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.

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.

Today is the official launch of To Mama With Love, a collaborative online art project that honors moms across the globe and raises funds to invest in remarkable women who are transforming our world. To Mama With Love is an initiative of Epic Change, the folks behind Tweetsgiving. The To Mama With Love event is May 3 – 8, 2011. To Mama With love is…about creating and spreading love.  Participants create socially shareable “heartspaces” that include words, videos, photos & investments in honor of mamas they love. The changemakers are four incredible women who have created schools and shelters for children who face poverty, illiteracy, and lack of opportunity in Nepal, Afghanistan, and Tanzania.

This is a cause I believe in tremendously, and it aligns with my vision of creating a just world of opportunity. My mother was one of the 1970s-era equal rights activists who marched, protested, fought for an equal rights constitutional amendment, attended a world conference on women, and put her money where her mouth was to fund Emily’s List. I’m honoring my mother, Susan Silverman Askanase, in my heartspace.

I’m pledging $50 now, and up to another $50 to match my readers’ Epic Change donations

Epic Change’s goal this year is to raise at least $65,000 to invest in Mama Lucy’s secondary school in Tanzania, Renu & Maggie’s schools in Kathmandu & Surkhet, Nepal, and Suraya’s women’s shelter in Afghanistan. Please leave a comment on this blog post, with a link to your heartspace, so that I can match up to $50 in your donations to Epic Change.

Though I love my mother, and always want to honor her on Mother’s Day:

I participate in To Mama With Love because Epic Change founder Stacey Monk has created one of the most incredible online campaigns in which I’ve ever had the honor of participating

Epic Change, has taken every principle of great community organizing and integrated it into To Mama With Love. Epic Change is also an organization that embodies the culture of social media, which is the culture of inclusion. If you want to run a successful social media fundraising campaign, you can’t do better than to follow their lead:

1. Cultivate a community of stakeholders. Stacey Monk, Epic Change’s founder, is a gardener. She has spent years planting seeds of love and cultivating a community of giving. She cultivates the “magic middle” of stakeholders, activists, and influencers who would genuinely care about a cause such as Epic Change’s.

2. Nurture leaders. This year, Epic Change created a private Facebook Group to discuss the campaign before launch. Stacey invited people into the group that she’s been cultivating for years (and who have shown interest in Epic Change. Then she nurtured them:

• She asked people to introduce themselves within the group
• She asked for volunteers to help with tasks (proofing the press release, developing a Twitter list, inputting a database list, etc.)
• She asked people to invite their friends into the group, and welcomed those friends as they joined
  
• Stacey created questions within the private group to bring out our expertise: a win-win for all

3. Create campaigns with your stakeholders. Stacey consistently asked the group for help refining the campaign. She asked questions such as: should we send the blogger invitations during the weekend or not, should she redesign the home page in a certain way, and when should people tweet? She listened, and followed the group’s consensus.

4. Be transparent and inclusive. Campaign documents are posted for all to view and comment upon. Questions are encouraged, and comments are invited.

5. Design commitment. Before joining the group (or upon joining), we were asked to commit to at least one “mission,” which we committed to through a form. Missions included: invite five others to join the group, commit to writing a blog post, commit to donating money during the campaign, create a heartspace, send emails, and “nudge an influencer.” Stacey sends out mission reminders and asked us to post which missions we completed to the private Facebook Group.

6. Recognize those who are giving. The To Mama With Love website recognizes the bloggers, donors, and the volunteers that helped to plan the event very publicly. This is the very the community that Epic Change has spent the time cultivating.

One other thing: when I volunteered to help out with Epic Change’s Tweetsgiving 2010 campaign, Stacey Monk personally called me at home to thank me the night before the launch. In doing so, she instantly created a more personal, stronger offline connection out of our online connection, strengthening the connection.

When you are involved with Epic Change, you feel honored to be part of her “big circle of love,” because it is such an unique, supportive community of stakeholders. Stacey has created a family you want to be part of, one that supports each other and offers collaboration and encouragement…en route to changing the world.

Thank YOU for creating Epic Change and spreading epic amounts of love.

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.

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.

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.

I had the pleasure of presenting to the Israel Venture Network Fellows today about social media strategy, campaigns, and fundraising. I am really struck me how much of online fundraising comes down to a combination of social media basics plus community organizing principles. The slide show (below) captures why online campaigns are the social proof of these concepts.

