Deepa Saptnaker, Head of communications, India & Hong Kong
More than 20 million Indian professionals and hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe use LinkedIn to facilitate meaningful connections, making it the world’s largest professional networking site. What does your NGO need to know about engaging the skills, time and support of the LinkedIn community to develop your capacity? Deepa Saptnaker will share best practices for building a brand for your nonprofit, connecting with a community of donors, and searching for volunteers, board members and new staff members on LinkedIn.
3. What is LinkedIn?
300M+Members across the globe
LinkedIn is the world’s
largest professional network
22+ million members are
“following” their favorite
nonprofits on LinkedIn
6 million Nonprofit Members
are using LinkedIn to build
their brand and network of
supporters
4. 26 million members in India
Over 1.5 lac volunteers in India
Top 5 cities Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune
9. 9
Make a strong first impression with a picture
and a headline
Develop a headline as your
professional tagline
Adding a photo makes your
profile 7x more likely to be
viewed
10. 10
Profile: Show the depth of your brand
through your experience
Write a summary as your
elevator pitch: Describe who
you are and the goals you’re
working towards at your
organization
Tell people where you’re coming from
& what you’ve accomplished
11. 11
Profile: Use the Volunteering & Causes
section to promote your organization
14. 14
Network: Add your current contacts
as your foundational network
You can easily upload
your contacts or
search for individuals
15. 15
Network: Make new connections to diversify your
opportunities
How do you get from this to this?
Redundant connections
Access to multiple
communities & sectors
17. 17
Network: Get into the conversationby sharing and
commenting on interesting content
17
18. 18
Network: Search for professionals interested
in your organization and volunteering
1. Click on Advanced Search
2. Select what you’re looking for
3. See what pops up
4. Get even more specific to find
the perfect matches
20. 20
1
Create a Strong
‘Company’ Page
3
Leverage
Networks to Find
Board Members
and Volunteers
Build your online community – and use it
wisely
2
Encourage
Supporters to
Spread the Word
21. 21
Company Page: Agreat nonprofit company
page is inspiring, informative, alive
Over 165k nonprofits have a
company page on LinkedIn
22. 22
Company Page: First, add or claim your
company page
If you see someone has already
created your company page and you’d
like to become the admin of that page,
email: cs@linkedin.com
23. 23
Company Page: Make it come alive by adding
a logo, photos, and compelling content
Be sure to add your logo so
people can easily find & recognize
your organization.
25. 25
Talent: LinkedIn’s Volunteer Marketplace allows you
to post your skilled volunteering and board
opportunities in front of talented professionals
A marketing expert to
enhance your digital
marketing strategy
An HR expert to lead your
board governance
committee
An architect to advise your
future site expansion
26. 26
Talent: Not sure how to post a volunteer
opportunity? We have resources to help!
Just visit nonprofits.linkedin.com to start!
27. 27
Talent: LinkedIn’s job matching tools will send your
postings to the professionals with the right skills and
experience for you
Your opportunities are sent to interested
members through email campaigns and the
“Jobs you may be interested in” feature
28. Create a complete profile
Connect with at least 50 contacts, adding old and
finding new
Are you ready?
Here’s your checklist!
Find 2-3 relevant Groups to join. Pencil in weekly 15-
minute blocks for sharing, liking and commenting
Create a dynamic company page
28
Scope and post opportunities in the Volunteer Marketplace
Start searching your network for individuals interested in
skills-based volunteering and board service
31. 31
How One Warm Coat Found Passionate Volunteers Across
the U.S. with LinkedIn
Volunteer Marketplace
Challenge Solution
LinkedIn volunteer posts made it easy
to target and screen qualified
applicants all over the country, leading
to 80+ candidates for board and
volunteer positions.
Results
Three new board members filling skill
and experience gaps and two
volunteer strategic planning
consultants to facilitate board retreat
Building a geographically
diverse network of supporters,
volunteers, and board members
We believe that people want to help, but often don’t know how. LinkedIn
makes it easy for us to tell talented and giving professionals where the need is
in a simple and clear way that shows the value of what they have to offer.
-Sherri Lewis Wood, National Founder & Chair, One Warm Coat
Notes de l'éditeur
Welcome! Today’s session is about learning the top 5 tips for nonprofits to get the most out of LinkedIn. I’ll be taking you through examples of what you can do with your own profile and for your organization to get an edge and will leave us time at the end for you to try it out yourself!
These are three different tools and we get asked all the time what the difference is between them.
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First it’s always good to clarify what LinkedIn is and what we do.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 300 million members worldwide and growing everyday
We connect talent to opportunity at massive scale
Nonprofits often ask us, “How can I get the most out of LinkedIn? How do I take a few spare minutes and leverage this resource?”
Our 5 million+ nonprofit members have turned to LinkedIn because it can help address some of your core needs for free, such as:
Building your online brand
Building your community of supporters and advocates
Finding high quality talent for key staff & Board positions
We believe it is our responsibility to help you leverage these tools to enhance your impact. And here are the top 3, go-to ways to start making the most out of LinkedIn.
Let’s get started!
First let’s talk about what you can do to strengthen your own professional brand by optimizing your LinkedIn profile.
Building a complete profile is critical. Each piece of information you include communicates to the world who you are, what you know and what you care about. To get started, make sure you at least add these key pieces. We’ll walk through each of them now.
First, add a photo. This makes your profile 7 times more likely to be viewed and helps people see your profile as the real you.
