just for their own constituency, they will always have to wait for people to come to them.

But if they let their supporters interact with a much wider audience, through the OSNs for example, then the potential for recruiting activists and supporters increase dramatically.

Marshall:

Do you have any favorite examples of that strategy in action?

Gillo:

I don't think any NGO went fully down that route yet. Some started using Online Social Networks with a low-profile approach, seeding the networks through selected individuals. But then, even if it's on external platforms, it's still a one-to-many conversation.

Marshall:

How well has that worked?

Gillo:

I think it worked better than just sitting and waiting for people to enter the restaurant.

Marshall:

Other strategies for truly moving towards a many-to-many paradigm?

Gillo:

MoveOn bought Flickr accounts, RAN and Greenpeace are also present on other Online Social Networks too.

Marshall:

Yes, MoveOn said it was amongst the best 25 dollars they ever spent.

Gillo:

Yes, and the best thing was that they said it publicly.

Marshall:

Not low profile.

Gillo:

Yep. The tools for a many-to-many conversation already exist.

Marshall:

What's a good place to start you think?

Gillo:

Of course Online Social Networks (OSNs) are a must-be there, must-use, must-promote. It's pointless to jump on all the new web 2.0 experiments though. NGOs don't have many resources to experiment that much, but there's Flickr, MySpace, Orkut has been great for South-American NGOs.

Marshall:

Topic specific ones or general, open and commercial OSNs?

Gillo:

More open and popular they are, the better it is for NGOs. It's a bigger audience and non-profits have something others don't - good content.

Of course everything can be enhanced with one-to-many tools like Blogs, RSS, Del.icio.us, etc.

Marshall:

Is there potential to form connections in environments like MySpace, so widely thought of as prurient and juvenile?

Or does not everyone see it that way?

Gillo:

I think so but non-profits don't, and shouldn't, discriminate. Youth is very important and MySpace is the right place to talk to young folks.

Gillo Cutrupi lives in Amsterdam and blogs actively about new media and social change at TotalTactics.org. His public bookmarks are at del.icio.us/gillo. The following are his 4 most recent posts to Total Tactics.