New Media and nonprofit organisations? Relationship Building Effort ? A Singapore Perspective

Abstract

To establish legitimacy that is crucial to sustain their operations and garner popular support, nonprofits in Singapore have to leverage new media such as websites and Facebook to cultivate sustainable relationships with key stakeholders. Nonprofits? online relationship building consists of seven relational dimensions namely usability, interactivity, information dissemination, disclosure, accountability, commitment, and inclusivity. An examination of websites and Facebook pages of nonprofits in Singapore shows that while websites are still a predominant platform and very well taken care of, Facebook serves as an additional informal, interactive communication space to complement the websites and maximize nonprofits? online relationship building capacity. Organizational factors such as type, revenue, and staff strength are also positively correlated with how different relational dimensions manifest on the websites and Facebook pages. An integrative model of online relationship building was proposed in which the relationships between websites and Facebook pages are characterized as synergistic, complementary and indifferent. The synergistic relationship sees a strong manifestation of disclosure; the complementary relationship exists for interactivity, information dissemination, accountability, and commitment; and, the indifferent relationship for inclusivity.