This survey of nonprofit professionals in the social and educational sectors is a partnership of Stanford University and Project Evident.

This resource from consultancy Whole Whale offers a helpful framework for how to write AI prompts.

How a storm of false and misleading claims about extreme weather events spread unchecked on social media putting lives at risk.

Every year, M+R, a progressive digital consulting firm, releases its much-anticipated Benchmarks Report. This year, 216 advocacy nonprofits submitted data about the performance of their email, social media, SMS, web, and paid ads programs. The result is rich report, full of interesting and useful insights for anyone who works in nonprofit communications, fundraising, organizing, or digital strategy.

To reach the feeds of those who don’t pay attention to political news, politicians or advocates need a viral message — one that will not just resonate, but spread organically among social networks. While low-engagement voters distrust social media influencers by a -50- point margin, they trust their family members and friends by a +64-point margin. It’s not always possible to create a viral moment, but it’s worth trying to be bold — in 2024, the campaign event voters heard the most about in October was Trump’s stunt at a McDonald’s drive-thru. Greg Landsman and Ro Khanna have racked up millions of views on their TikTok videos, which often feature them delivering straightforward descriptions of what is happening in Washington directly to their followers.

Learn how to become an activist, plan a political campaign strategy, and start a grassroots movement -- all while not burning out. This guide includes chapters on organizing, campaign strategy, action tactics, wellbeing, communication, digital tools, legal rights, and theory of change. Learn how to set up an inclusive movement, how to make decisions democratically and how to mobilize people and keep them engaged. There are different types of strategies depending on local political and social contexts. Find tools for editing videos, designing graphics, managing social media, developing websites and much more. Even though you might not refer to yourself as an ‘activist’, this handbook can be useful for anyone who would like to achieve societal change.

Short videos can increase support for solar and wind energy. This research found an 8% increase in persuasion via videos on social media that showed clean energy improves the local economy. Persuasion was particularly effective for self-identified moderates compared to somewhat conservative or conservative participants. Political “moderates” supported expanding clean energy by an additional 22% compared to the control group (compared to -9% to -1% effect range for very conservatives). Persuasion was also particularly effective for people who did not support expanding clean energy in the pre-survey. Support for expanding clean energy increased by 19% for those who did not support it in the pre-survey (opposed or neutral). One month later, persuasion towards clean energy persisted only among people who were neutral in the pre-survey. All other effects had decayed away, demonstrating that continued, long-term exposure to messages is needed for persuasion to persist.

An analysis of the top 100 EV-related posts on US political pages found that the vast majority of them were critical of the technology. Between January 1 and June 1, 81% of the Facebook posts analyzed were related to sales setbacks, performance or charging issues, or other negative press. These posts had over 1.3 million interactions, accounting for 79% of total interactions related to EVs. Posts related to automakers or car rental companies rolling back their commitments to selling EVs made up over a third of this content. Another popular topic focused on performance issues sometimes exacerbated by cold weather, which made up 20% of posts related to EVs. Nearly three quarters (74%) of EV-related posts on nonaligned pages (neither left-leaning or right-leaning) had a negative framing. These posts generated 83% of all interactions on EV-related posts from nonaligned pages. Out of the top 100 posts related to EVs on right-leaning pages, 95% were negative. Of the negative posts, 43% were related to automakers or car rental companies rolling back their commitments to selling EVs -- these posts earned over 477,000 interactions.

Misinformation about environmental issues is prominent on social media. This research found the following activity that contained misinformation or negative narratives related to the environment, particularly motivations about the environmental movement (from May 15-21, 2024): 2,000 X posts with more than 10 reposts; 1,000 Facebook posts with more than 10 engagements; 70 TikTok posts; 300 Telegram posts with more than 1,000 views; 90 Truth Social posts with more than 10 retruths; 60 Gab posts with more than 10 reposts. Some topics include “Texas wind turbine graveyard proves green movement isn’t green” and “Jordan Peterson asserts climate science is an appalling scam.”

During disasters, people flock to social media to share warnings, coordinate in real-time, and share images of the destruction. But others use the chaos of breaking news events to spread false information. This podcast episode explores the rise of fake news in the environmental space, from #HawaiiNotUkraine to a news site spreading climate disinformation in Wyoming. Plus, the hosts speak to the people fighting back, including a community fact-checker correcting earthquake disinformation on X.