Children’s Home Society of Florida :: Protect. Strengthen. Guide.

The fourth company I talked to was Children’s Home Society of Florida, Buckner Division.

Background:

Children’s Home Society of Florida is a state-wide non-profit that was established in 1902. They have been Nationally accredited by the Council on Accreditation, since 1982. Their headquarters are in Winter Park, Fla. They have 14 divisions across the state, with almost 2,000 staff members. They provide services for children and families who are at risk for abuse, neglect or abandonment, to help strengthen and stabilize families, to help a younger generation break the cycle of abuse and neglect, and to find safe, loving permanent homes for children. Every year, CHS helps about 100,000 children and families.

The Buckner Division in Jacksonville provides more than 20 services, including, foster care, adoption, on-site group homes, prevention services, counseling & therapy and independent living services.

Analysis:

Currently, CHS the Buckner Division only has a Facebook page. Although their corporate headquarters has a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts, but they are not updated or used very often. Nanette (Development Specialist—Public Relations) said that their biggest problem is that being are a non-profit  they don’t have a very big staff and don’t have the resources to keep their Facebook page updated. Presently she doesn’t feel that it is possible to become more active in social media and to use it effectively. “In order to do social media effectively, one must use it as a tool to interact with followers on a consistent basis.”

Fortunately, they understand the power that social media has and that it’s a great tool to connect and strengthen their relationships with donors, volunteers and others involved in their organization.  They currently use their Facebook for just that, to keep in touch with the people who are friends with their organization and keep them updated on a regular basis with opportunities that come up for them to become involved with the organization. 

For this organization, their target audience are people who are willing and able to donate time and money. For the Social Technographic Profile, their audience is Spectators 72% and Joiners 52%. Spectators read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch video from other users, read online forums, read customer ratings/reviews, and read tweets. Joiners maintain profile on a social networking site, and visit social networking sites.

Conclusion:

I think that that would also be to their advantage to also get a Twitter account for their individual branch. It would be another great way to keep people who are interested in this organization updated on ways to volunteer and stay involved with the organization. Another thing that could help their organization would be utilizing YouTube and making videos of their events. That would be an optimal way for prospective volunteers and donors to get an inside look at what they would be helping with.

Although they are doing a good job keeping their Facebook updated, there are also a few other things that can do to really utilize social media and help their organization. It will take some time, energy and effort, but it would be well worth it.