Non-profits in Second Life

* What kinds of non-profits would work best in Second Life?

* In what ways can you imagine them being successful here?

Please take a look at this discussion where we've come up with a few cool ideas: http://www.omidyar.net/group/secondlife/news/16/

A few of the contributors include:

- Susan Tenby manages the Tech Soup Community and is leading a charge to organize non-profits in Second Life.

- Lucy Hooperman is from Mentoring Worldwide.

- Timothy Moenk is the Future Salon Network Director at the Acceleration Studies Foundation.

I look forward to what you come up with.

Hiya Haney!

Are we talking about "not for profit" as in charitable organisations, or just things done for fun because they are nice, and not of a commercial nature?

Lewis

Hi Haney, I've given some thought to practical non-profit applications via Second Life as I have worked in a non-profit environment for a few years now. I've pondered developing some sort of fundraising/virtual community for the private arts college that I work at, which is also my alma mater.

All in all, the key issue to getting anything done at non-profits is funding. It would probably be a little easier to bring in very large well-established non-profit organizations like some of the larger museums, symphonies, universities etc. Most smaller organizations do not have enough capacity to invest in new technologies, plus many are running on older computer models and can't afford to upgrade. For instance, I seriously doubt that I could run Second Life on my work computer because it is relatively old and slow.

I can imagine fundraising or ticketed events being highly successful here. Imagine being able to see the Berlin Philharmonic in Second Life or to attend high stakes charity auctions for real or virtual goods. Having been part of several fundraising campaigns in Second Life, from cancer research to hurricane relief, auctions and high-ticket raffles raise a lot of money.

I definitely look forward to seeing more non-profits enter the Second Life realm. Keep us posted on the outcome.

Regards,
Jennyfur

Hey there. We've been talking about projects that improve the real world via SL.....

Thanks so much for posting. Over at the omidyar.net discussion, the mood seems to be that the fundraising potential is limited. Certainly if the large number of non-profits I imagine enters SL, then even our most generous residents will eventually be tapped out.

But thinking of SL as a communications medium I hope leads us to figure out 3D immersive experiences that convey information about non-profit efforts in a uniquely SL way....

Ideas?

Since no one from these forums has posted over at omidyar.net, I thought I'd tell you another idea that came up:

SL makes it possible for people who share a common goal but are scattered around the world to get together, learn from each other, make plan, collaborate and build trust.

You mean just like a phone call, conference phone call, fax, ham radio, snail mail, and just any other means of communication ever invented.

Except that SL as a platform is overkill if you just want to get people together on some "not for profit project."

Also, the regular population of SL may be generous at time, but the potential is really limited.

I just can't see it happening, but that's just me.

I would respectfully suggest that SL is the perfect opportunity to get people together from all over the world, with a common goal (whatever that may be) to acheive something good for those that need help.

Restricting SL to just a moneymaking tool is, in fact, a dreadful waste of creative opportunity and potential for positive actions that could truly make a difference to someone somewhere.

Lewis

Depends on what their goal is, really. It is true that purely for communication, SL is very subpar. You're better off using Skype or set up a permanent IRC channel or basically any other service if all you want to do is be able to communicate. I agree that SL isn't just for moneymaking, but it's also not ideal for everything else either. Not yet anyway. It'd go a long way to fixing that if they allowed SL instant messages to communicate with the outside world, but who knows when that'll happen.

Sorry, Haney. But with the new influx of griefers there isn't much trust in SL anymore. No trust of the other residents, and no more trust of LL. Be thankful you got out when you did.

Thank you all for the contributions so far! (Devlin - thanks for the thought - let's hope this too shall pass.)

Certainly for most communication purposes SL doesn’t do as well as other media. But there are some things you can do here – some ways to communicate - that can’t be done anywhere else. That I know of anyway.

I’d be interested in hearing what you think of this example:

Years ago, a friend of mine returned from a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and described a very powerful interactive exhibit. Visitors are issued an ID card for a real person who suffered in the Holocaust and was the same sex and age as the visitor in 1940 and then follow their experience as they move through the museum. Here’s a description I found via Google: http://www.historyplace.com/pointsofview/beckwith.htm

A year and a half ago, a group of Second Life residents created “Neverland,” which recreated London in 1900. A wonderful part of the environment was the fact that free avatars were available to visitors. Anyone could choose not just a costume but also a set of body characteristics that turned him or her into a pirate, policeman, or various Victorian characters. So one is essentially transformed and the sense of belonging, of being immersed in the environment, is much richer.

Consider if these ideas were combined to communicate - to a small degree - the experience of being a refugee in a camp in Darfur. The stories of real life refugees could be represented by different avatars. Visitors could select a character that reflects their own sex and age and transform their regular avatar into that of the refugee.