Amy Sample Ward, Ivan Boothe, and myself created a slide show for the workshop that we’ll be giving at the Nonprofit Technology Conference. As part of the workshop Bringing Community Organizing Into Online Campaigns, we debated the essential elements of a good online campaign (fundraising or otherwise), the basic tenets of community organizing, and the nature of community organizing. We came up with five basic community organizing concepts. These concepts apply perfectly to any fundraising campaign. They are:

• movement-building
• power analysis
• community accountability (transparency)
• being where the stakeholders are
• leadership development

With any online fundraising campaign, your organization will be speaking about the project and asking others to influence their online ties to do the same. Take the basic principles of social media and continue to use them to raise funds: have shareable content and share utility, utilize the power of influence marketing and the power of weak ties, offer a great product/content, recognize people who give, and thank them profusely. Allow others to have the conversation about you publicly. (And use this opportunity to recruit new stakeholders to your social spaces.) Now mix that with community organizing and this is what you get:

• Link your fundraising project to the larger cause movement to give it emphasis and compelling context
• Power mapping: ID influencers, key donors, and how the donors will share and influence
  
• Develop online influencers and key online donors into organizational leaders
• Be where the people are: make sure that online activity within the campaign occurs where your stakeholders are
• Transparency means: broadcast as much about the campaign, on the campaign site and social media, as it happens

I think of this presentation as a starting point: what else would you consider the “fundamental principles” of social network fundraising? What have I missed? What have I mentioned that’s essential?

(Thanks to Amy Sample Ward for providing the screen shots of the Tweetsgiving campaign example in the slide show, below.)

Resources:

Epic Change (the folks who bring you Tweetsgiving)

How Social Media Can Engage New Donors – slideshare presentation by Steve Drake

Bringing Community Organizing Into Online Campaigns – presentation developed for the upcoming NTC workshop April 9, 2010

Two new data sets about the value of social media came across my laptop recently: Idealware‘s “Using Social Media to Meet Nonprofit Goals” survey of nonprofit staffers using social media, and the State of Small Business report from Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service.

The results are so similar to the nonprofit survey results that the conclusion is hard to ignore: social media actually is an effective tool for customer retention and attraction.

Social media is actually perceived by those doing it to work! In particular, the top benefits are seen as reaching new audiences and enhancing existing customer/audience relationships.

Here are some highlights from the Idealware survey of 459 nonprofit staffers using social media:

1. Nonprofits believe that social media is helping them to enhance relations with their existing audience and reach new audiences through the top platforms.

Most organizations feel that most social media channels are effective for enhancing existing relationships and reaching new supporters. The least effective platforms are MySpace and Linkedin. Blogs, video-sharing, Twitter, and Facebook are felt to be the most effective tools.  The surprise to me is that video-sharing is perceived as highly effective for enhancing relationships.

2. Most nonprofits are using a combination of Facebook, Twitter, video-sharing and blogs to reach out and enrich relationships online. The data shows that there isn’t a relationship between the size of the organization and the number of channels it is using. The responses show that, in general, nonprofits are using and regularly updating one to three social media channels.

I’m not surprised that Facebook is the most popular channel used, but I am surprised that 56% of nonprofits are using Twitter and 80% of them  update Twitter regularly. Two other points to consider: the blog is not dead (45% of nonprofits have one) and video sharing sites once again prove to be popular (49% have them).

Conclusions: Nonprofits are finding value in Twitter, Facebook is widely adopted and “known to work.”  These platforms must be seen as engagement tools to be taken seriously at this point. The blog, though time consuming, is the long form to express your message and enhance relationships with existing supporters. Video-sharing is the crouching tiger. Regularly maintaining one to three platforms is an industry standard.

3. Nonprofits are not yet satisfied with the results of social network fundraising. I don’t think this is any big surprise, as both social network donors and donation strategies are still in their infancy. The survey reveals that, of all the social networks, 41% of respondants believe that Facebook is most effective for raising money. (And that is the highest percentage of approval of any network channel.)  I suspect respondents mention Facebook because it has an affiliated fundraising platform, Causes, that is simple to use and easily accessible. Let’s see what next year’s survey results bring: I’m guessing that they will bring higher satisfaction and a stronger sense of nonprofit social network fundraising effectiveness.

This is also the only platform where Linkedin is rated on par with Twitter, video-sharing, and blogging, at 30% effeciveness. The Idealware study remarks that this is surprising, but I don’t find it surprising at all: Linkedin is an incredibly effective channel for targeted donor research and deeper interaction with potential donors and foundations within Linkedin Groups.

