Question

Topic: Social Media

Social Media And Outdoor Education

Posted by Anonymous on 12/8/2010 at 1:18 PM ET 1000 Points
Hello Everyone

I run a tiny company (just me and the occasional subcontracted consultant) that is set up as a social enterprise. Any profit is reinvested into supporting adults to get children outside.

Next year, I want to fund the purchase of 30 waterproof jackets and trousers for children. I'm happy if this is a play, outdoor, environmental organisation or school. The reason for this is that in the UK "lack of suitable clothing" is often cited as a reason for not taking children outside. There is a well-known Scandinavian proverb "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing."

I'd like to do this using social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and my blog. There are several reasons for this:
- To raise the profile of my online resources that support teachers, playworkers and outdoor educators
- It is financially cheaper (even if more time consuming for me). This means more money goes on the outdoor clothing
- To encourage the above adults to realise that social media is a useful tool for learning and sharing. Education is at its most powerful when everyone collaborates and shares ideas.

Regarding the competition, I thought I'd ask any teacher or adult to submit an idea, either to my company's blog or Facebook page or via Twitter about a challenge that can happen outside when it's raining. for example "How can you find out how many raindrops fall in 1 minute into a puddle?" or "Can you work out the depth of a puddle without stepping into it?"

My plan would be, after the competition to put the ideas into a free downloadable pdf that anyone could access from my website.

Other things worth knowing:
- I know the director of a super outdoor clothing company that supplies this sector. I think she would be willing to assist, e.g. by providing more clothes or at discounts. I have yet to approach her - advice and suggestions welcome
- I know a IT education company who is planning to produce an outdoor learning pack using social media, portable devices and IT as part of the lesson plans. I think they might support this competition too. I have yet to approach her - advice and suggestions welcome!

What I'm looking for is your thoughts and advice about this idea
- Any potential pitfalls?
- Any useful tactics or strategies?
- Anything similar that you have seen?
- Questions and comments that help me tease this idea out into a real proposal that I can undertake sometime after April 2011
- What's a safe way of allowing participants to leave contact details? This would be fine on Facebook where a person "likes" a page but not so easy on my blog (which is blogspot)
- What small print is needed to avoid pitfalls or difficult situations?

It's a big question, so I'm awarding big points. Many thanks in advance.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 12/9/2010 at 9:14 AM Accepted
    I'm not understanding the competition part of your question. I understand that you want to give away 30 waterproof jackets and trousers - are students/teachers competing to win them for their school (and the entry form is an "outdoor lesson plan")?

    Before you create a mountain of work for yourself, focus on your goal. Is it to give away the clothing or is it to increase the awareness of your business?

    If it's the clothing, then why not get sponsors to chip in to the clothing purchase, and donate the clothing to a worthy/needy school? That'll let you focus on the clothing, and not try to also do the social media aspect.

    If it's the PR, then you might simply make what you're doing a human interest news story for the (local) papers. You see a need, you want kids to play, and you want to make a difference. So what you're doing is.... You'll have some lovely photo ops and generate a lot of good will.

    If you want to pursue the "competition" and capture people's personal info, you'll need a basic submission form (opt-in) to capture basic info (name/school/email). You can contact the winner via email when necessary.

    Here are a couple of links to people (children) who've given shoes to the homeless. They might spark some ideas for you as well (to craft your story to sponsors/press):
    https://www.viewnews.com/2009/VIEW-Jul-21-Tue-2009/Henderson/29445151.html
    https://www.aolnews.com/philanthropy/article/zach-bonner-begins-2500-mile-w...
  • Posted on 12/11/2010 at 6:23 PM Accepted
    Hi Juliet.

    It's good to know you have great ideas and plans for your organization (business). Nevertheless, there are some things you need to be clear about, and that is:

    Know where you are heading (Vision Statement)
    Know what your business is all about how you will accomplish
    your goal (Mission Statement)

    For me, it is not clear if you are trying to have a non-profit organization or a profitable one by being recognized as a sociable responsible one. It would be a good idea to define this and then approach to other businesses/people to help you with your activity.

    Regarding your event ideas, they sound great and some pitfalls you should avoid is to get too many people to participate and not being able to respond on time about certain questions your event my raise. Therefore, it would be great to have some friends or colleagues working on facebook/twitter responses. In addition , I would only suggest to use only one place to process all the information. You could create one website for the event, there are free hosting places with easy and ready to use templates to collect personal information. As you have said, it would be good to let people know what you will do with their contact information (privacy statement) and how you will use it. The use of the other social medias would be to inform your target audience about how they can participate. You have to be clear that there will be many people who would be willing to participate by providing ideas of activities but other might probably want to help you directly by donating clothes or money. For that reason, you should give them those two options or more ways that they can help.

    Other businesses might help you only if you let them see how they will benefit from your proposal. For instance, you could approach to the director of the outdoor clothing company and ask him to support a competition or event in which these ideas will be used and people could participate.

    You could also consider the local newspaper to cover your news.

    Regards,
    Oscar
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