Social media and community knowledge: An ideal partnership for non‐profit organizations

Abstract

Non-profit organizations (NPOs) must manage knowledge to be relevant, sustainable and competitive. The published literature suggests that stories can be effective for sharing knowledge and making tacit knowledge explicit; however, researchers have not examined storytelling as a knowledge management practice in NPOs in any depth. Similarly, few studies explore the roles of social media in NPOs, including their usefulness for knowledge management practices. This paper reports the results of a research study that examined how NPOs are using social media, with a particular focus on knowledge management practices. Qualitative interviews with 16 staff members working in a range of NPO environments (such as health, library and social services organizations) were conducted. The findings point to the value of storytelling for sharing the organization's mission, for monitoring the NPOs reach into the community, and as a mechanism for gathering knowledge from clients and other key stakeholders.

Knowledge needs in the non-profit sector: an evidence-based model of organizational practices

“…The survey instrument was developed based on the results of an initial pilot study with 16 NPOs in Canada; the study used a qualitative, exploratory interview technique to understand the KM-NPO landscape. Following a robust grounded theory analysis of interview data, the survey questions and potential response options were created (Given et al, 2013). A review of relevant literature also informed the inclusion of survey questions and question options that built on previous research in KM (e.g., Pan and Scarbrough, 1998;Rus andLindvall, 2002, Razmerita et al, 2009;Yip et al, 2012).…”

“…"The documented knowledge about processes and procedures essential to the operation of our organization" (i.e. procedural knowledge) (Given et al, 2013).…”

“…Using knowledge management (KM) practices to shape processes for creating, storing and sharing organizational knowledge has a rich history in the for-profit context (Prusak, 2001;Baskerville and Dulipovici, 2006;Ragsdell, 2013). Although strategies to apply KM practices within NPOs are emerging (de Vasconcelos et al, 2006;Lemieux and Dalkir, 2006;Gregory and Rathi, 2008;Huck et al, 2011;Given et al, 2013), KM applications are limited in the not-for-profit sector. This paper presents an evidence-based model of NPOs' knowledge needs, taking into account the people, technologies, communities and other factors that influence NPOs' particular organizational practices.…”

Non-profit organizations’ use of tools and technologies for knowledge management: a comparative study

“…Thus, this paper fills a significant gap in the KM-NPO-technology domain. This paper serves as a companion piece to other publications from this research, which focused on the use of social media tools, exclusively, in NPOs for KM purposes (Forcier et al, 2013a(Forcier et al, , 2013bGiven et al, 2013;Rathi et al, 2014b). The paper presents a broad overview of tools and technology use in NPOs for KM.…”

Exploring the impact of embedded social media within the corporate websites of media organisations

“…A study done by Lisa M. Given, Eric Forcier, Dinesh Rathi found out the value of storytelling for sharing organisational mission reach into community and use it as a knowledge gathering tool from clients and key stakeholders (M. Given, Eric Forcier, Dinesh Rathi 2013). Several key findings emerged from this study; that using social media for marketing and promotion to reach community is essential for non-profit organisations, balancing duplication of information across multiple platforms with unique media strategies, having a solid communication strategy for implementing social media.…”