On November 14, members of the Social Media Club of Kansas City volunteered their time to help KC area nonprofits in Ignition, an SMCKC event designed to bring KC area social media professionals together to lend their resources and expertise to organizations in KC that needed help in developing social media campaigns to support their organizations.

The event kicked off with a dozen of KC’s best social media minds meeting at the crack of dawn (okay, 9AM) at MMGY Global(thanks for the awesome space!). We had a brief meeting explaining the course of the days events and took the time to introduce the three non-profits we had chosen (based on need) to help:

Community LINC is an organization with the goal to end homelessness for KC area families by helping them gain access to housing.
The WEB DuBois Learning Center provides additional training and education to KC area youth.
Reach Out and Read helps KC area youth develop early stage reading habits by providing books and encouraging literacy in KC’s poorest communities.

Each charity was assigned a rock-star team of KC social media professionals to help them with their social media needs. With each organization having slightly different requests, the teams were able to tailor their approach from basic to complex.

The teams worked feverishly for over 3 hours, breaking only for some delicious SPIN! Pizza and refreshments from Cosentino’s Price Chopper. When the event concluded each team presented on what achievements and action items were developed. While each nonprofit had it’s own agenda, one organization left with better ideas for how to measure their efforts online, another took home ways to increase visibility and giving for their entire web presence, and one charity even planned it’s entire online media calendar for the next year!

Here’s what the W.E.B. Dubois Center representatives had to say: "The support and guidance received from the social media club strategic planning session was invaluable. We are a small nonprofit organization without a budget or department to do the things that will help us reach more families more effectively Being selected to engage with professionals like your members was such a great opportunity. We received so many great tips and are excited to execute our social media team’s recommendations."

Before we wrapped up the day the teams traded contact information so the nonprofits could reach out for future assistance and to schedule follow up help. Additionally, the charities each received a 2-day social media course, courtesy of Skillpath, as a parting gift.

Finally we recapped the day at Snow & Company, where social professionals and non-profits unwound from the intense activities and enjoyed some delicious frozen beverages.

I’d like to thank the members of SMCKC for their amazing efforts and for truly helping KC’s most charitable individuals further their organizations through the use of social media. I’d also like to thank MMGY Global, Cosentino’s Price Chopper, SPIN! Pizza, Skillpath, and Snow & Company for making the event possible.

Look out for a second edition of Ignition coming in 2016! We’ll have a volunteer link up once a date is set. Know a deserving non-profit? Email me at President@SMCKC.com or wait for the application to come online.

I’m proud of the work that SMCKC members do every day and am even prouder of the assistance we gave to these great organizations.

Kris Nielsen

President,SMCKC

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