‘High potentials’ or ‘young professionals’, it doesn’t matter how you describe them but they are preferring to support small scale initiatives (at the 1%CLUB) over the well-known traditional NGO’s. In a time where government funding and donations from the public are declining, the question is: Is there life for big nonprofits after the social media revolution?

The ‘big’ NGOs at the table (Milieudefensie, Oxfam Novib and STOP AIDS NOW!) during this Open Space meeting feel that their offline campaigns (letters, advertisements in print media and students at train stations who are trying to convince people to donate for a good cause) are less and less effective. At the same time they are investing in social media campaigns, but those organizations cannot fill the income gap by using e-mail newsletters, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogging etc. In a time where NGOs are more and more relying on donations from the public, they are facing a big challenge for the near future.

One of the ‘problems’ for big nonprofits is their inflexibility. Press officers who are complaining about tweets with ‘sensitive’ information, colleagues who do not see the added value of social media and organizations who are not able to respond quickly on events. But how can big organizations make the shift to become flexible?

There are many examples of established NGOs who use social media to put pressure on governments. Amnesty International currently has a social media campaign on Flickr where they ask people to upload a photo to put pressure on the Myanmar government. STOP AIDS NOW! had a recent campaign on Hyves and Facebook to engage young people during the World Cup.

So they are trying, but at the same time the people at the table feel that their organizations are not as appealing as new platforms where you can donate directly to (small) projects, like the 1%CLUB and Pifworld. Maybe the answer lies in putting large projects from Oxfam and Cordaid on similar websites so it is easier to grasp what their activities are. But what about large scale, countrywide education or infrastructure projects?

In the end there was no clear answer to the main question, but it is an interesting ongoing debate in many meeting-rooms of big nonprofits around the country and abroad.

This place is rocking, wow! The first thing that overwhelms me with this event is the amount of information that is constantly flowing through the building. It’s quiet impressive.

People online, that’s for sure.

People are blogging, and they are blogging hard.

People are filming and editing their content. And its being uploaded like crazy.

People are posting their thoughts on Twitter and there are plenty of screens for all the information to be processed.

People from all over the world are tuning into the event online via Facebook or the 1%blog.

Also, there is constant live interview with Stephanie of Ventanaz.

The second edition of the 1%Event in Amsterdam seems to be quite the success.

It is obvious to me that there is a lot of information being posted online and shared offline. What I wonder to myself is the following. How is all this information perceived by the general outsider? How is all of this being understood? And is it feasible to actually comprehend all that is being posted and shared?

I would like to know how others are experiencing todays event. Feel free to share your thoughts, comments and feelings online. Even if this might contribute to an even larger amount of data being shared on the world wide web.