A case study in sacrifice and social success: Jeane Goforth

With so many people desperate to make money through social media, it’s almost ironic that the best case studies are often the nonprofits.

Some might think it simply comes easier for nonprofits because they’re raising awareness of something that people already want to care about. But the truth is that with money and staff always in short supply, nothing is easy for nonprofits, especially when it comes to labor-intensive projects like social media outreach.

That’s why I wanted to tell you about Jeane Goforth. A tireless advocate for two fantastic music-education programs in Birmingham — Metropolitan Youth Orchestras and Scrollworks — Jeane has used social media to raise awareness, collect much-needed donations and spark national attention.

While the organizations are well represented on Blogger, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, that’s not what makes this such an incredible story. This is a daunting tale of commitment and passion, one filled with lessons for all of us.

Jeane’s outreach work isn’t a side project. It’s a daily, often hourly effort that constantly keeps these nonprofits in the minds of potential donors, recipients and volunteers. If that wasn’t enough of a sign of Jeane’s commitment, you can look to the fact that she cashed out $37,500 from her retirement savings plans to help get these programs off the ground.

“I believe so strongly that every child deserves access to a music education that I donated my piddling life savings to get us started,” Jeane wrote on the “10,000 for Scrollworks” Facebook group.

After the jump, check out my recent e-mail Q&A with this amazing woman.

First off, could you explain what your nonprofits do?

We provide music education for children regardless of their ability to pay, with a focus on minorities and under-served areas of greater Birmingham. Currently we have 5 youth ensembles, including two full orchestras and a jazz ensemble.

We teach free music lessons at Hill Elementary 4 days a week during the school day. We teach after-school music lessons at NorthStar Ministry. We teach free lessons to anyone in the community at Cave9 on Friday and Saturday afternoons.

We're loosely modeling ourselves after Venezuela's El Sistema.

How long have they been active?

Metropolitan Youth Orchestras was incorporated in June of 2007. Scrollworks, the teaching arm of the orchestras, began lessons in February of 2008.

How did you personally start using social media?

I began a personal blog in January of 2007.

When and how did you decide that social media could help spread the word about your nonprofits?

We started the orchestra blogs immediately as a quick way to disseminate news and updates to our members and their parents. The blogs are much easier to update from anywhere and we can easily expand authorship to those with minimal experience.

When we began Scrollworks, two of our teachers had a lot of experience promoting their music and bands on MySpace, so they had a friend base there to get us started. I tackled Facebook, with help from my children and the orchestra members.

I use Google Reader to create news and blog feeds on keywords I want to track--”youth orchestra”, “Birmingham”, etc. Thus, I read and comment widely.

A comment I left on the 60 Minutes website concerning how our program compares to El Sistema is the best thing I have ever done to connect. That comment got us instruments and donations from all over the country. And it hooked us up with El Sistema-NYC, a group which is working tirelessly to form a network of like-minded folk. We have gotten information requests from across the US and now Italy. Now El Sistema-NYC has started on Facebook and through that I have been communicating with prominent musicians around the world.

When I first started on Facebook, most of the people were students. In the last few months, I've noticed many more people my age, and especially the Alabama Symphony Orchestra musicians have taken to it. Often Karen Bentley Pollick (violinist and wife of Birmingham Southern College’s president) — who I've never met in person — reposts our info and then her musician friends far and wide pass it on.

What kind of results have you seen from doing outreach online?

I guess some of this answer is above. What is most striking about the connections through Facebook, MySpace and Twitter is that the greatest benefits are totally unexpected. Some previously unknown person will pop up to offer something surprising.

I know you held an online contest and got widespread attention. Could you talk about that idea and the results?

I read on some music blog about a quartet written by Prokofiev’s grandson that was recorded by the Elysian Quartet and then submitted for remixing by famous DJs. I bought the CD and my co-founder and I loved the concept. We decided to do the same thing with our orchestra to engage the students—connecting classical music with what they listen to. (One of the reasons we formed MYO was to offer a fresh take on youth orchestra, since we saw the best young musicians bored to tears by youth orchestra.)

The minute I mentioned the idea on my personal orchestra blog in the fall of 2007, I got a strong reaction — comments from a half dozen remixers and an e-magazine. We were slow getting it going, but once we did, the world loved it. The contest was reposted all over the web and we had 8000 hits on our website. We will do it again this year — and give everyone more of a lead time to do the remixing.

If you were advising another nonprofit about embracing social media, what tips or warnings would you give them?

Connections are the key to success. Be open to every opportunity on the web or off. Be genuine and sincere. Spend time on the social networks every day.

Would you do anything different if you were just starting the nonprofit now?

The only thing I would do differently is be more cautious about deepening and trusting the connections, waiting until actions prove the words are sincere. We have been repeatedly burned by embracing someone's offers to help, only to find that they weren't as committed or even as competent as they first appeared.

Finally, what have you discovered about yourself and the world at large through your work in social media?

I have learned that my ability to pull it all together — information from the internet, social media, offline connections — is what makes me valuable to the organization. I've learned that someone out there somewhere can offer something you don't even know you need and the only way to find that person is to connect broadly and generously.

To contribute your time or money to Metropolitan Youth Orchestras and Scrollworks, you can start here.

Comments

[Jaime Austria]

Thank you for writing about Jeane Goforth--the Miracle Music Worker of Birmingham, Alabama, MMW for short.

I belong to an all-volunteer very very informal group of inspired individuals a la Jeane; we're trying to catch up with her here in New York City.

Jeane is such an inspiration to us here.

We've tried our best to also encourage friends and colleagues to help and support her heroic efforts. Some members of an orchestra I play with have sent money and some musical accessories like violin strings.

Jeane has also helped our efforts here in New York City to petition our policy makers to incorporate arts, music and dance education to the curriculum of the public schools.

Please find a way to also help us by signing our PETITION: http://elsistema-nyc.org/

We have harnessed the power and energy of a catchword bandied about by corporate and political leaders: GLOBALIZATION.

Ours is GLOBAL GOODWILL GENERATION.

It seems to have struck a very resonant chord in the hearts and minds of people across the USA and at least 26 other countries...and counting.

We'd like to impress upon our politicians that the whole world will be watching because so many care about a well-rounded and balanced education for ALL CHILDREN.

Cognitive neuro-scientist Michael Gazzaniga wrote in his most recent book, "Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique:"

"The arts are not frosting but baking soda."

Let's help bring OPTIMAL "BAKING SODA" to ALL CHILDREN.

To the infinitely mysterious power of music and all arts,
Sincerely,
Jaime Austria

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