Nonprofits Share Their Wiki Success Stories

As emerging Web 2.0 technologies continue to spread across the Internet, more people are becoming exposed to wikis, collaborative Web sites that allow users to create and edit online content without requiring extensive technical skills.

In early November, TechSoup hosted an online wiki event, where nonprofit techies came together to pool their knowledge and trade tips about using this new technology. Throughout this three-day event, a number of organizations shared stories about how their nonprofits are using wikis to work and communicate more effectively.

For instance, some nonprofits have used wikis to create public communities of practice, a group of like-minded people who collaborate to discuss an issue or solve a problem. Other organizations — like some of those featured in TechSoup's primer article Welcome to the World of Wikis — are using private wikis to organize and document internal projects.

To help illustrate ways in which wikis can benefit nonprofits, TechSoup spoke with two organizations that participated in the online event, both of which have built successful wikis with an active community of users. If your nonprofit has considered experimenting with a wiki but isn't sure whether it's worth the time and effort, the following stories might just provide you with the inspiration you need to take the plunge.

Planning a Conference, Wiki Style

The Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership uses a wiki to organize its summer conference.

In the spring of 2006, the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Grand Valley State University — an academic organization that provides educational support to U.S.-based nonprofits — decided to hold a conference that would convene emerging nonprofit workers. Shortly after the Johnson Center devised the NPO 2020 conference, it set up a wiki so the conference-planning committee could collaborate with one another and access materials.

Ashima Saigal, Director of the Johnson Center's Nonprofit Leadership Institute, explained that the organization initially considered a few other ways to share information but decided to experiment with a wiki. "We did debate on a blog or network folder," Saigal said, "but we thought it would be a good opportunity to try something that we've all talked about but never really used internally."

According to Maria Gajewski, Researcher for the Johnson Center's Community Research Institute, the planners also chose a wiki because they wanted to practice what the July 2007 conference plans to preach. "Part of our reasoning for adopting the wiki came out of our shared vision that the conference itself be very cutting-edge and technology driven," Gajewski said. "We felt the need to incorporate some high-tech tools into our process."

When it came time to choose a wiki platform, the Johnson Center knew it wanted a hosted service, as setting up a wiki on its own servers would have been too time-consuming. After Saigal set up a trial account at Wikispaces, the conference's nine main planners logged on and tested it out. The group agreed that they liked the Wikispace interface, and the Johnson Center purchased a one-year subscription for $50.

Wiki Allows Planners to Communicate Smarter

The Johnson Center uses its NPO 2020 wiki to store all information about the upcoming conference, including potential and confirmed speakers; decisions that have been made; and a to-do task list. The wiki also provides a discussion board, where planners can post and reply to messages from others. Though many wikis — like the well-known encyclopedia Wikipedia — are open to public contributions, the Johnson Center's wiki is only accessible to staff members.

The NPO 2020 wiki not only lists all upcoming conference-planning meetings but also stores notes from past meetings. Saigal and Gajewski both believe that the ability to share meeting notes on the wiki has allowed the planners to communicate more effectively and eliminate redundant questions.

"As we hold meetings that not everyone can attend, notes are published, tasks are assigned, and decisions are made," Saigal said. "All of [this] would otherwise have to be communicated individually, but this way, it's captured in a single location for anyone to look at anytime they wish." Saigal goes on to note that the NPO 2020 wiki is also an effective tool for quickly bringing new staffers up to speed, likening it to a "mini reference library."

Since most of the conference planners consider themselves technically savvy, they didn't really need much formal training in order to learn how to actually navigate and use the wiki. However, some planners found that integrating the wiki into their daily workflow was somewhat of a challenge.

Nicole Notario-Risk — Project Coordinator for the Johnson Center's Nonprofit Leadership and Management Support initiative — initially had trouble remembering to regularly check the wiki. To help get herself in the habit of accessing it, Notario-Risk configured her account to send her an email each time a change was made to the site. "It seemed tedious at times," Notario-Risk said, "but it helped to constantly remind me to go there."

