Eric Ries on the power of online communities –

Collectively, an online community has an unlimited amount of time to spend. Even if you and your community managers are a hundred times smarter and more productive than the members of your community, there is absolutely no way that you can keep up with its sheer volume of energy. So you can’t fight an online community and hope to win the argument. The only way to have your point of view prevail is to have members of the community invest their unlimited time and energy in evangelizing it. And that’s what really, truly, actively listening does.

– via startuplessonslearned.com

This is what your nonprofit stands to gain from social media.

Of course, as Eric’s post makes clear, the active listening needed to keep on the good side of this power ain’t easy…