Presentation from Robert Morris University's Bayer Center's TechNow11 conference on why you need social media policies and ways for a nonprofit to minimize risk.

1. We Didn’t Say That!:
Minimizing Risk Via Social Media
Policies
TechNow 2011 Conference
October 27, 2011
Todd Whiteman & Dave Tinker, CFRE

2. What We‟ll Go Over
 Define Social Media & Social Networking
 How Social Media Impacts Your Group
 What is a Social Media Policy
 What a Social Media Policy Looks Like
 What Types of Insurance Might Cover Social
Media Use
 What You Can Do to Avoid Claims
 Online Resources

3. Definition
 What is Social Media?
 A group of applications that allow for user
generated content
 What is Social Networking?
 Placing individuals into specific groups
connected by a common interest

4. Statistics
 Social Media
 90% of US Internet users visited a social media site in 2010
 22% of all time spent online is on social media sites
 40% connect via mobile devices
 Facebook
 750 million active users
 More time spent on Facebook than any other site
 Average user connected to 80 groups, events, and community
pages
 Twitter
 200 million users
 65 million tweets per day
Sources: comScore, Facebook, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Wikipedia

5. Why You Need One
 Use by employees, volunteers, consultants, and
people you serve
 Impact on marketing and brand, fundraising, and
awareness
 e.g. Pittsburgh Gives and Westmoreland Gives
 NPOs of all sizes need a policy
 Avoid Claims

6. What is a Social Media Policy?
 What it is:
 It sets expectations and boundaries
 Operational guidelines for people who use social
media in their job
 What it is not:
 Static

7. Components of Social Media Policy
 Define social media
 Identify that you have concerns and interests
 Tell people what to avoid
 Remind people to protect privacy
 State how it‟s related to other agency policies
 Logos, photos, videos
 „Friending‟ clients, co-workers
 How to engage others

8. Don‟t Have One?
 Can lead to
 Leaks
 Badmouthing
 Someone else speaking on your behalf
 Fear Not…It‟s Not Too Late

9. Social Media Policy Guidelines
 In 2010 AFP International crafted guidelines for
members of
 AFP
 ASAE
 NTEN and
 The DMA, Nonprofit Federation
 Results were released in late 2010
 http://is.gd/yGv43r

10. Protect Your Organization
 There are ways to protect your organization
before and after a situation arises -
 Before:
 Employee Handbook
 Internet Usage Policy
 Employee Communication Policy
 Social Media Policy
 After:
 Insurance Coverage (General Liability, Professional Liability,
Directors & Officers, Employment Practices, Internet Liability
 Damage Control

11. Handbooks And Training
 Employee Handbooks can include policies and
procedures for Internet Usage, Employee
Communication and Online Social Media.
 They can be tailored specifically for your
organizations operations and exposures and can
also include volunteers.
 Training is equally important!

12. Insurance Policies
 General Liability
 Most organizations have this coverage and believe it
will cover everything and anything.
 Provides coverage for claims for Bodily Injury and
Property Damage and excludes the organizations
professional liability and claims for financial injury.
 Personal Injury provides coverage for libel and
slander.
 By endorsement you can purchase
coverage for claims resulting from
postings on blogs, websites and email.

13. Insurance Policies
 Directors and Officers
 This is a step in the right direction which provides
coverage to the organization, it‟s Directors and
Officers and it‟s Employees.
 Coverage is for claims brought based on poor
decisions or no decisions that lead to a claim that
may or may not have been covered.
 Employment Practices can be added which covers
acts against employees and can be extended to your
clients.
 Your organization is just as vulnerable to internal claims as it
is to external claims! An employee sending an inappropriate
internal email or viewing an inappropriate website can be the
trigger.

14. Insurance Policies
 Professional Liability
 This is typically coverage for your “profession” which
could be performing arts, child care, community
action etc…and is for your mistakes, not your
intentional actions.
 Example – Your organization provides housing for individuals
with disabilities:
 #1 A client wanders from the home and is injured – is there
coverage?
 YES - Your job is to protect that individual.
 #2 You post on your blog that the person (by name) has been
nothing but trouble and deserved it. – is there coverage
 NO - The suit brought is that you named that person and
slandered them causing them and their family emotional
injury.

15. Insurance Policies
 Internet Liability and Social Media Coverage
 This coverage was specifically designed to cover
Social Media, Your Website, 3rd Party Websites and
Email Communications
 Claim Examples:
 Posting of picture without authority
 Employee postings on your website, Facebook or 3rd party sites
 Volunteer badmouthing a competing
organization
 Distribution of internal email to outside
parties
 Theft of money or data from your website
and computer system.

16. Management
 Your organization and individual duties
 Who makes changes and determines appropriate
content?
 Depending on your size and structure it may be the
Executive Director, Development Staff, Consultant or IT.
 Does your board or a committee have any input?
 Have you presented guidelines to your staff?

