I don’t think I’ve ever worked with an organization quite like Epic Change. Founder Stacey Monk believes that “intention makes a powerful difference.” Epic Change is really all about intention: intention to build, fund, and support a school that literally changes children’s lives. Intention to listen. Intention to include everyone who wants to be part of the organization, and let everyone own this thing called Epic Change.

Epic Change is an example of an organization that really gets the idea of following its members, and intentional listening. Allison Fine recently wrote about this concept of “followership.” The bottom line, as Allison puts it is to “follow or become irrelevant.” If your organization isn’t willing to listen and include its followers, then it may well become irrelevant. As I have written before, Epic Change is anything but. Stacey and co-director Sanjay Patel invite anyone who is “heartfully-connected” (Stacey’s words) to become part of every online campaign, from planning through execution. They have three signature events: To Mama With Love, LalaLove, and now, Epic Thanks. Followers’ ideas are listened to seriously and included in the final product. In turn, Sanjay and Stacey also bounce their ideas off of the group and ask for feedback, always listening and always respectfully incorporating ideas. What is Epic Thanks is truly a result of great followership.

One example of followership is the gratitude dance idea. Sanjay Patel posted a video of the dance within the Epic Thanks planning group. Within minutes, the conversation within the planning group evolved from “I’m so not dancing” (me) to “what if we had a dance-off ?” (Stacey) to” let’s make a thank-you dance video if we hit our target amount!” And of course Stacey replies, “Let me see what we could build to host the video…may be able to get something up tomorrow…” Later that day, Stacey writes that she’s already filmed Leah, Gideon, and Mama Lucy (from the school) dancing…ready for their final thank-you dance video.

I cannot think of a better example of followership than Epic Change.

This Thanksgiving season, as in years past, Epic Change is raising money to support the Shepherds School in Arusha, Tanzania. The past three years, Epic Change has supported the school through a worldwide gratitude event called Tweetsgiving. It raised thousands of dollars to build and support the Shepherds Junior School, a primary school. Now the kids who had nowhere to go for an education are hoping that their dreams of becoming lawyers, doctors, and astronauts will continue with a secondary school education. The kids that started in 5th grade three years ago are ready for secondary school, but there is no secondary school in Arusha that will nurture and support these dreams. I met two of these students, Leah and Gideon, when they came to Boston two weeks ago with Mama Lucy (excuse the fuzzy photo of us at the bowling alley, but it’s the best image we have). If I do nothing else, I want them to have a chance to make their dreams come true.

So here’s my promise: I’ll dance if I reach my fundrasing goal of $100 for Epic Thanks. Please consider donating any amount, even $1 towards a worthwhile cause. And an organization that supports followership, intention, and children’s dreams.

I’m a terrible dancer, so this could get interesting… (But not as bad as Matt, apparently. See video below.)

The newest form of social media fundraising has arrived, and as far as I can tell, it may be one of the first instances I’ve seen of a purely Google+-based fundraiser. This fundraiser was created just hours ago, and it immediately grabbed my attention. Carter Gibson, an American University senior, announced this afternoon through his Google Plus account:

And others were inspired by this act.

Intrigued, I began to chat with Carter on Google+, in order to find out more about his inspiration, experience using Google+ for fundraising, how he’s going to follow-up on this fundraiser, and how the fundraiser is faring seven hours after it has begun. This is our Google+ interview:

Why are you raising money for the Red Cross’ Horn of Africa Relief?

I was in Best Buy today looking to buy something when I realized that either I a.) had what I wanted or b.) nothing really caught my eye. I returned home and realized that, even though I am very poor college student, I had to use my money in a better way. I’ve been working with Daria Musk on various projects that have really gotten me fired up to start giving back more. I had originally heard about the Horn of Africa during my internship at the Ad Council and felt compelled to do my part to get involved.

Why through G+? (And…what was the inspiration?)

I’ve never been part of a social network that makes me feel grateful to be a part of it until Google+. The relationships I’ve built on here are meaningful and powerful. Facebook is a place for friends and “friends” aren’t always the most reliable when it comes to supporting causes because that’s not what Facebook is necessarily “for.” Google+ on the other hands demands cerebral interactions in order to get the most out of it. People feel an innate obligation to support one another and I wanted to capitalize on that.

It was an obvious choice for me to use a platform that has a foundation promoting collaboration and support of other community member’s drives and ambitions.

The reason I made the requirement for people to circle me instead of +1′ing my post is because I don’t want to simply fundraise, I want to raise awareness and create activists. +1′ing is lazy and it’s become all people expect to have to do to make a difference. Sadly, it doesn’t work like that. People need to be engaging other people in order to make a meaningful impact. By resharing and circling, my post has been shared across who knows how many different circles creating awareness. I would much rather have 100 new contacts to engage than 1,000 +1s.

As you are using the platform to raise funds, what are the issues with using G+ for fundraising that you’ve come across? How would you change them to make it easier for you? What are the plus sides to using G+ for your challenge?

I think that, especially in a beta, it’s up to users to find creative ways to use a platform and I think I did that. In the future I would hope to see Google+ implement something like KickStarter or Google Checkout (which they need to do right and is probably pretty far down the line).

