We’ve already seen some of the powerful ways that the corporate sector is utilizing social media to benefit their businesses, from interacting with consumers and engaging employees to streamlining practices and adding greater transparency. But for many in the non-profit sector, using these emerging technologies effectively still remains a bit of a mystery.

As further evidence of this fact, a recent piece over at Internet Revolution, discovered that only 4 out of the top 10 charities by revenue in the US currently display links to popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace on their homepages. This is rather staggering, considering that these aren’t merely start-up charities with a few employees, operating on shoestring budgets, but well-established organizations. Which is not to say that creating a successful effort of this kind need be cost prohibitive, on the contrary, it’s virtually free.

And while the opportunities to use these networks are surely there: fundraising, education, and outreach to name a few, there appears to be a disconnect. In light of this and given my own interest in philanthropy, I was excited to learn about a new project titled Social by Social that offers practical, scalable advice on how to implement these networking tools into furthering the aims of your organization.

Here’s a bit more about the endeavor in their own words:

“Social by Social is a practical guide to using new technologies to create social impact. It makes accessible the tools you need to engage a community, offer services, scale up activities and sustain projects. Whoever you are, it shows you how to take technology and turn it into real world benefits.

We want to help people in the public and third sectors do more good, by showing them the power of these technologies and how to access them. In the process, we hope we can also educate funders and policy workers about the huge shift of mindset and expectations needed to commission these projects successfully, to give the innovators more space to work.

Whether you’re a small charity wanting cheap web tools to support your work, a large organization seeking to engage more effectively with your community, a civil servant charged with making public services more efficient, or just a concerned citizen on a personal mission, we hope there’s something here for you.”

As a starting point and some added inspiration, I suggest you begin by looking into the project’s case studies.