Best Practices for Non-Profits in SecondLife

"... Second Life has the killer app, which is community."
- Connie Yowell, MacArthur Foundation

Friday morning I attended a panel discussion on Best Practices for Non-Profits in SecondLife (SL). Or rather my avatar attended, since the meeting took place "inworld" at the Nonprofit Commons in SecondLife. At least 86 avatars attended the meeting. (click here for pictures). The panelists were from Global Kids, Alliance Library Systems, InWorld Studios, and TechSoup (which runs the Nonprofit Commons in SecondLife). These were some of my takeaways:

• TechSoup's Nonprofit Commons project provides free SecondLife office space to nonprofits. They've outgrown their current SL space and they're creating a second one.
• SecondLife is not suitable as a nonprofit's sole community outreach effort.
• Several panelists emphasized that it is not necessary for a nonprofit to have office space in SecondLife. But if you do you then need to staff it for regular office hours. It's helpful to have scripted objects that report back to staff who has visited the space.
• A large event takes a lot of organizers and volunteers and a lot of planning and preparation.
• You have to both plan ahead and improvise for SL technical challenges. For this event there was an external website where you could listen if your audio stream wasn't working inworld, but the number of listeners maxed out the server and not everyone could get in. So some of the attendees typed highlights of the discussion in the text chat for those who couldn't hear. And of course the audio was recorded so a podcast could be made available (although it doesn't seem to be posted yet).
• You have to plan ahead for those who don't have prior SL experience. One best practice is to hold preliminary events in SL, like dance parties, where people can learn and practice their inworld skills. And don't require particants to register inworld; buying Lindens is too complicated for newbies.
• Avoid too much text on notecards; text is better on the web than in SL.
• Publicity: Big nonprofit events in SL get lots of press. Document compulsively to get attention outworld. All press, positive or negative, can create useful dialog. Machinima videos are great promotional tools. And don't forget to tag with 'npsl'
• The best way for a nonprofit to get started in SecondLife is to start attending the Nonprofit in SecondLife (NPSL) weekly meetings (of which this was one).

I plan to start attending those weekly NPSL meetings there to get a better idea of what other nonprofits are doing and ideas for what's possible. Added benefit: much of the discussion was useful for thinking about online communities in general.

For more information, check out:

• Podcast from this event (probably under Library; it wasn't up yet last time I checked)
• Chat transcript from this event
• NPSL: Nonprofits in Second Life blog and wiki
• Nonprofit Commons blog
• Rik Panganiban's report "Best Practices for Non-Profits in SecondLife" based on nonprofit track from last year's SL Community Conference
• Article about Macarthur Foundation's investigation into philanthropy in virtual worlds