The main advantage here is the kind of person Google+ attracts. This is an interactive forum on the large-scale with people who sincerely want to connect and help other people.

What do you say to the naysayers that think you’re just in it to increase the number of circles you are in?

I don’t have any harsh words for the naysayers, rather, the questions they’re asking are the right questions to ask – “Isn’t this self-serving? This is a scam. He won’t do it” are all questions any intelligent internet user should ask. If they circle me, and my other content enough to not uncircle me after Friday, then I’ve expanded the number of people I can reach out and they’ve gained another interesting person in their stream.

In response however I stress that I’m here to create activists and raise awareness.

In all honesty, I’ve built so many relationships on Google+ that I can’t possibly afford to flake out. The point I’m trying to make here, to as many people as possible, is if a poor college student can afford to donate, why can’t you? I think that’s the much more important question to ask.

When you allude to “if you do circle me…you’ll see more opportunities in the future to help out,” what do you have in mind? (see second screenshot, above)

Judging on how this all works out (and it seems to be doing quite well) I’ll do something exactly like this in the future. As for any other future plans, my wheels are turning and I do have some give-back plans that I can’t talk about yet, but they are on a much larger scale.

What results have you seen (four hours into it) of your fundraising G+ campaign?

I have 102 shares in 4hrs and hundred of comments and likes on all of them. I’m up to donating about $100, based on the 182 new circles I’ve been placed in.

Editor’s note: Carter began the fundraiser in 1,244 circles, and he’s now in 1,426 circles.

How are you viewing and relating to your new G+ friends? How will you nurture those relationships? What can they expect from you on G+?

It’s too much to keep up with everyone right now, but I will be going through my circle notifications later tonight and tomorrow to scope out interesting people supporting me. I plan to circle back as many interesting people as I can.

As for what they can expect, I’m a social media blogger specifically on Google+. I write many editorials, lists, and the occasional breaking news piece. I’m also a HUGE fan of Hangouts and love engaging with people through them (almost all of my Hangouts are public). Additionally they can expect me to blog about non-profits through the Ad Council. Basically technology, news, satire, social media, Hangouts, and funny stuff every once in a while.

Engaging and responding is something I try to do very often. I don’t take my connections for granted.

What’s next for you?

Gosh! Who knows! Isn’t that the #1 question for a college senior!? Right now I’m just going to keep blogging, making relationships, staying in touch with the Ad Council, and continuing the job search.

Update: Carter held an open Google Hangout with Extras on Friday to talk about the fundraiser. By Friday, Carter was added to 786 circles, his updates were shared over 450 times, and he ultimately donated $393 to the Red Cross Horn of Africa relief fund.

Carter Gibson is a college senior from Virginia, Beach, VA attending American University, where he is pursuing a BSBA with a specialization in Marketing and a BA in Film & Media Arts. He’s a huge film buff and marketing fascinates him. On top of all that, he is a roller coaster junkie. Carter blogs about blog about non-profits and social media at the Ad Council’s AdLibbing.org and about Google Plus at PlusHeadlines. You can circle him on Google plus here.

In early July, I read a blog post about the Northeast Animal Shelter’s successful Groupon G-Team deal, so I was intrigued when I came across a Jolkona tweet later that month promoting its current Groupon deal.

Jolkona ran a Groupon deal as an experiment to try to raise money for a specific campaign using Groupon. Jolkona partnered with the Seattle International Foundation (SIF), which pledged to match every donation, dollar for dollar, up to $25,000. Starting July 26th, Groupon Seattle’s G-Team allowed subscribers to join Jolkona and SIF in making an investment in women’s leadership by pledging support in increments of $10. For each $500 collected, Jolkona would fund one week of training for a woman leader to come to Seattle and participate in a 10-week fellowship program, run by iLEAP: The Center for Critical Service.

“After reading about both Jolkona’s and the Northeast Animal Shelter’s Groupon campaigns, it’s clear that THE critical factor to Groupon success is how well the nonprofit promotes its deal.”

I contacted Laura Kimball, Director of Communications and Social Media at Jolkona, for an interview while the deal was still live. The interview is published below. I also followed-up with Laura after deal expired to find out how successful the experiment was for Jolkona.

1. Why did you decide to run a campaign through Groupon?

For us, the reason to go with this campaign was 1) To try out the G-Team platform; 2) It was relatively “low risk,” meaning that it costs us, the nonprofit, $0 to run the campaign as opposed to business deals (I love the list in Maddie’s blog post; we did a ton of research to look at the risks before signing the contract); and 3) We’re using it to launch a much larger campaign that has a higher price-point and will be promoted from the SIF Women Leaders page on Jolkona’s website.

This campaign with Groupon is not a stand-alone campaign.

2. Did you apply to run your daily deal through Groupon’s G-team application?

I first heard about Groupon’s G-Team campaign at SXSW during a panel that Patty Huber, Groupon’s G-Team Director, was on. They launched the G-Team in Seattle in May and I had been talking with their Seattle G-Team coordinator since April to try to find the ideal campaign that would work with Jolkona and the Groupon platform. They have an application process on their website: http://www.groupon.com/g-team.

Editor’s background note about the G-Team: The G-Team, serving 39 markets, features campaigns from local non-profit organizations, and all proceeds go directly to the featured cause. Since July 2010, Groupon has run nearly 250 campaigns on the G-Team platform, which has raised more than $300,000 for local organizations nationwide.

3. What are your goals for the campaign? How many deals are you hoping to sell?

Our goal is to sell 500 deals so that with the Seattle International Foundation’s match, we’ll fund one complete 10-week fellowship. As of day 2, we’re holding steady at 245 Groupons sold, so I’m not sure how close we’ll get by the end of the three-day deal.

4. Who do you anticipate buying the deals: returning donors or new donors?

Our original goal was to tap into Groupon Seattle’s list of 700,000 subscribers. But after watching the results of the campaign and how the G-Team campaigns do not receive the same exposure on their site and in the emails as regular deals, I believe it’s going to be people who are already engaged with our organization or our matching partner’s organization.

If you go to the Seattle Groupon site, and scroll all the way down the screen…you’ll see “Today’s Featured Cause” in the very last box at the bottom of the screen. The box is called “More from Groupon.” This placement is bad for the nonprofit, though I understand it may have to do with limitations of Groupon’s technology and platform. When I brought this up with our G-Team coordinator, he said that they’re working on changing this. I also provided feedback to Groupon regarding how disappointed I was that the G-Team campaigns don’t receive better exposure on Groupon’s site, post-campaign.

5. How are you marketing the deal?

Like crazy since Tuesday! We’ve activated our networks and communities by sending out email newsletters, Tweets (which is how you caught wind of it), and Facebook. We’re also working very closely with our matching partners, the Seattle International Foundation and iLEAP, to have a coordinated effort and they’re absolutely incredible with getting the word out about the campaign! (See the Facebook update below, tagging Jolkona’s and iLEAP’s Facebook pages.)

“If we didn’t have relationships with this community already set up, this campaign would not be as successful as it is.”

We also have a very strong community of volunteers at Jolkona and advocates in the community who are very connected in social media and are helping us get the word out via these channels.

6. What is the most effective marketing channel that you’ve found of getting people to purchase a deal? Why do you think that is?

What’s working the best is leveraging the personal connections that our team of volunteers have, our board, advisors, etc. and asking them to help us with this campaign. It’s been incredible to watch all of the excitement for this campaign grow. People want to support you if they care about you first and they see you doing something amazing. Having a matching partner is key — every $10 will be matched, which is a very “easy buy” for people — and our partner is doing an incredible job helping us promote it.

After the campaign: Data and post-campaign analysis

After the Groupon deal expired, Laura kindly sent me all kinds of fabulous statistics about the campaign, including clickthrough rates, demographics, and deal totals.

Groupon clickthrough rates
• 300,000+ Groupon subscribers saw the Jolkona campaign in their daily deals email
• 250 people clicked on the link from the Groupon email
• .08 click-thru (Groupon’s G-team average is .05)

Self-promoting the deal: clickthrough rates driven by Jolkona/SeaIF/iLEAP
• Campaign page was shared over 277 times on Facebook using http://gr.pn/pfZ134 (short URL)
• Interest and shares: 344 clicks; 66 Tweets; 109 Shares on Facebook, 177 Likes, 29 Comments

Deal success: $5,220 raised
• 269 Groupons purchased, 261 processed (average raised is $1,000)
• $2,610 raised from Groupon + SeaIF match = $5,220 raised in 3 days!

Demographics:
• 99 different people purchased our deal
• Majority purchased on Day 1, between 12pm-11pm PT
• Top cities: San Francisco, Seattle
• Majority of purchasers came from Jolkona, SeaIF, or iLEAP’s existing networks

Note: only four out of the 99 purchasers were not from one of Jolkona’s existing networks

Laura notes: “This Groupon campaign was the kick off to a larger campaign that we’re still fundraising for — and the Seattle International Foundation is still matching any donation made. Even though only four names on the list are unknown to us and our campaign partners, I would say that purchasing the Groupon deal may have been the first time some of the 95 people became a donor.”

“They may have already been our Facebook fans, Twitter followers, or community BFFs, but this was the first time that they made a transaction.”

Laura Kimball is the Director of Communications and Social Media at Jolkona.

Laura is a nonprofit marketer, social media community manager, writer, and all-around content girl. As the Director of Communications & Social Media, she leads the marketing and outreach efforts for Jolkona. When not changing the world, Laura blogs at lamiki.com, lifts heavy things at CrossFit, competes in autocross races around the state, and can always be found on Twitter (@lamiki).

Jolkona means “drop of water” in Bengali, and represents the idea that when it comes to charitable giving, “every drop counts.” Jolkona Foundation makes it easy for individuals to give directly to low-cost, high-impact philanthropic opportunities around the world. They work with carefully chosen partner organizations to create affordable donation options with a measurable impact, and provide proof of impact for every donation.

I’ve been looking forward to the promise of “social media+fundraising” for a while now. There are plenty of fundraising solutions that leverage social media, relying on fundraisers to tweet, share, and post their fundraising pages to their social networks. There are also fundraising solutions that fully rely on and live within a social platform, such as a Facebook fundraising application or a fundraising widget you place on your blog. Then there is the newest evolution: fundraising that innately utilizes the social media platform. In the slide presentation (above), I describe in more detail the three categories of social media fundraising, along with my thoughts about how social media fundraising has finally “arrived.”

Sharing is huge

A Share This report states that sharing generates more than 10% of all internet traffic. In order of frequency, most people click on links shared within Facebook, followed by “other” (blogs, social bookmarking, etc.), email, and Twitter. Facebook is the largest sharing channel, at 38%, which is why so many online fundraising pages are shared – and shared again – on Facebook.

Social fundraising is growing

By all definitions, online fundraising is growing. Social fundraising is also growing. Network for Good’s online giving study’s quarterly giving index illustrates that, despite the current poor economic outlook, social giving is still rising. In Q1 and Q2 of 2011, social giving increased (though Q1 giving may have been skewed by Japan tsunami relief fundraising). The 2011 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report on US nonprofit social media use has some fascinating stats showing that Facebook is the social media platform most nonprofits are using if they are participating in social media fundraising. The catch? A very small percentage of US nonprofits have raised significant money using Facebook.

Social sharing of fundraising pages yields results: Social media fundraising that leverages social networks

When fundraisers share their fundraising pages to their social networks, giving increases. Blackbaud recently issued a report and created an infographic about the power of peer-to-peer sharing. Blackbaud found that Twitter and Facebook posts convert 0.25% of impressions into donations. It also found that Twitter users increased donations nearly 10x more than those who did not use Twitter. FirstGiving found that for every share to Facebook, 5 people returned to a fundraising page. FirstGiving also found that the value of a share to Facebook was worth $10.87 in donations.

Peer to peer online donation solutions (such as FirstGiving, Razoo, Crowdrise, Donors Choose), where a fundraiser creates a fundraising page and shares that page, are increasingly used by nonprofit organizations. It is clear from all the data that the culture of online donations is growing. Sometimes these solutions are also called social media fundraising, because they rely so heavily on social media for amplification. These solutions are ideal for leveraging an organization’s base, and increasing donations through personal social network sharing. However, it’s just as important that the nonprofit also have a vibrant social media presence to amplify these efforts and engage with fundraisers.

Giving that relies on or lives exclusively within a social network

Social media fundraising can also be defined as fundraising that happens within a social network, rather than shared to the network. Most examples of these fundraising solutions live within Facebook. Examples include Causes, fundraising tabs that you can add to a Facebook page or profile (such as the What Gives and FirstGiving solutions), as well as fundraising applications developed for a Facebook Page. These fundraising solutions rely on Facebook to thrive: you have to connect using Facebook, and they count on fundraisers sharing with their Facebook friends for amplification. Other examples include Google checkout for nonprofits on YouTube or fundraising widgets placed on a blog. This type of fundraising is growing, but certainly is not mainstream, and best used where you have the most supporters and know you can energize them.

Innately utilizing a social platform for donations

This is the promise of social media fundraising. What if someone could donate just by tweeting, posting an update, Liking a comment on Facebook, giving a Linkedin recommendation, or writing a blog post? This is the true convergence of social media and fundraising. A few companies are offering these types of social media fundraising solutions: Help Attack!, Twitpay, and Givey.co.uk.

As Ehren Foss, CEO of With Help Attack! explains, “we wanted to make the message itself a donation. We wanted to figure out methods for giving that are contextual to each specific platform, so that the very act of being online could be a donation.” With Help Attack!, for example, fundraisers can choose to give by assigning tweets, Facebook posts, using certain key words or hashtags, etc, until they reach their pledge amount. Ehren writes that “HelpAttack! donors frequently tell us they make more updates than fewer, hoping to reach a certain level of giving (“three more Tweets to $25!”). In addition, many donors choose to share their pledges with their networks on Twitter and Facebook. ”

Givey and Twitpay offer similar services, but neither are as developed or offer as many ways to give as Help Attack! A fundraising solution like these are great to use during an online or fundraising campaign to raise awareness, increase donations within a limited amount of time, and energize your base. I suspect that you will also need to educate your fundraisers about this brand new way of fundraising merely by tweeting or posting.

I think the future of social media fundraising has just arrived. I can’t wait to see how it matures.

image courtesy of Yes!Online via Creative Commons

Whether you realize it or not, Facebook may be the next big online donation platform. And I think it’s not so far off. With the creation of Facebook Payments, and the new structuring of Facebook Deals, I can envision Facebook developing an online donation platform where donors and nonprofits collect and disperse Facebook Credits, resulting in real-world cash for nonprofit organizations. Here’s why:

Facebook currently owns and disburses a Facebook-only currency, Facebook Credits. If you play a game on Facebook that requires you to purchase virtual goods, you probably have to use Facebook Credits. (“Most transactions within games on Facebook now require that you first purchase Facebook Credits and then go to your favorite game to exchange your credits for the in-game currency,” according to Facebook’s Help Center.) Facebook also pays out the real currency players spend: “Facebook splits revenue from Facebook Credits with app developers, meaning it has to disburse funds as well as collect them.” What’s more, it’s no small market: virtual goods for sale on the site make up an estimated $835 million market.

Facebook Credits for Facebook Deals. Facebook launched Facebook Deals in five US cities yesterday. Soon, you will be able to buy Deals with Facebook Credits. (For the time being, you receive a voucher that you can redeem for the Deal.) However, it really is only a matter of time until kids “load up with Credits with the intention of giving it to Zynga for Cityville crap and end up spending it at The Gap instead,” as ReadWriteWeb noted yesterday.

Facebook is preparing to move into the payment space in a other ways as well. Facebook recently formed a subsidiary, Facebook Payments, which will handle payments to developers related to the Facebook Credits program. According to a Venture Beat article, Facebook insiders say that they want to move into e-commerce. It is rumoured to also want to create an ad network in competition with Google’s AdSense.

The bad, bad news: Facebook takes a 30% cut of of all Facebook Credits transactions. That is HUGE. More like UNreal. A whopping transaction fee (remember all the cries about Jumo’s 20% transaction fee?) would cripple its chances of success. Facebook may think it can create “one platform to rule them all,” but I won’t be using it if it harms the organization to the tune of 30% of the donations.

I may be wrong, of course, but it’s looking to me like Facebook may jump into the online donation space. If they do so, Facebook would be primed to be a nonprofit organization’s dream platform: it knows a LOT about the personal lifestyles of billions of users, and it has expertise handling real-world and virtual currencies.

image courtesy of ku.sagi

In January, I wrote a blog post for Frogloop, Care2′s nonprofit marketing blog called “Why Free Agent Social Communities Rock.” In it, I posited that there is a new class of free agents, specific to social networks: “the free agent community.”  The free agent community (both loose and formal) generally exists on a social network and decides, as a group, to raise funds for an unafilliated nonprofit organization. The community could be a blog community, a YouTube channel community, a Facebook or Ning group, or a reddit group. As I mentioned in the Frogloop post, the million dollar question for nonprofits is how to participate in social social media such that online communities are aware of them, listening for opportunities, and have the resources to participate within independent communities that might be likely collaborators.

In the case of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I’ve seen the rise of free agent communities once again, this time to raise funds for disaster relief in Japan. Once again, this begs the question of best practices and whether or not nonprofits are working with free agent communities to establish relationships. In the case of the international relief organizations, it very well could be worth their while to create relationships with these free agent community leaders so that they can work together quickly when the next natural disaster occurs.

I know of at least three free agent communities currently raising money for Japan disaster relief.

For Japan With Love: Bloggers Day of Silence

As the world learned of the devastating national disaster that took Japan by surprise; the wedding blog Ever Ours and e-magazine Utterly Engaged created the one-day event and ongoing fundraising campaign For Japan with Love,  initiating a day of silence amongst bloggers. Bloggers quickly signed on to the Blogger’s Day of Silence, with the concept of banding together and to spend March 18th thinking of the people affected by the Japan disaster.  The call to action was simple: to communicate the day of silence, to not write a blog post on March 18th, and to direct blog readers to donate enough to meet the initial goal of sending five Shelter Boxes to Japan.

Their initiative brought together over 1200 bloggers around the world.  Each blogger honored the simple request, effectively sharing the message with their own followers by placing a badge on his or her blog, and blogging ahead of March 18th about the Day of Silence.  Twitter and Facebook awareness spread quickly. The event generated more donations than the organizers ever hoped to raise. Their fundraising page has raised over $66,000 for ShelterBox USA. If you want to read more, I interviewed the organizers and published it on the FirstGiving blog.

Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan

The Anime and Manga blogging community came together right after the disaster in Japan to create two fundraisers, one for Doctors Without Borders, and the other for Shelterbox USA. On their Doctors Without Borders fundraising page they state: “There is no question that many fans of anime and manga feel a certain affinity for Japan, whether they’ve been to the country before or not. After all, this is a country that creates vibrant stories and art that are not just entertainment, but a porthole into a fun and fascinating culture.” Anime and Manga bloggers for Japan created their own website, began tweeting news from @allaboutmanga about the fundraisers and disaster relief, and asked the manga and anime blogger community to blog about the fundraiser. You can read more about who is involved and what they are doing for Japan relief on their website. To date, 59 bloggers have written blog posts about the fundraisers, and the community has raised $2,500 for Shelterbox USA and $2,225 for Doctors Without Borders.

Pagans for Japan

Peter Dybing, a Wiccan Elder living in the US Virgin Islands, created the Pagan Japan Relief Doctors Without Borders fundraiser to benefit Doctors Without Borders. On his fundraising page Peter write, “we as a community are also engaged in building a community response culture that says much about how far we have come and is an example of Pagans from many paths working together.” Within four days, the fundraiser had raised $17, 000. Peter Dybing gathered the Pagan community together, primarily through his blog community, and rallied that community to raise over $31,000 for Doctors Without Borders.

What do these communities have in common?

• A community based on shared interests
• At least two communites are “networked communities” of other blogs and bloggers. The Utterly Engaged/Ever Ours and Anime and Manga Bloggers For Japan fundraisers are actually communities of blog owners and readers that are loosely networked but feel close enough through social media ties to raise money together
• Blog readership: the blog readers are powering these fundraisers

What are the lessons that nonprofits can learn from these?

• When a free agent community comes together, it chooses a nonprofit independently. If you are that nonprofit, reach out and connect with the organizers; they are likely to raise money for  your organization again.
• Figure out the social media places where your nonprofit would have a logical interest: comment on blogs about your issue and cause, become involved in the Reddit subgroup, etc.
• Bring the the community leaders inside your organization. When you find your free agent community, ask them to be part of the solution: ask members to write guest posts, to become part of the social media spaces, or ask their opinion of your organization. In all likelihood, they would be thrilled to be asked.

Note: Though not a free agent community as per the definition above, I did write previously about how SXSW Interactive conference came together to raise money for Japan.

Organizations want to create a personal connection to its donors, but one organization has taken that idea out of the box and run with it. The North American Bear Center has enabled its supporters to craft a personal relationship with a bear family through Facebook. In fact, the NABC has carefully created a Facebook community around Lily the Black Bear that seamlessly furthers their mission of education and advancing the survival of black bears. But their fans care most about Lily and her bear family.

Lily the Black Bear’s fans can be moved to action in great numbers when asked. There is no better measuring stick of online community engagement than a community’s willingness to engage and take action when asked. All told, Lily the Bear’s fans have helped to raise $159,597 from 23,502 fans just this year. In terms of social network fundraising, that’s huge. The real question is why and what could be replicated by others.

Lily the Black Bear has successfully put a face on an issue and developed an entire online community around the cause.

The North American Bear Center in Northern Minnesota has created an entire movement of people who care about the North American bear around Lily the Black Bear. Lily the Bear’s Facebook Page features daily blog posts about the lives of bears, as well as webcam and photo uploads from Lily’s den and the area. The Page has 119,457 fans, many of which care deeply about Lily the Black Bear and her family. (Facebook status updates receive, on average, 50 comments.)

The NABC has steadily built an incredibly engaged Facebook community and community of fans that watch their live bear webcams, pay attention to the Facebook updates, and want to know more about bears. This summer the organization mobilized 17,916 votes to help win $100,000 in the second Chase Community Giving challenge. It also came in second in Minnesota’s Give to the Max Day, motivating 1793 supporters to give $39,597. Lastly, it has leveraged its community’s goodwill to help a local school win $20,000.

Lily the Bear even participates in America’s School Spirit Challenge

In November, Care2, along with America’s Great Schools and Explore.org held the 2010 K-12 America’s School Spirit Challenge. The school with the most votes would receive $20,000. As Lily the Bear’s bear family (and her human research family) reside near the Ely Esy school, the NABC decided to ask Lily’s Facebook Page fans to help. Fans voted in large numbers. Voters wrote notes like “it’s the home of Lilly & Hope & all the other bears in the Research Team” and “I’m a Lily & Hope Fan. Love those bears.”

The Ely Esy school won easily, receiving 3,739 votes. Lily the Bear fans cast over 500 votes the day before voting closed to assure a victory of over 1,000 votes. Contributing to this success was that Lily the Bear Facebook fans are deeply connected to the Facebook Page, the mission of the organization, and clearly understood the connection to the local school. This specific challenge shows that if there is a connection to the cause, fans can be encouraged to support organizations other than their own.

What is the NABC doing so well?

1. They have brought us into the organization through a personal connection with Lily. Social media is personal, and Facebook is a great medium for sustaining friendships. Once you’ve met Lily, by the way, you’re hooked!

2. NABC supports the fan page with great content on the website. Supporting content includes two live webcams, photos, and bear facts.

3. Every moment is an educational moment. Lily the Black Bear’s Facebook wall is a mix of educational resources about bears and inside peeks into Lily and her family’s daily life. The NABC sees every activity of the bears as a potential educational moment.

4. Through this mix of education and personal involvement, the NABC motivates Lily’s fans to save black bears and continue to support the NABC. Fans are not only saving black bears, but they are saving bears just like Lily. When you put it that way, it’s easy to motivate fans to donate. This is why the organization has been able to motivate thousands to vote, donate and support efforts that save the black bears.

Lily the Bear IS incredible, but the NABC deserves all the credit for creating an incredibly engaged online community, and a movement, from the personal connection to one family of bears.

Many thanks to Sue Anne Reed for introducing me to Lily the Bear and the NABC on Facebook.

Epic Change is one woman’s quest to change the world permanently…through gratitude. Stacey Monk is a changemaker, a fountain of gratitude, and an incredible connector. She founded Epic Change in 2007 to amplify the voices of grassroots changemakers and social entrepreneurs. Since then, Epic Change has been raising money through gratitude, one tweet at a time.

She did it all through the lens of gratitude. In 2008, Epic Change created Tweetsgiving, ecouraging the Twitterati to tweet what they are grateful for, and connect that to a donation for as little as $10 to build a boarding school in Tanzania. That raised $11,000 in 48 hours. Tweetsgiving 2009 raised $30,000 from 657 donors. This past Mother’s Day, Epic Change’s collaborative artspace, To Mama With Love, raised $16,000 from 329 online, spurred on by twitterers, bloggers, and facebook users.

Tweetsgiving 2010 is called Epic Thanks. The campaign utilizes gratitude cards, online evangelists, and community organizing.

Epic Thanks is also one of the great online fundraising campaigns of 2010.

Epic Thanks is a worldwide celebration of gratitude that began November 23. The idea is so simple it’s incredible: bring the thankfulness back to Thanksgiving. Show the gratitude in our hearts, share it, and transform the world. This Tweetsgiving, Epic Change has selected three changemaker organizations to recieve the donations: Mama Lucy’s school in Tanzania, Subhash Ghimire’s Peace School in Nepal, and Mike Halley’s Halley’s K-9s for Veterans.

You only have to visit www.epicthanks.org to see gratitude on display. This campaign site makes you smile, and it’s easy to express  gratitude on the site. Who doesn’t want to donate out of gratitude?

I personally love the Gratitude Cards. They are fun, beautifully designed, easily shareable, and a great donation incentive. Stacey explains: “This year, when you create one of these postcards on the site, you’ll be asked to give before you send the postcard. People can give from $10 to ‘a gajillion dollars.’ If someone wants to give a gajillion dollars, then we’ll figure out how to do that.”

Stacey tells me:

“In my dream world 10,000 people will create postcards and post them.”

To understand the mechanics of how Stacey Monk, Sanjay Patel and the incredible Epic Change volunteer team made this happen, you only have to understand Stacey:  that intersection of intention, determination, gratefulness, and community.

Early on, the Epic Change team reached out to almost 100 supporters personally, asking them to host a local Epic Thanks fundraiser, and/or become an online campaign evangelist. Every volunteer committed to completing at least one Epic Thanks activity, such as donating money, asking five friends to donate, writing blog posts, etc. (Disclosure – I completed the form and one of the things I agreed to do was write a blog post about Epic Thanks. Another was to donate.)

Volunteers were invited into a closed discussion group. Stacey got the group rolling by asking us to introduce ourselves and talk about what we are grateful for. As the event date grew nearer, we discussed what we are each doing to promote the event, encourage donations. Stacey is our cheerleader. Bringing supporters into the planning and implementation jump-started this year’s Epic Thanks right out of the door with abundant tweets and gratitude cards. That’s community organizing at its best.

Last year, I was also invited to participate in the online volunteer group, and I was curious what is different about this year’s group. Stacey answers:

“Our planning group this year is much bigger than previously and more geographically dispersed. We wanted people who are heartfully-connected rather than people who would lend us their name. Intention makes a powerful difference. Influencers are bombarded by a million different requests and don’t have the opportunity to get deeply connected to something that they are personally sharing. ” And that’s what this group really is – everyone is incredibly generous, and heartfully-connected to Epic Change.

As I write this, 118 grateful souls have invested $5,876 in the dreams of three incredible changemakers. Thus far #EpicThanks has been tweeted 1,483 times! Stacey Monk’s fundraising goal is $1 million. Let’s tweet gratitude and re-tweet it often.

Intention makes a powerful difference

I hope you’ll participate in Epic Thanks in one way or another, and donate. I have.

This week I was shown an example of great social network fundraising. Epic Change launched an online fundraising event called To Mama With Love. It is a “collaborative art project that honors moms across the globe and raises funds to invest in one remarkable mama who dreams of building a home for children in her village.”

To Mama With Love takes Mother’s Day away from greeting card companies and merchants, and reminds us that the meaning of Mother’s Day is gratitude and honoring a mother.

What is so innovative about To Mama With Love is that it’s an engagement strategy. To Mama With Love encourages you to create a “heartspace” dedicated to a mother you want to honor, and decorate it with photos, film, words, and art. It personally engages the donor, and guess what? It also extends reach by touching someone else through the engagement. In other words, if I honor my friend or my own mother, I’ve touched that person. Maybe then the person that I honor will honor another mother, in turn.

Epic Change has created a new fundraising model that, at its essence is:

- A conversation (in this case about gratitude and mothers), but not about needed funds.

- About giving in more ways than from your pocket.

- A movement (in this case, connecting me with everyone else honoring a mom)

- Personal engagement

A conversation and a movement: what is brilliant about To Mama With Love, is that it is not about any single gesture of love – it means to be bigger. My gesture of love will not create homes for children. To Mama With Love globally links together all of the moms that have inspired this gratitude (in a beautiful visual graphic image on the website). As soon as I saw this, I knew I wanted to honor my mom in this way for Mother’s Day.

This is a screen shot of the global graphic. Every dot is a mama that has a heartspace.

Personal engagement:  If I want to honor my mama with a “heartspace” on the site, I can’t do that without first donating money to the cause (build housing on the school grounds for the kids at Mama Lucy’s school). After that, I will be able to create a “heartspace” for a mama, decorate it with art, video, photos, words. I can share it using an e-card, email link, or on the website.

A screen shot of the giving process:

Now that I’ve given to Mama Lucy’s school, this is what I get back:

Giving in more ways than from my pocket: I’ve participated in a global art project that is bigger than my heartspace, and honoring my own mom. I’ve given money in my mother’s honor to make the world better for a group of kids. I’m part of a new vision of Mother’s Day. I feel really good inside, too

After creating a heartspace, I can share it socially through facebook, twitter, email, etc. I can add a badge to my website, add a twibbon to my twitter or facebook avatar, and Organic Beauty Now will generously give $1 per tweet (up to USD $2,000) when your tweet includes #ToMamaWithLove and/or www.ToMamaWithLove.org. In other words, there’s a whole host of ways I could become a cause evangelist for To Mama With Love.

Lastly, it’s important to note that this event is a good horizontal extension of Epic Change’s fundraising strategy to raise funds.It’s a nice extension of the branded Tweetsgiving fundraiser, but doesn’t take away from the Tweetsgiving event. To Mama With Love puts the gratitude back into Mother’s Day, relating to Tweetsgiving‘s idea to “put the thanks back into thanksgiving.” Both events raise funds for Mama Lucy’s school in Arusha, Tanzania, create conversations, and integrate the recipients (Mama Lucy and the Twitterkids) into the events.

I’ve written before about best practices in social network fundraising. To Mama With Love embodies the best of these practices. In every way, Epic Change keeps the ideas of community, connectedness, and social network fundraising at the forefront. With To MamaWith Love, Epic Change continues to innovate and inspire social network fundraising. If you want to tweet this post, won’t you include the hashtag #tomamawithlove?

To Mama With Love is not an online fundraiser. It’s a heart-raiser.

For more information, visit http://www.tomamawithlove.org. Mother’s Day is May 9, 2010.

Feel free to view my heartspace there in honor of my mom, Susan Askanase: http://www.tomamawithlove.org/heartspaces/2059.

(If you want to read more about the back story, see Stacey Monk’s video interview on blackbaud.tv here.)

I had a very interesting conversation with a board member of prominent nonprofit organization in New York City on Saturday: she asked me if social media can help her nonprofit raise funds from foundations. When I said “absolutely, yes,” she replied, “but no one believes me when I tell them that!”

Philanthropies and foundations are online. Really.

It’s not true that funders aren’t online. Philanthropy 411 wrote a series of blog posts last summer that listed where to find philanthropies on twitter, including 130 Foundations that Tweet, 21 Community Foundations that Tweet,  20 Funder Networks that Tweet, and a comprehensive list of Foundations, Staff, and Board Members on Twitter. Beth Kanter also published a post entitled 8 Nonprofit CEOs that Tweet, which garnered 25 comments by CEOs who added themselves to the list. More and more are online each week. You can easily find this out by looking at their website, or looking at Namechk.com

When I raised money from foundations, my organization was much more likely to receive a funding award if we had an established relationship with the grants manager. If you can’t establish a relationship with a grants manager in person, use social media to do it.

A challenge:

Build into your yearly development plan a social media strategy for getting to know the foundation officers you want to approach for funding.

As part of your entire development strategy, you’ve identified the foundations that you want to approach. Now search for them on social media. Find out where they are online. Spend the time to get to know their online personalities. Find out what groups they are involved in on Linkedin, chat with them on Twitter, become active on their Facebook fan page, comment on their videos.

In all probability, they will begin to notice you, and may soon follow you back or connect with you proactively in the same social spaces. If you have your online strategy in place, and an organizational commitment to social media, then you are ready for them to follow back and take part in the discussions happening in your social spaces.

Be ready for the funders when they come to visit.

Above all, develop an organizational commitment to using social media to create conversation and engage with stakeholders. You should establish several online spaces for funders to interact, view the conversation, and learn about the dynamics of your specific issues of concern. Social media spaces to consider:  website, mobile, social networks, blog, microblogging, video sharing, audio sharing, RSS feeds, and photo sharing sites.

Also consider the value that your organization can offer followers/friends within each online space: What are the broad topic areas you want to discuss? Will the discussions include how the information that you produce on the social media platforms add value and create loyalty? How will it create collaboration and awareness of how others are also addressing the issue?

For example: if I ran a local anti-poverty agency, I would focus on messaging that creates a conversation about local poverty, links it with other issues affected by poverty, and talk about what concrete steps would make a real difference. I would also highlight collaborative efforts, and others’ efforts, to show that you are most concerned with alleviating the cause, not just promoting your organization’s efforts (See related post by Ed Nicholson on this topic here.)

Can social media be a useful tool to raise money from foundations? Absolutely. But don’t begin the conversation unless your organization is ready for the funders to visit your social media spaces. Make your online spaces inviting, dynamic, and a great example of why they should fund you. Go out and find them. Then start talking!

Just as social media is an engagement strategy so is development work.

Start the conversation today.