After the visitor assumes their appearance, he or she can be led on a journey through the camp to learn about the refugees’ history, why they came to the camp and what’s happened to their family. At the same time the visitor can learn about the issues camp-dwellers face over the course of a day: food, water, and shelter as well as information about what needs to be done to improve the situation.

I think this would take a lot of work to do well. And I'm not sure it would work even if it were done perfectly. But it might be stunning.

And if it works, where else could you do that?

And surely the creators of SL can think up even better ideas than this one.

Non-profits are often technologically slow. There are still many non-profits without the capabilities to even take donations via their websites. I am currently working at my present job to bring them into the late 20th century and bring their fundraising tech up to snuff.

I would think that there is an interesting potential when it comes to non-profit presences in Second Life. There is definitely an interest, as I have seen when I was on the job hunt last fall. There is potential, but like most things in the non-profit world they will be slow enterprises. It might make sense to focus more on building communities than strict fundraising campaigns.

For instance, since I work at an arts college, I would probably start by building an alumnae and student virtual community of sorts forging a collaborative online environment and easing a broad cross-section of people into a completely new world. Once there is a foundation (no pun intended) established between the community at hand then it might be easier to beta test and launch different types of fundraising experiences in the virtual realm.

We have seen amazing results from fundraising strategies thusfar in Second Life such as Relay for Life and the variety of responses to global events like Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami in 2004 etc. If anything these particular fundraising campaigns have functioned as a litmus test for Second Life community involvement in fundraising.

Regards,
Jennyfr

Jennyfur,

I think you are right, that use of SL by the non-profits themselves will be slow.

My prediction is that there will be some extraordinary breakthroughs but they will be initiated by the extremely creative people already using SL. When the urge to create is channeled into projects that communicate and push forward the goals that the non-profits are working on, then we will see some wonderful surprises.

I guess thats a challenge yall.

Thanks for considering,

Haney

You're not by chance related to the late Haney Linden, are you?

Our nonprofit has grown quite a bit since joining SL. AMO Studio (Amoration/IHCenter) focuses on arts, media and educational with both global and local focus. We are in development for a family series for TV/DVD/WEB and Second Life changed the trajectory of our creative work. Even before my first build SL changed the way we approached our storylines and thoughts on how to use social networking tools to build a better society.

At least once I week we shepherd newbies into SL @ ManorMeta on Better World Island; we offer demos with media moguls, video artists, animators and actors, musicians and nonprofit leaders. There's a great deal of initial interest but many people come to SL a few times for rare "experiences" that take them out of their ordinary lives and then never make their way back. As a nonprofit we use the platform for virtual meetings, "unconference"-style topical gatherings, mashups events and occasional arts features with our AMO Advisors around the world. We've also seen some degree of success with our awareness events for Camp Darfur, an RL/SL mirror campaign that has spun off into the Camp Darfur Comix and numerous events in America.

This work is possible because of collaborative building tools and easy group management within SL. Getting people INTO SL and hooking them in with enough purpose to stay is the biggest challenge we face....everyone can see the possibilities, but for many that wide open new world comes with more fear and daunting personal challenges as avies must now DECIDE now to best invest their time in many different worlds at once.

Joi Ito made an important point in his podcast metaverse session about the line between "cyberspace" and "realspace" ceasing to exist for many young kids in Japan. Living in the US it's a slower transition to witness as a new cultural divide springs up between the connected and the luddite. Our goal is to use Second Life to bridge that gap, both locally and internationally; by teaching media skills, language and arts we encourage our participants to become active builders in their world. SL empowers new opportunities and partners continue to emerge for our work @ ManorMeta every time we step inside. It's a very rich, organic environment that fits well with our organizational strategy.

Is it within the forum guidelines to troll for real life information? Shall I report you to one of the newfangled "resmods"?

Actually yes, I am the same Haney, back to haunt you.

Hello Elle!

Hi,

We're trying to create a directory of nonprofit activity in Second Life.

We're compiling a list

It is here:
http://www.writely.com/View.aspx?docid=bcjvrhrc2vgbq

If you are associated with a nonprofit or know of a nonprofit in Second Life, please post here or let me know.

Beth Kavka

Psst. I am a resmod. >

Welcome back!

I'm not disputing the fact that one can create stunning exhibits like what you describe. What I'm pointing at is how many people can you reach in SL? 100? 200? How many people would you reach if you build a website with simple pictures? 100,000? 1,000,000?

And compare the cost to the organisation versus how many viewers you will attract. How many hours will you invest making a 3D model that will not even attract enough viewers to make a valid statistic? When the same amount of time could be used toward putting up a photo album that can be instantly accessed by millions without the need of high-end PC with monster video card.

Pratyeka -

Thank you very much for these thoughts. You make a very good argument against the use of non-profit resources in SL – at least for many types of non-profit goals.

Here are a few counter ideas –

Some of the work of reaching non-profit goals involves building community and for many people, being together, working together, learning from one another in SL offers a strong sense of connection. Not as strong as real life but it opens the way to gathering people worldwide.

