Nonprofits Must Guard Against Imposters

Very few nonprofits are active on emerging social networks like Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Vine, and WhatsApp, but that doesn’t mean organizations can ignore the platforms, Lauren Girardin, a communications consultant, told participants at the Nonprofit Technology Conference this month in Washington. The meeting was organized by the Nonprofit Technology Network.

At the very least, charities should sign up for the services to keep other people from taking their names and impersonating the organizations on the sites, Ms. Girardin advised.

“This will give you an opportunity to really get control, which means that you will not have to spend time later dealing with squatters,” she said.

Ms. Girardin recommended two sites, NameChk.com and KnowEm.com, that let people search whether a particular name has been taken on dozens of social networks.

When a nonprofit signs up for a social network, she said, it should post the group’s logo to the profile page and add links to websites and social networks where the organization is active: “Direct them to the channels you do use.”

Ms. Girardin drew knowing laughter from the audience when she said people should use an organizational email address, rather than an individual address, to sign up for the platforms, in case the staff member or volunteer leaves and the organization later decides to focus more attention on the social network.