17. Who can make claims against you?
 Your current employees and past employees.
 Your clients / constituents
 Your competitors
 Your partners
 Your vendors
 Your funders and donors
 Your volunteers
 Your members
 The general public

18. Online Tools to Help You
 AFP Social Media Guidelines- http://is.gd/yGv43r
 Beth Kanter‟s list – http://is.gd/tSujQv
 PolicyTool - http://socialmedia.policytool.net/
 Social Media Policy Samples -
http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php

19. What We Discussed
 Define Social Media & Social Networking
 How Social Media Impacts Your Organization
 What is a Social Media Policy
 What a Social Media Policy Looks Like
 What Types of Insurance Might Cover Social
Media Use
 What You Can Do to Avoid Claims
 Online Resources

20. Questions?

21. Contact Information
Todd Whiteman
Vice President, Property / Casualty
Enscoe Long Insurance Group, LLC
412-206-0364
twhiteman@enscoelong.com
www.enscoelong.com
Dave Tinker, CFRE
Director of Development
ACHIEVA
412-995-5000 x 436
dtinker@achieva.info
www.about.me/davethecfre

22. Example: Red Cross Rogue Tweet
AN EMPLOYEE WITH ACCESS TO THE @REDCROSS TWITTER ACCOUNT ACCIDENTALLY POSTED
ABOUT THEIR NIGHT OF DRINKING DOGFISH HEAD MIDAS TOUCH AND TAGGED THE MESSAGE
#GETTNGSLIZZERD.
TOOLS FOR MANAGING MULTIPLE TWITTER ACCOUNTS AND SMARTPHONES THAT HANDLE
TWITTER MESSAGING ALONGSIDE TEXT MESSAGING HAVE MADE SUCH MISTAKES EASIER
THAN EVER BEFORE. THE RED CROSS MESSAGE WAS INITIALLY VISIBLE TO NEARLY 270,000
FOLLOWERS SUBSCRIBING TO THAT ACCOUNT BUT DOZENS HUNDREDS OF RE-TWEETS (WHEN
THE SAME MESSAGE IS RE-SENT FROM ANOTHER PERSON) AND TWEETS ABOUT HIS POST
HAVE PUT THAT NUMBER WELL INTO THE MILLIONS.
IN A SLIGHT TINGE OF IRONY, EARLIER IN THE DAY, THE BREWERS ASSOCIATION RELEASED A
PRESS RELEASE ABOUT ITS SAVOR EVENT COMING IN JUNE; ONE OF THE MAIN GOALS OF THE
EVENT IS TO RAISE THE IMAGE OF BEER TO BE EQUAL TO THAT OF WINE, A DIFFICULT TASK
GIVEN THE BARRAGE OF BEER ADVERTISEMENTS FEATURING LOWBROW HUMOR. ON THE
OTHER HAND, IT‟S A NICE BIT OF PUBLICITY FOR DOGFISH HEAD THOUGH THE BREWERY,
GROWING AS RAPIDLY AS IT IS, DOESN‟T NEED IT.
RED CROSS LATER DELETED THE TWEET AND REPLACED IT WITH A NEW ONE THAT READS,
“WE‟VE DELETED THE ROGUE TWEET BUT REST ASSURED THE RED CROSS IS SOBER AND
WE‟VE CONFISCATED THE KEYS.” AT LEAST THEY HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR ABOUT THE
MATTER.
WE‟LL SEE IF THEY DO IN THE MORNING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. THE RED CROSS PR HEAD SAYS THAT HUANG WILL NOT
BE FIRED OVER THE INCIDENT.

23. Example: Chrysler Consultant Tweet
Someone with access to the official Chrysler Twitter account, @ChryslerAutos, dropped an F-bomb on its more
than 7,500 followers earlier today.
“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f*****g drive,” reads a
retweet of the slipup.
The actual tweet has been deleted from the account, and the company quickly tweeted an apology, saying that
its account had been compromised.
Jalopnik, which originally noted the mishap, reported that people familiar with the Chrysler media organization
said the source of the tweet is likely an employee of the social media company that runs Chrysler‟s Twitter
account.
Like a tweet from the Red Cross last month that spawned #gettngslizzerd, Chrysler‟s tweet seems to be the
result of an employee confusing personal and brand accounts. Bad taste on Twitter can‟t always be prevented
(cough, Kenneth Cole), but please, brand Twitter account managers of the world, double-check your tweets.
Update: Chrysler confirmed in a blog post that the off-color tweet came from an employee of its social media
agency, New Media Strategies. The employee, according to the post, “has since been terminated.” Meanwhile,
the @ChryslerAutos account has actually gained Twitter followers since we first reported the incident.

24. Nonprofit Organization Settles Trademark
Lawsuit: Little House on the Prairie
Earlier this week, Friendly Family Productions, LLC, the company that produced the television series Little House on the Prairie
settled its lawsuit against a nonprofit corporation that operates a small museum outside Independence, Kansas.
The museum is located at the site of the original house that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about in her book of the same title.
Friendly Family Productions alleged that the museum infringed the trademark LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. According to
complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the predecessor to Friendly Family Productions acquired rights to that
trademark from the author's descendants in 1974.
What got Friendly Family Productions all riled up (to use a term that Ms. Wilder would have been comfortable with) was the use of
the trademark on merchandise that the museum sold, including the merchandise that it sold through a website with the domain
name www.littlehouseontheprairie.com. Friendly Family Productions acknowledged that it had no quarrel with the museum using
the words "little house on the prairie" to describe the homesite or the museum, because a purely descriptive use like that does not
infringe a trademark. On the other hand, Friendly Family Productions had considerable quarrel with the museum putting those
words on merchandise (caps, T-shirts, magnets, note cards, key chains, and other items typical of promotional merchandise) and
selling them over the internet. Friendly Family Productions claimed that the use of those words implied that the merchandise
came from the owner of the trademark, when it did not. That is, in a nutshell, the reason trademarks exist -- to identify the source
of the goods that bear the mark.
According to an article in the Wichita Eagle and other sources, Friendly Family Productions originally offered to pay the museum
$40,000 if it would stop using the trademark. The museum refused the offer, choosing instead to fight the lawsuit. The terms of the
settlement agreement are confidential, but we know that the nonprofit corporation has changed its name from Little House on the
Prairie, Inc. to the more descriptive Little House on the Prairie Museum, Inc., and www.littlehouseontheprairie.com is no longer
active.
There's no way to know how much the two-year litigation cost the parties.