Come On In. The Water's Fine.
An Exploration of Web 2.0 Technology and its Emerging Impact on Foundation Communications

Produced for the Communications Network
Made possible by support from The California Endowment, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Resources
While Web 2.0 technologies themselves are relatively inexpensive—sometimes even free—there are other costs involved in adopting an effective social media strategy. Most notably, the time commitment and staffing support can be significant. Not only is communication staff time limited, so too are the hours program officers have available for added duties and responsibilities that may come with an expanded Web presence.

In making the shift from “control” to “conversation,” the learning curve of new technologies, and the organizational culture shift and internal education all take time, energy and persistence. There are significant infrastructure and staffing implications for following, establishing, moderating, or sustaining any online community. And once a foundation makes these shifts, the decentralized nature of most online communities makes it very difficult to accurately measure and evaluate impact.

Because Web 2.0 tools require an adequate platform upon which to operate, several foundations are currently redesigning their Web sites, and Web teams, to better leverage the potential of Web 2.0 services. The Ford Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation have all recently completed or are in the process of redesigning their Web sites and platforms. All are aiming for greater flexibility, real-time updating and the ability to create online communities where conversations and knowledge sharing can occur around core program priorities.

The new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation site, for example, is fully enabled for Really Simple Syndication (RSS). RSS is a Web feed format that publishes new and updated online content. When a site’s content is RSS enabled, a user can “subscribe” to that feed, so that whenever content is updated or added, it will appear in the user’s “reader,” aggregated with any other RSS feeds the user has subscribed to. All RWJF had to do was enable their Web site with RSS; now anyone can “pull” RWJF’s content by subscribing, and RWJF is able to track who is receiving which types of information about the foundation’s various programs.

While a number of larger foundations are moving forward with major Web site redesigns and updates, others are still playing catch up with technology trends or their own expectations for where they should be by now. An article from The Chronicle of Philanthropy discusses the Technology Affinity Group’s biennial Grantmakers Information Technology Survey Report finding that the percentage of foundations reporting that they are “lagging behind” in technology infrastructure and adoption went from 22 percent in 2003 to 37 percent in 2005 to 57 percent in 2007. Without sufficient investment in technology infrastructure, communications staff will be limited in the online initiatives they can carry out.