A headline is a short and sweet way to sum up who you are, and what you’re looking for. Here is an example of one nonprofit professional’s strong headline that makes a pretty great first impression.
Just as you as a professional can showcase on your LinkedIn profile the organizations and causes you care about, or the volunteer opportunities you’re looking for, so can and do so many others. Over 4 Million Members have signaled to the world that they care, and over 1 Million of them have signaled their interest in skills-based volunteering or Board service.
The “Advanced Search” on LinkedIn is one of the most under-utilized, incredibly powerful tools at your disposal as a nonprofit professional. And it’s SO easy to use!
Click on Advanced search, and then you’re prompted to enter what’s important to you. You can search within your (recently expanded!) network , so your 1st Connections (people you know), your 2nd connections (who people you know, know) and common group members. Then, zero in on people based on location, the company they work for, their years of experience, and even their specific nonprofit interests.
See what this looks like, when we look for current Google employees who are interested in serving on a board and have design their skills. Already in my network there are over 1,100. And look what happens when you add in another ‘keyword’ that matters to you, like ‘hunger’ or even the name of your organization – you narrow your search right down to the people who are most likely to be excited about your cause and the opportunity available.
From here you’re just a simple ‘connect’ or inMail away from getting a new conversation started with an existing contact, or building your network further.
Nonprofits and companies are now turning to LinkedIn as a key opportunity to establish and grow their organizations’ online brand.
LinkedIn’s 250 million+ members may read about you and your organization through the great content you’ve shared or the connections you’ve established – and they need somewhere to go to learn the quick & dirty facts about your organization, and get a feel before they choose to explore more on your website. Let’s walk through the tips for how you can use LinkedIn to build (and leverage!) a strong presence and network for your organization.
The 3 most important steps to start with are:
Making sure you have a dynamic “company page” for your organization
Ensuring that your stakeholders are actively promoting that page and your organization to their networks
Using your network to build your organization’s base of support
Company Pages gives you the opportunity to tell your nonprofit’s story, highlight your mission and programs, and share volunteer opportunities and relevant announcements with the LinkedIn community. It also provides an easy and manageable way to track your followers’ engagement.
Before creating a company page, envision what your company page could be. Similar to your profile, this is your organization’s face in the LinkedIn world, and you want to think creatively about how to capture the spirit and vitality of your organization and communicate that to others.
Some organizations have used their company pages as repositories for static information. Others have leveraged this opportunity to bring their organization’s vitality to the forefront. Look to a couple of great examples to envision how your organization can make a great first impression.
Claiming the page is the easy part. Scroll above the interests tab, click companies, and then click “Add a Company” and enter your basic information. To note, you need a work email address (not gmail, yahoo, etc) to be able to create a new company page.
If you see someone has already created your company page and would like to become the admin of that page, email cs@linkedin.com
Once you’ve claimed the page, add your logo -- this is critical for people to find your organization and validate that it’s the organization they’re looking for.
Then, bring your page to life with other rich media and relevant content.
Finally, once your company page has been set up, issue a call to action for your staff, volunteers, donors and other key stakeholders to “Follow” your company page and add your organization to their “Organizations you support” profile field. Consider doing so in your next newsletter, fundraising drive, and annual gala.
Why is this so very important? Because it allows you to
Raise awareness about your organization across networks
Bring to life the army of supporters who care about your organization
Come up in more LinkedIn searches and content feeds
The bonus: Every time a new individual adds your organization to their profile, this information appears in their networks’ updates. That means your reach is exponentially expanded with each individual who completes this action.
We all know how important high quality talent is to the success of any organization – for-profit or non-profit. LinkedIn for Good recognized this and created a programs called the Volunteer Marketplace to allow nonprofits to better access the talent they need.
LinkedIn’s Volunteer Marketplace allows nonprofits to post skilled volunteer and board opportunities that will be surfaced to our Members across the globe at a 90% discount from LinkedIn’s standard ‘job posts’ that you see appear in your “Jobs You May Be Interested In” feed. But you could post for the marketing expert you need to enhance your digital marketing strategy, or post a position for the HR expert you’ve been looking for to lead your board governance committee, or any other skilled or board opportunity.
If you’re looking for Board Members specifically, you can also join our ‘Board Member Connect’ program that gives nonprofits a LinkedIn Premium Account (enhanced features) for 5 years in order to search their networks in an even stronger way for high potential board members. In order to access this program, you’ll need to visit nonprofits.linkedin.com and sign up for a brief webinar to get trained on the tool, and then you’ll receive access to your premium account (definitely recommended!)
If you’ve never written a skilled volunteer or board position description before, fear not! The Volunteer Marketplace comes equipped with simple resources on what a compelling position description looks like and how to post.
And once you’ve posted your opportunity, professionals across the globe start seeing them! They can visit ‘volunteers.linkedin.com’ to search directly for posts like yours, and they’ll also see them come up in their “Jobs You May Be Interested In” feed. So right alongside that Social Media Consultant role, they’ll see your organization’s volunteer opportunity calling their name!
So that’s it when it comes to LinkedIn 101 for Nonprofits – the top tips to help you start leveraging this platform strategically.
Thank you for taking the time to participate in this experience and for your interest in LinkedIn. We admire the work you do, and are thrilled to support you.
Any questions? Ask now, or write them down to share with your LinkedIn Coach via email.
Additional resources for nonprofits can be located at nonprofits.linkedin.com
Are these tools too basic for you (i.e. you’re ready for the advanced level, interested in discounted upgrades, larger scale programs, etc.)? Contact nonprofitsolutions@linkedin.com