**2. Prosocial behaviors, NGOs, and online communities**

Prosocial behaviors are voluntary actions intended to benefit others. Among those actions are helping, sharing, comforting, and cooperation. Psychologists suggest that prosocial behaviors can be learned in early childhood, when parents encourage their children to share their toys or act kindly toward pets and friends; prosocial behaviors are also fostered at school while working in a project or playing with other classmates [6]. It is said that children whose parents are empathic, warm, and comforting are themselves highly empathic with others [7]. Unfortunately, as they grow into adulthood, some individuals begin to lose the impel to act kindly or to demonstrate empathy towards others [8]. It seems that for some people, problems like poverty, hunger, or the prevention of diseases must be solved by institutions, governments, and public firms. On the other hand, there are individuals who believe that even though laws, technology, institutions, and public policies are needed to address social problems, the active participation of people and communities is required to achieve social change in a macro level; therefore, volunteering and cooperation are needed to achieve collective outcomes [7, 9].

NGOs are some of the institutions that have emerged to address some of the humanitarian, social, and environmental problems that affect our world. NGOs are private, self-governing organizations which share values that work to improve the quality of life of people in disadvantage. Usually, NGOs work at different levels. Some are involved with small-scale community relief activities, while others operate at the international level. The latest are known as fourth-generation NGOs and either work with welfare relief, community development, sustainable development, or people's movement. Having a set of goals established, or a cause to fight for, are not the only elements that NGOs need to be successful. The attainment of the objectives also depends on the support provided by a complex social network, a good communication effort, and effective marketing strategies [10].

create brand awareness, build community engagement, and distribute useful content [2, 3]. SNS are web-based services that allow individuals to connect with other users and exchange information using different formats (e.g., comments, videos, photos, etc.) [4]. Besides SNS individuals are also using microblogging sites like Twitter and content-sharing sites like Instagram and YouTube to interact with brands and social causes and demonstrate their pref-

With more than 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is nowadays the most popular social network worldwide [5]. With those numbers in hand, there is no wonder that many NGOs have embraced the opportunity to build their own Facebook fan page or their own Facebook communities in order to engage with their stakeholders, ask for their support, and create awareness about their programs. With thousands of communities to choose from, how are NGOs getting individuals to join their particular Facebook community? What tools are they using to engage visitors and convince them not only to navigate through the page but to take specific actions? How are individuals responding to those communications and marketing efforts?

We aim to answer these questions with a netnographic study and analyze how consumers use the interactive features of SNS to demonstrate their support and participate in prosocial activities. We begin this chapter with a brief description of prosocial behaviors, fourth-generation NGOs, and a general overview of how online social communities can be used to promote social change. Then, we describe how to nudge and incentivize individuals to participate in prosocial activities. In the second part, we describe our research method and present our main findings. The chapter concludes with an outlining of the implications for NGO leaders and small nonprofits willing to adopt SNS as a channel to communicate with their stakeholders.

Prosocial behaviors are voluntary actions intended to benefit others. Among those actions are helping, sharing, comforting, and cooperation. Psychologists suggest that prosocial behaviors can be learned in early childhood, when parents encourage their children to share their toys or act kindly toward pets and friends; prosocial behaviors are also fostered at school while working in a project or playing with other classmates [6]. It is said that children whose parents are empathic, warm, and comforting are themselves highly empathic with others [7]. Unfortunately, as they grow into adulthood, some individuals begin to lose the impel to act kindly or to demonstrate empathy towards others [8]. It seems that for some people, problems like poverty, hunger, or the prevention of diseases must be solved by institutions, governments, and public firms. On the other hand, there are individuals who believe that even though laws, technology, institutions, and public policies are needed to address social problems, the active participation of people and communities is required to achieve social change in a macro level; therefore, volunteering and cooperation are needed to achieve collective outcomes [7, 9]. NGOs are some of the institutions that have emerged to address some of the humanitarian, social, and environmental problems that affect our world. NGOs are private, self-governing organizations which share values that work to improve the quality of life of people in

**2. Prosocial behaviors, NGOs, and online communities**

erences, opinions, and interests.

116 Marketing

Besides supporting the efforts of NGOs, individuals have joined forces to take action and solve their problems, creating groups and communities of like-minded people, willing to drive social change [11]. The members of those groups not only gather in face-to-face meetings, go door knocking asking for donations, or participate in placard-carrying protests. Nowadays, they are taking advantage of SNS to create online communities, also known as issue-based online social change communities (issue-based OSCC) [1]. In general, online social communities are computer-mediated forums where groups of people communicate in various forms (e.g., texts, photographs, videos, hyperlinks, etc.). More specifically, issue-based OSCC focus on particular social issues (e.g., child labor, global warming, etc.) and have a specific agenda that they wish to address through the use of social media. Usually, they use Facebook to form the community and tend to name it by the activity and people they serve, such as breast cancer patient support community, ecotourism, etc. [12, 13].

Usually, the leaders of the issue-based OSCC employ different tools to educate, motivate, entertain, and offer different resources to the members of the community, so they can show their support, have access to newsletters, buy merchandise, or make an online donation. In fact, most nonprofits and NGOs like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature have also built their own Facebook communities to take advantage of the features that this SNS offers [1]. Being available 24/7, Facebook allows members of communities to interact more frequently and intensely with each other and with their favorite cause. Besides, given that each community has its own set of shared values, language, meanings, and practices, these spaces have the capacity to foster a shared sense of civic identity that might yield a more organized form of prosocial participation and build engagement and a meaningful connection between members of the community [14, 15]. If such engagement is present, we can at least expect that members of the community will engage in positive forms of evangelism, recruiting other people to get informed about the issue-based OSCC or to contribute to the cause [14].

Additionally, Facebook allows individuals to build social capital (i.e., resources accumulated through the relationships among people), which can be linked to different positive social outcomes, such as lower crime rates, better public health, an increased commitment to a community, and the ability to mobilize collective actions, leading to spontaneous grassroots movements that motivate individuals to take responsibility for their community and its main concerns [1, 13].