Here’s one more set of similar survey results: the performance of social media tactics for US small businesses in December 2009.

According to “The State of Small Business” report, small businesses are also using social media to successfully attract new customers, increase awareness, and stay engaged with existing customers.

Two data sets, two different user groups, same results: social media is effective for reaching new customers and strengthening existing relationships. Irrefutable evidence of the power of engagement.

Online Giving. What will it look like a year from now? I jotted down an abbreviated timeline that captures some of the major developments in online giving, below:

Based on this graphic, I’ve put together my thoughts about online giving trends and technology for 2010. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, as well:

1. Project-based donation solutions.

Organizational online donations will continue, but project-specific donations will be where organizations will see the interest and growth. Nonprofits know that fundraising is personal, specific, and identifiable.  Even Causes has recently added the Donor Choices option which allows organizations to preselect donation levels that fund specific projects.  Generalized donation portals (Razoo, JustGive, Firstgiving) now highlight specific organizational projects, such as  “donate to a women’s self-defense project,” or “build an ice skating rink.” In the coming year, I see the rise of project-specific soliciting, and donation solutions to meet these needs.

2. The rise of niche donation networks.

In recent years, niche networks are also rising and thriving. JGooders (donations to Israeli and Jewish causes) and IsraelGives (donation to an Israeli charity) both launched in 2009. DonorsChoose launched in 2000 to connect donors with classrooms in need. I also view Jokona as a niche network as well – small projects, worldwide. Just as organizations are beginning to solicit donors for specific projects, niche networks will solicit specific types of donors and match them to their ideal projects. In 2010, I think that we will continue to see the rise of new niche donation portals and networks, and the eventual merging of others in the years thereafter.

3. The emergence of cross-platform donation and donation portability.

In the future I see the ability to be able to donate to a specific project or nonprofit organization across many platforms. Giving Impact is a great example of this. Giving Impact is an online website donation tool designed for specific project campaigns. It is similar to the “donate here” button, but with custom dashboard analysis, and integration allowing individuals to “share” donation impact to their Facebook profiles. Giving Impact just announced that they will be offering a Facebook application allowing integration of the Giving Impact tool with Facebook. It is also built with an API so developers can further design/extend this tool.

One other example of this, though not seamless, is the YouTube Nonprofit Program. Participants can create a “call to action” within the video, or a video overlay, to donate off of YouTube. This isn’t a seamless integration, but it allows portability of donations.

Nonprofits want one donation solution that they can port to wherever their stakeholders hang out online. They don’t want to create a zillion donation profiles and projects in order to get to everyone. I’m hoping that the technology and will develops to meet this need, and that we see the rise of cross-platform donation tools, and donation portability such as the tool developed by Giving Impact.

4. The rise of mobile giving.

Mobile charitable fundraising has been growing since 2008. Today, approximately 400 nonprofits are running mobile donation campaigns, the average donation is rising from $5 to $10, and US charities expect to receive a total of $2 million from mobile fundraising in 2009, according to Mobile Marketer. (Two examples of providers of mobile-based giving in the US are Mobile Commons and Mobile Giving.) Mobile giving is growing in acceptance in countries around the world as well. The rising adoption of smartphones, coupled with the mobile familiarity of the millennial generation, makes this is a trend worth watching. The challenge for nonprofits is to creatively think about integrating mobile giving and social media.

5. Cultural acceptance of social network-based giving.

One of the things that I’ve argued is that users on social network sites aren’t culturally used to donating while on a the network. That’s where they discuss life’s issues. However, that’s finally changing. Online donations via Causes on Facebook and twitter rallies have become more popular. In the coming year, I’m predicting the rise of more fundraising options that integrate with social networks. Along these lines, there’s an interesting post by Joe Solomon that considers what a Twitter fundraising tool would look like.

NOTE: I’m updating this blog post (as of December 9) to include a link to the wonderful slide presentation entitled: The Future of Online Revenue Generation for Charities, by Amy Sample Ward. She places it in a slightly different context than I do, focusing on future demand for better processes, relationships (and empowering supporters), leveraging social media, the gift economy, and authenticity. She also includes some great data about online giving trends.

What do you think? Do you agree with me, or disagree? Can you add to this list, or edit it? I’d also love feedback on the graphic above!

I want to thank my twitter friends who helped me identify some key timelines for the graphic above: John Carnell, Katrin Verclas, Mobile Commons, and Chris Dougherty. Thanks for listening, y’all!