It’s expensive to get yourself to Washington DC and yet I imagine many people do it just to see the Holocaust Museum. It’s much easier to find someone in your own town with a good computer and broadband if you don’t have it yourself. Even though the number of active residents of SL is not huge, I can imagine that we could build something so compelling that the word would spread outside of SL and thousands would log in just to experience it.

It’s not a just matter of identifying the cost of eyeballs. The choice of media is largely dependent on the information and emotion you need to convey, the change you want to create in the recipient. Text won’t work for all messages, nor will a 2D website. The sense of being there that SL offers works best for some messages.

SL allows everyone to create his or her own messages and SL is full of people who enjoy creating. My sense is that many residents will use Second Life to do small scale organizing for causes that they feel personally connected to - as a form of self-expression.

This sense echos what Randal Moss, the organizer of Second Life Relay For Life in SL stated in this piece - http://slfuturesalon.blogs.com/second_life_future_salon/2005/10/non_profit_work.html

"More powerful yet is the resident’s ability to create micro events for personal causes. Using their meme, residents can collect their friends and tap their in-world social networks for causes very close to them."

Anyway, my suggestion to non-profits is to reach those hundreds of talented residents who can pick a cause and use SL to create messages via building and events - that connect with other residents their existing SL networks. Hopefully that will in turn result in real world activity.

Randy's a great guy and all, but the SL Relay For Life was organized by the SL community, not Randy. He himself will tell you that Relay succeeds by existing as a community-driven effort, not an effort of the American Cancer Society. The ACS didn't bring Relay into SL. The SL community created Relay for the ACS.

Musuems are logical candidates for the use of SL as a way to present virtual exhibits or collection information. Although some people think that non-profits might be slow to take advantage of the possiblities that a platform like SL offers, clearly that is not universally the case, as I noted in the recent newseltter that the San Jose Art Museum apparently is creating an exhibit within SL and is inviting SL artists to submit works for inclusion.

I'll be very curious to see how they utilize the opportunity and make it work, especially as a curatorial team at another institution in California did something similar a few years ago in TSO, inviting resident artists to create conceptual art works using "found objects" from the game. What made this interesting was that the exhbit was seen by an audience that included not just the players who already were in the game, but also members of the museum's rl audience. When they opened this "Sim Gallery" project within the game, the curators then set up terminals in their rl museum gallery at which the museum visitors--with assistance and supervision of museum staff and volunteers--could then view the exhbit in-game.

The advantage was that a very interesting exhibit was presented in a much more cost-effective way than is usually possible with most rl exhibits. It was successful enough that it subsequently was presented in other forms by two other venues, including a museum I worked at, where we added addtional rl exhibit elements interpreting of the history of electronic gaming and home computers to put the virtual gallery in some kind of context.

In fact many museums have been putting virtual exhibits on their web sites for many years. Sometimes they create an arrangment of images and text specifically designed for use on the web site, or in other cases, as has been happening at a museum I work for now, they will take images and text from temporary exhibits they have done irl and transfer them to online when the meatspace version closes. This sort of thing has been going on at many museums I know of for at least ten years now.

The disadvantage is of course, that you are taking a 3-D presentation and converting it to a 2-D medium. Think of the possiblities for museums to do installations in SL, where an environment such as an ancient temple can be recreated for an immersion experience, or artifacts or art works can be created or recreated in 3-D and viewed in a more meaningful way than is possible on the standard "online exhibit" on a museum web site. Yes, it is true, as another poster noted, that more people may see a simple "pictures and text" exhibit slapped up on a museum's web site (the museum I work for now isn't a big one but gets maybe 40,000 distinct hits per month on their site), but the quality of the experience and the intellectual and emotional impact of the presentation have to be considered as well as raw numbers.

There are already more of us--museum people, that is--wandering around in SL than you might realize. I think it is just a matter of time for this type of activity within SL to take off, especially as the company has now made it much easier with the much-maligned registration changes for casual visitors to drop into the game to see an installation or presentation of the type that the San Jose museum is working on.

There's some interesting stuff at http://www.holymeatballs.org from Global Kids, Inc. The blog is mostly about the work of this non-profit organization in Second Life, and includes some entries specifically about the challenges involved in getting a SL project like theirs off the ground. You can also find some of this material inworld in book form -- search Find for globalkids Bixby (Barry Joseph, director of Global Kids' online leadership program) and check the Picks for a link.

Thanks Kim - I just wrote the following before seeing your post:

For Global Kids, an after school education program, Second Life in the teen grid provides an excellent opportunity to translate our interative, experiential educational model into a virutal world for a self-selected pool of teens who by the very nature of being in Second Life are leaders from around the world waiting for something to do.

You can read more about our work at http://www.HolyMeatballs.org or check out our SL book by looking for our property in the main grid.

Barry