Notario-Risk also believes that the planners helped encourage wiki adoption by making it the sole storage medium for all planning materials. "The group left no other options," she said, "helping the wiki to become the primary information source for our conference planning."

Wikimaster Helps Keep Site in Tip-Top Shape

Many of the NPO 2020 planners believe that appointing a wikimaster — the person in charge of maintaining the wiki — has been a crucial factor in keeping the wiki running smoothly. When it came time to choose a wikimaster, the group decided that it made the most sense to make the lead conference planner the primary wiki point of contact.

"Because our wikimaster is coordinating all of the information," said Cristin Heinbeck, Program Assistant of the Johnson Center's Grantmaking School, "she has a big picture view of the conference, which helps with the organization."

Saigal agrees that the wikimaster has been a key player in the wiki's success. "She keeps the Wiki looking good, putting things in new areas that we may post to the wrong place," said Saigal. "She is the glue that holds us all together."

The Johnson Center's wiki is currently helping the organization to coordinate the NPO 2020 conference, but Saigal is optimistic that they many be able to use it as a template for future projects. "We believe that all our learnings captured on the site can be used the next time we run this conference or any conference," Saigal stated.

Even though Notario-Risk initially found integrating the wiki into her daily workflow to be a challenge, she believes that the Johnson Center's willingness to experiment with a wiki has paid off. "I would call it a great success," Notario-Risk said. "It is one of the easiest tools I have used to get feedback on a particular document or idea relatively quickly."

Replacing a Static Intranet with an Interactive Wiki

The Alzheimer Society of Ontario's wiki provides a dynamic alternative to a traditional one-way intranet.

The Alzheimer Society of Ontario (ASO) — a Toronto, Canada-based organization working to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease and supporting those living with it — has dozens of chapters spread across the province of Ontario. Prior to June of 2006, ASO used a traditional one-way intranet to store internal information such as a chapter and staff directory, meeting notes, and planning documents. However, since the intranet offered few interactive features, ASO realized it wasn't the best tool for keeping far-flung chapters and staffers connected.

In the course of revamping its external and internal Web sites, ASO contacted Wayne MacPhail — co-owner of media-consultancy firm w8nc — who suggested that the organization replace its intranet with a wiki. Though MacPhail considered building ASO's wiki using one of the many free open-source programs on the market, he ultimately chose to host the wiki at Project Forum, citing the service's low-maintenance approach and quick setup time as major selling points.

"It's a really nice out-of-the-box wiki solution that any organization can use with absolutely no engagement by the IT department," said MacPhail. "With the ASO, we had it up and running within 20 minutes of talking to Project Forum."

Building an Active Community of Wiki Users

In the six months since its launch, ASO's wiki — dubbed Ensemble — has become the primary communication tool for the nonprofit's 39 chapters; in its first four months online, Ensemble received nearly 50,000 page views. The organization believes that a number of factors have contributed to the wiki's success and has taken active steps to encourage adoption.

According to Madelyn Herschorn, ASO's Director of Marketing and Communications, the organization initially got the wiki off to a good start by getting major stakeholders excited about the technology. MacPhail explains that after he gave a Project Forum demonstration at an ASO meeting, key staff members suddenly understood how simple yet powerful a wiki could be.

"Suddenly, they could create these pages without having to go through the black magic of a Webmistress or Webmaster," MacPhail said, "and that just blew them away."

Because the Ensemble wiki has a varied audience — including chapter directors, education coordinators, and volunteers — ASO strives to ensure that the wiki has content that's relevant to everyone. "We're very focused on those various audiences and trying to make sure that there's something there for them," said MacPhail.

To help get its staffers up to speed with Ensemble, ASO posted detailed instructions on the wiki explaining how to perform common tasks such as editing pages, uploading images, and formatting sites. MacPhail also produced a handful of QuickTime video tutorials that walk new users through various areas of the wiki.

