Voluntary and community sector organisations must recognise the challenges posed by social networks and social networking tools according to a forthcoming report from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). Simon Collister reports.

The report, provisionally entitled ICT Foresight: The changing world of online communities and social networks, warns that social networking technologies, such as MySpace and blogs, will create challenges for traditional membership organisations in particular.

According to the report's author, Megan Griffith, the growth of the participatory web is leading to changes in the public's motivation for joining membership organisations as well as their expectations of the networking potential that organisations will provide in the future.

The report highlights the ubiquity of cheap and easily available social software and social networking sites and the growing tendency of people - especially young people - to build their own communities around causes and to aggregate and share useful content within personal networks.

Previously, people paid to join organisations to meet like-minded people, access information and resources and volunteer their time. Now, all these opportunities are available via the Internet at low or no-cost.

Moving Appeal

David Wilcox, community engagement consultant and author of the blog, Designing for Civil Society, contributed to the report. In a post last summer, he questioned the traditional appeal of organisation membership.

"These days," Wilcox argued, "it is much easier to find people and resources online, and to mix and match these assets into project teams, communities of practice, and informal networks. The best ideas often come from crossing professional and interest boundaries. That means you have to pay quite a lot of membership fees if you feel conventional associations are the way to get these contacts."

For membership organisations that generate significant capital from membership fees, adapting to these challenges will be imperative to avoid losing vital revenue.

Griffith believes that to survive in a networked economy, organisations must start by acknowledging the existence of social networks and ensure their membership package offers something different. She believes that in this networked environment "membership organisations that want to protect revenue streams will need to focus on providing unique or exclusive benefits that are not available through peer-to-peer sharing."

"Alternatively," Griffith adds, "organisations could throw themselves wholeheartedly into the social networking world, open up their services and become trusted and respected aggregators of knowledge in their particular area of interest - although this would mean finding new sources of income."

DIY Organisations

Another challenge faced by membership organisations is the tendency for young people to use the empowering ability of the internet to aggregate content or build their own networks around specific causes rather than traditional organisations. As the report puts it: "In the network society, the balance of power between formal organisations and informal networks is slowly shifting."

Griffith believes that in the future causes will become a powerful force for social change and lead to a major change in the way organisation operate. "We have seen growth in the number of campaigning coalitions" she explains. "The public are less likely to trust organisations that attempt to own a cause and increasingly expect organisations to work together to achieve change."

But there is good news for membership organisations. Despite using new technologies to engage and empower people, social networks still rely on the same participatory behaviour that is the lifeblood for voluntary and community organisations.

As the power-balance shifts from organisations to individuals, people will be less inclined to 'join' organisations but instead will expect organisations to work for them.

As Griffith explains, "Visitors may feel more inclined to trust an organisation that it sees is pulling in or aggregating information from other useful and interesting sources. Individuals will want to link with the organisations that they support and they will want to pull RSS feeds from the websites they are interested in, into their own website. This is an excellent opportunity for organisations as it means that their cause will be recommended to the full network of that individual."

Culture Clash?

One barrier to this, however, is the level of knowledge organisations have of social software tools and their willingness to adopt them. Asked which is a greater barrier - organisational priorities or technology, Griffith answers "they are both barriers but I think that the culture of the organisation is the bigger barrier. The tools are becoming more widespread and easier to use, and more people are becoming familiar them in other aspects of their lives."

There is clearly a future for membership organisations given the simple fact that the ideology behind social production and voluntary participation are as relevant now as they were to the philanthropists of the nineteenth-century. The challenge will be to acknowledge that future generations of charity members will expect new ways of being engaged and empowered by organisations. It means understanding that people will not be interested in a top-down 'Join Us' membership network. Instead organisations will have to learn to cede control of their traditionally hierarchical structure and adopt a much flatter network based on a more empowering 'Join Up' ethos.

Grifffith's final piece of advice for membership organisations echoes the values of successful social networks: "Recognise the cultural challenges posed by social networks, engage and get buy-in from your stakeholders. Find other organisations that have tried new ways of working and talk to them."

ICT Foresight : The changing world of online communities and social networks is part of a series of ICT Foresight reports produced by NCVO Third Sector Foresight and will be formally launched at the ICT Hub National Conference at the Emirates Stadium, London on Wednesday 28 March 2007. For more information about the report, visit http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/3sf/trends/?id=2278 or contact Megan Griffith by emailing foresight@ncvo-vol.org.uk. For more information about the conference visit: http://www.icthub.org.uk/Conferences/National_Conference_2007.html