My experience is that online services either find a way to monetize or disappear entirely. Because online life – like financial life for small nonprofits – has only minute-to-minute stability, a social media Plan B is a necessity. When you’re wrapped up in your mission, this can be difficult to find time for. It usually comes back to the short-term and long-term. You can give up (or procrastinate) on long-term planning in favour of serving the need short-term, or you can take time away from serving the need to ensure that you’re still around in the long-term. Balancing your short and long-term commitments can be difficult when one’s heart is involved so deeply in the mission, but it’s worthwhile and necessary, even in social media.

3 years ago I joined an organisation called XL Results Foundation
Over 3000 of us paid around $10,000 for a life membership and the idea was that we would work together to eradicate poverty and hunger in alliance with the UN Millenium goals.
The organisation originally had an extremely expensive website but it was unwieldly so we left that and gravitated towards Facebook around 2 years ago.
A few and not many at all members complained because they wanted privacy and did not like Facebook.
18 months ago and to my absolute horror a Ning site was started.At that time we were growing rapidly and drawing many of our friends into discussions and events on Facebook.
Almost immediately I watched the organisation begin to die as no one saw any of our conversations from then on.All charities or groups are going to have attrition of members.
There was fervent daily discussion among hundreds of daily visitors for the first few months and literally hundreds of groups started
I was extremely outspoken and predicted death of XL within a year if the Ning site was not removed. Now around 2 or 3 people a week discuss anything at all on the Ning site.XL is for all intents and purposes dead and from having regular monthly meetings in over 50 cities in over 30 countries there is I do not think anything happening any longer
We removed ourselves from the conversation.We were at the party but in a separate room only talking to ourselves.
For the sake of a few members wanting to be more comfortable.

If there are some things your organisation really need to discuss in private (I cannot imagine what that might be) I suggest that you use http://www.huddle.net.
Otherwise stay as far away from platforms like Ning as you can

While I understand and appreciate the business logic of this move, as a family, we must ensure everyone is cared for.

Manny’s suggestion of exploring options comparable to initiatives like Google Grants, YouTube’s Nonprofit Program and the Salesforce Foundation is where we need to look. Jacob’s recommendation of 37signals free basecamp model also makes sense. Offer a network without groups, forums, events, photo’s and videos.

A solution for helping small non-profits cover premiums would be to create a feature that makes it possible members to contribute small amounts like $1 per year to cover the costs of the premium services. This would remove the burden falling on one person. And yes, low cost does not have to be free – give us a tool to cover the low cost and we will!

I do however feel strongly that given this surprise move, that if a creator chooses not to pay for premium services, the ability to export content must be made available. It’s a matter of integrity.

Jason and Mark, as you move forward you can count on us to roll our sleeves up as we love and Ning and want you to be profitable and continue to provide us with the awesome platform. In return, we ask you to do the right thing, honor the culture and expectations you’ve set and ensure those are doing the good work, in service to others, may continue to do so.

Joseph Porcelli
http://www.neighborsforneighbors.org
http://www.josephporcelli.com
http://www.mugproject.com
http://www.nametagproject.com