Social Actions

Next up in our Social Citizens Makeover series is Lauren Schwartz, 23, of Macungie, Penn.

As part of our series of "before" profiles in our Social Citizens Makeover, today we would like you to meet Emily Waugh, 30, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Emily loves spending time with animals, so when she saw a local rescue group at her local PetSmart, she jumped on the opportunity to volunteer with them. That was 2000. Nine years later, she is still active in promoting the wellbeing of animals and finding homes for the thousands of healthy, adoptable animals that die in Oklahoma City shelters each year.

Emily has been working with various rescue groups since that day in the PetSmart, but she was excited to be a part of an umbrella organization, like the Central Oklahoma Humane Society (OK Humane), that has the ability to bring small groups together to pool their resources and make a greater impact. In addition to enjoying working with the other passionate volunteers and the staff at OK Humane, Emily says her volunteer work there is extremely satisfying because she can already see how her time and social media skills are directly affecting the treatment of animals in her community.

 Emily and the humane society already use diverse methods to reach their audiences. To supplement the OK Humane website, which shares organizational information and opportunities to get involved, Emily maintains the OK Humane blog, which gets lots of traffic because of the topical and controversial issues discussed. An active Twitter user, Emily says she has been able to use it to exchange ideas, recruit new volunteers, and promote animals for adoption. She recognizes, however, that the majority of OK Humane’s volunteer and donor base is not on Twitter, so she needs other social media tools to effectively reach all her constituents. She also maintains Facebook and MySpace pages for the humane society, but finds that both of the sites have limitations.

She writes a monthly email newsletter which goes out to all adopters, donors, and other constituents. Weekly local television appearances and regular adoption events are also in their communications arsenal. “I'm a huge fan of social media, but I believe you can't forget the ‘traditional’ ways of meeting and connecting with people, either!” says Emily.

With all the different ways she communicates with people, Emily knows her message is being heard by some – around 6,000 website visitors per month and about 400 Twitter followers, to name a few. But Emily is not satisfied. She says, “Considering that I encounter people every single day in this city who have no idea we exist…my work is far from done; I'm not reaching nearly as many as I'd like to.” One of her biggest challenges is managing all these forms of communication herself, on top of her full-time job, so she could use the Social Actions consultant to help her learn to invest her limited time for the most significant results.

Like any good makeover contest, we want to share a little about our five makeover winners before they are transformed into model (social) citizens. Starting today, we will profile each of our winners to give you the “before” picture. In a few months, we will report back with “after” stories to reveal how each of them has been impacted by the process.

Chuck Warpehoski, 30, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Chuck was initially drawn to the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ) by its ability to make the connection between faith and social justice. “Traditionally, faith has been part of social justice movements, from abolition to labor to peace,” says Chuck. “In the last few decades, the voice of religion in social life has been the voice of the religious right. ICPJ gives me a space to say ‘the religious right doesn't speak for me; I can be spiritual AND progressive. I can follow the examples of Dr. King, Dorothy Day, and the Berrigan brothers.’”

Chuck, who has now been involved with ICPJ for six years and now serves as its Director, is still passionate about the organization, whose programs include work on issues ranging from hunger to Middle East peace, because of the amazing community of volunteers, who give generously of their time, energy and resources to support the Council’s work. “It's really something special,” he says, “and I’m lucky to be part of it.”

Chuck is already using social media as well as traditional communication methods to reach constituents and potential partners and encourage them to attend events, participate in advocacy actions, and donate. ICPJ’s largest communication is a printed newsletter, sent five times a year to a list of about 1,800, but he would like to cut back on the newsletter list to save both trees and cash. ICPJ also sends weekly email newsletters and maintains a Facebook page and WordPress site.

He hopes the Social Citizens Makeover expert from Social Actions will help him learn to effectively use Facebook to connect with new people without overdoing it or turning people off. Chuck is also interested in learning to coordinate ICPJ’s different communications efforts to increase efficiency and to engage all of the organization’s contacts as active partners.

Finding your inner "social citizen" is something that we think takes a combination of time, patience and of course, the right social networking tools.  Today we're pleased to announce the five finalists of our first ever Social Citizens Makeover Contest.  We'll be showcasing the "before" and "after" stories of each of our finalists individually, but as an introduction, we thought we would share their 250 character statement on why they (or their organization) are deserving of a 21st century makeover.

Finalists will receive a flip video camera, a $100 Apple gift certificate, a WordPress PremiumAccount, and a Flickr ProAccount.  Plus, we're pleased to announce that each finalist will have two hours of individual consulting time with Peter Deitz and the social media experts he has assembled at Social Actions.

And now, introducing our finalists...in no particular order: