The Campus Kitchens project just pulled off its first fundraiser, a competitive fundraising riff on college basketball’s March Madness, and the key to winning was…Facebook. The March Madness fundraiser was conceived within the national office of Campus Kitchens as a play upon college students’ natural pride and competitive spirit during March Madness. Campus Kitchens invited their college campuses to compete with one another over a 30-day period. The winner would be determined by which campus kitchen raised the most money during that time. Fourteen campuses competed, which were narrowed down to a Final Six halfway through the competition. One of the Final Six was to be the campus kitchen that receives the most Facebook Likes on its FirstGiving fundraising page. The March Madness event raised $13,433 and the Campus Kitchen at Gettysburg College won the tournament by raising $3.572.

I interviewed Jasmine Touton, social media coordinator for Campus Kitchens, and Kim Davidson, coordinator of the Gettysburg College Campus Kitchen, to find out more about the fundraiser, and their use of social media to support it.

What turned the corner for the fundraiser was taking advantage of Facebook’s features, most importantly, Like

As a matter of course, Campus Kitchens asks each participating college campus open and maintain a Facebook page. Towards the middle of the month, Jasmine noticed that the number of Likes on Campus Kitchen Facebook pages increased, across all 24 Facebook Campus Kitchen fan pages. According to Jasmine, “We weren’t sure how they were going to use it (the FirstGiving social share features), but Facebook was exactly where they were sharing it.” The month of March, the kitchens gained 254 Likes, which is a big spike compared to a normal month of 50 Likes across all pages.   A few Campus Kitchens created Facebook Events.  Those who created Facebook Events got more Facebook Likes, and which ended up comprising the same Final Six.

They also thought outside of the box by asking the PR department of each participating university and college to post information about March Madness on their official Facebook Pages. Many did. The biggest jump in Likes was when a fundraiser was posted onto the official university’s Facebook Page. Jasmine notes that a lot of donations come in because of that. They also reached out to the PR offices of Gettysburg College and Northwestern University and asked them to send information about the fundraiser to the alumni, which helped spur donations to the fundraiser.

“My whole Facebook newsfeed was March Madness,” says Jasmine Touton

One campus even combined offline with online Facebook action: The Gonzaga University coordinator stopped students on campus to ask them to click “Like” on Facebook. “This really did help to share it,” notes Jasmine.

Gettysburg College’s Campus Kitchens was the March Madness winner. Kim Davidson, campus coordinator, also believes Facebook was critical to winning. “We began email and social media blasts while students were on spring break and the majority of the people who gave at the beginning were from the local community. Local farms and the Farmers Market Association also linked to it through their Facebook pages and e-newsletters. When students came back we started soliciting within the college community. The big boost came when the Office of Web Communications at Gettysburg College agreed to post the competition on their Facebook feed. Parents and Alumni were able to see it and contribute as well.” (You can visit their fundraising page here and their Facebook page here.)

I asked Jasmine if anything surprised her. “We didn’t expect that it would be so easy to get colleges to post on their Facebook pages. We also didn’t expect as many alumni donations. On the donor comments, many are rooting for their schools instead of just the causes. We also didn’t expect all the Facebook likes on the individual FirstGiving fundraising pages. Once the kitchens began promoting the Facebook likes (via email, on their Facebook pages, using Facebook events), we saw a big return.”

The Campus Kitchen project is a student-led and powered organization operating on 29 college campuses. They empower thousands of students each year to recycle food from their cafeterias, turn these donations into nourishing meals, and deliver those meals to those who need it most.

image by Alessio85

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at the new Facebook “page” redesign. It’s no small coincidence that pages now look like profiles. Facebook has realized that companies want the ability to engage dynamically with their stakeholders and have offered them the perfect platform to do so.  I believe that the place of the corporate website will soon fade in importance as social network profiles become your organization’s number one online identity. Given that, your Facebook page will become your dynamic corporate calling card.

Whether or not you have a Facebook group for your nonprofit, you need a page.


The Facebook page IS the new website.

Why?

• Facebook has the numbers and loyalty. It is the fourth largest site globally, with a page rank of 4, according to Alexa. More people visit this site, link to it and search it than visit MSN, Wikipedia, and My Space, among others. Facebook users are growing worldwide, and it is the most popular social network in the United States. It is at the top in most other countries as well. There are 150 million users worldwide, and about half of them use Facebook daily.

• Searches WITHIN Facebook continue to grow. According to WebPro, “‘Much of the Facebook-driven traffic comes from links that members post via areas like ‘Notes’ and photos,’ notes Tameka Kee at paidContent.org.”  Facebook is the second most popular site to which people bookmarked and shared information using the Share This button. (The button at the bottom of this post is a Share This button.) Similarly to Twitter usage, users refer each other to links within Facebook. Perhaps you’ve seen someone post a Causes button on their page promoting a nonprofit cause and clicked on it? Or you read in a friend’s profile that they have just added a great photo from an organization’s page, and you then clicked to view it? These are good examples of inter-Facebook traffic.

• Facebook isn’t just for young people anymore. A new report from Nielson states that from December 2007 through December 2008, “Facebook added almost twice as many 50-64 year old visitors (+13.6 million) than it has added under 18 year old visitors (+7.3 million).” In addition, “the greatest growth for Facebook has come from people aged 35-49 years of age (+24.1 million).” What does this mean? Your mother, grandfather, and all their friends are now on Facebook. Seriously. Aren’t these the very same people that have the most discretionary income to buy goods and services, and donate money to organizations?

• People use Facebook to organize. 43% of adult Facebook users use Facebook to organize with others for an event, issue or cause, according to a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. They are far more likely to organize for your issue, event or cause if your organization has an outstanding Facebook page with easy opportunities to get involved. Two good examples are the Humane Society’s Facebook page,  and the National Wildlife Federation’s page, with clear calls to action, organizing and donation information.

The beauty is that everyone on Facebook knows someone else and regularly communicates with them through the site.

Websites are still necessary in this day and age, sure. Websites are primarily used for finding specific information. People will jump off the site quickly unless it is “sticky” enough or dynamic enough to engage its viewers. Facebook users are already engaging, organizing, meeting people, sharing information and searching for information on site.

Facebook is the new website, with built-in engagement features.

I’d love to visit the Facebook page that your organization has created, or a great business page as well. Please let me know about your page, and others that you admire. I look forward to visiting and engaging on your page!