Jumo early verdict – hit and miss

Now that Jumo have had a live beta version online for about a week the reviews are coming in from far and wide. Opinions range from the ecstatic to the unconvinced and in the middle many are taking a wait and see approach which is where I would classify myself. The foundation or platform of the nonprofit networking tool is going to be familiar to anyone used to working with a social media platform, registration is a snap although they ask you questions that might be too broad to really tailor the settings and thus the results to be of much true benefit.

While the FAQ section answers many key questions I do think Jumo would benefit with the addition of some sort demonstration mode to ease navigation within the site and getting your settings as you wish. There is a heavy assumption that users of the site will be 100% familiar with Facebook (of course) but that seems far too presumptuous. Moreover for Jumo to become the starting point to connect donors to causes it will need to cast its net wider than simply those who use Facebook – it needs to appeal to the millions of people who may be brand new to social networking online to compete with existing tools such as Crowdrise. The beta version is only accessible if you have a Facebook account, it’s like saying you are opening a restaurant but everything on the menu contains cheese. Don’t like cheese? Try another restaurant.

The segmentation of causes also has pros and cons – the determination and definition of what a cause does and aids can be arbitrary. Calling a category ‘Peace and Governance’ may have been intuitive to the designers but I’m not sure the public will know where to look within the search engine. Another complaint – the option to ‘Discover Projects’ sounded exciting but simply takes you back to your original profile settings.

While I appreciate it is only in ‘beta’ version release at the moment my largest concern however is perhaps the biggest of all. Jumo needs to be a call to action and strike users as a call to do more than ‘follow’ or ‘like’ it needs to be a call to get involved and learn. Yes the chance to learn exisits within the site but I don’t think it is clear and clean as it perhaps should be.

From an informational perspective I expected to see direct links to all the inside knowledge I could desire from a nonprofit – happily that has been provided with links to the .orgs website, facebook page, twitter, you tube page, vimeo page and flickr if applicable. That’s a refreshing feature and can lead to Jumo fulfilling its best role (at present) as a nonprofit search engine. The part that I think the public will like most is the feeling of contact – nonprofits posting updates, thank yous, statistics, news and events and videos. Which in turn leads to what may determine if Jumo will succeed in the long term – nonprofits will need to feel Jumo is their key way to connect and be active and responsive. The forums allow both a positive light to be shone but also questions and concerns. Jumo guarantee that all nonprofits will be vetted and monitored and for Jumo to become the acid test that must be the case and nonprofits must be active otherwise the promised two-way street won’t exist.

Clint O’Brien of Care2 does a wonderful job in summarising what Jumo need to accomplish to succeed:

“Having more people enter the social entrepreneurship space is a good thing. We’re all competing to do the most good, so how can that be bad? But Jumo needs to create real community to succeed. It’s about creating the actual content, and context, to recruit members to go off and join the communities of supporters of nonprofit organizations,”

As for my verdict – I have high hopes that it will succeed and it needs to be more welcoming, all-encompassing and intuitive to achieve that. I’m sure the final version will be easier to modify and navigate but perhaps most importantly be exciting and motivating. The potential is there and already I can see the attraction of browsing the site as it stands but that’s just the first step. It is after all still the beta version – I expected more but these things time. How it will impact professional fundraising remains to be seen and I’ll follow up in a few months.