Still, because some of ASO's staffers and affiliates have a limited technology background, the organization has had to make some hands-on training available. For instance, Herschorn recalls that the organization set up an onsite training workshop at ASO's annual conference so that new users could get hands-on experience with the wiki. She also said that ASO is currently implementing additional personalized training sessions.

"We have to offer some face-to-face training for people who are a little more apprehensive and a little more timid about the Web," Herschorn said. "So that they actually realize that they can create a page or work with someone else within their society or work with someone else within their region to do more work. "

To further encourage newbies to embrace the wiki, both MacPhail and Herschorn — who function as Ensemble's joint wikimasters — use the site's RSS feeds to monitor when new pages have been created. When a user adds a new entry to the wiki, MacPhail and Herschorn often go to the page to offer advice and encouragement to the poster or simply answer questions.

In MacPhail's opinion, one of the biggest reasons the Ensemble wiki has been such a success was that it helped the organization address its long-distance collaboration issues. "There are 39 chapters and Ontario is a big province," he said. "That's a lot of travel if you want to meet face to face, and a lot of collaboration has to take place."

Wiki Integrates with Other Web 2.0 Technologies

Though much of the Ensemble wiki's content has been taken from ASO's old intranet, MacPhail has been improving the wiki by incorporating a number of Web 2.0 tools. He believes that adding cutting-edge new features to the wiki further encourages users to visit and participate frequently.

To make sure that the wiki is always updated with the latest news items about Alzheimer's disease, ASO has added Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, a technology that delivers recently published news and content to a Web browser, Web site, or aggregator. Ensemble includes RSS feeds from a number of relevant sources, including the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Dementia.com (a site providing Alzheimer's news and information for caregivers).

The Ensemble wiki also receives RSS updates from social bookmarking site del.icio.us, which lets Web surfers tag and categorize Web content. Each time ASO staffers see a story they think is relevant to the group, they use del.icio.us to tag it using the keywords "alzheimers" or "asoont" (short for Alzheimer's Society of Ontario); that story then automatically appears on Ensemble's RSS page.

Additionally, ASO uses photo-sharing site flickr's tagging capabilities to add Alzheimer's-related images to its wiki. The organization encourages staff members to upload their own images to flickr or tag relevant pictures using the "asoont" tag. ASO then uses the tagged photos to build a slide show, which is embedded in the wiki.

ASO's newest Web 2.0 addition to the Ensemble wiki is a video wall, which is basically a grid of 36 video-clip thumbnails relating to Alzheimer's disease. Whenever a user clicks a thumbnail, a new browser window opens and begins playing the video.

MacPhail built the video wall — called Memory TV — using Blinkx.com, a search engine that collects videos from a number of different Web sites. To create the video wall, MacPhail simply searched Blinkx.com using the term "alzheimers" and selected videos he thought were relevant to ASO's mission. Blinkx.com then generated the video wall's HTML code, which MacPhail copied and pasted into Ensemble.

While streaming-video content can enhance the wiki experience for ASO chapters using high-speed Internet connections, it may hinder usage for rural chapters who still use dial-up modems. Therefore, ASO has been careful to make a note next to rich-media content that's best viewed on broadband connections.

Similarly, though Project Forums wikis can be heavily customized with graphics and icons, ASO intentionally kept Ensemble's look simple to minimize page-load times for dial-up users. "Access is really important to us in all respects," said Herschorn, "making sure that people can truly collaborate equally across the province."

But despite its cutting-edge features, the Ensemble wiki is really just another tool that helps ASO fulfill its mission. "Embedded in our whole strategic-planning process is to be an organization that can truly help people through the Alzheimer's journey," Herschorn said. "And I think that — with the advent of a tool like [the wiki] that includes our capacity to deal with that problem as a collective — the feedback has been fantastic."