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.

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.

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!

Image courtesy of madnzany

Proving that social media can be used to raise significant funds for nonprofits is “the brass ring” that every nonprofit utilizing social media wants to reach. But it is quite an elusive brass ring! There are a number of challenges to overcome before social network fundraising is as easy (and fruitful) as email donation solicitation, offline donation appeals, or the “donate now” button on the website. On the other hand, social network fundraising is growing: both by adoption, use and acceptance. This post explores the existing challenges to acceptance and raising large amounts of funds using social networks – and brainstorming ideas to overcome the barriers.

Here are some thoughts about the leading challenges in social network fundraising:

Cultural: Social media is still primarily Social

Except for explicit business networking sites (Linkedin, Plaxo, association networks, and the like), social networking sites are still primarily used for…being social. Users are not generally thinking about these platforms as donation portals – yet. I think the social networker’s mindset is slowly changing as more organizations encourage their online fans to donate through social media platforms.

Where is the opportunity? Create real online relationships with stakeholders. By becoming an integral part of a fan’s social web, a donation request will be seen as an extension of the relationship. Nonprofits should identify and cultivate online influencers, and leverage the influencer networks during online campaigns.

Structural: How to Begin, How to Do It?

In these times struggling economic times, nonprofits are looking for new funding sources everywhere. Social networks are an obvious place to turn, but nonprofits aren’t sure how to begin.

In other words – how to do it? Do you create a small fundraising site that pushes people to share on their social networks? Do you run a fundraising campaign that is pushed on all of your relevant, engaged social networks? Do you create a campaign that is only run on one social network? I think the strategic effort involved in figuring this out is a barrier in and of itself. It’s not easy to plan any fundraising campaign, but the “new fundraising” on social networks has a lot of nonprofits wondering where to begin, and how to begin, and it’s a legitimate challenge they face. I don’t think there is any one answer – the approach depends on evaluating the organization’s campaign goals, current social media assets, and available resources.

Financial: Return on Investment

Hesitancy about the “return on investment” of a social media campaign is another concern. Organizations must devote staff, time, and financial resources to any online fundraising effort, and the return is still unproven, and without many benchmarks. We have some data about online donors: “engaged American donors,” the “wired wealthy,” and “social media power users who donate.” New research from Blackbaud shows that peer-to-peer social network fundraising in the past 12 months, using Facebook and Twitter, has generated $o.12 per impression, which offers a specific benchmark. However, social network fundraising is relatively new and untested, without long-term studies. The tools are constantly changing, and the success is wildly varied depending on the specifics of the organization, its social media implementation and use, and its online campaign. Taking this into account, organizations have to develop social network fundraising campaigns and strategies based on a realistic assessment of the return on engagement.

Challenges aside, I firmly believe online donations on social media platforms are the future.

• Social media offers incredible opportunities for nonprofits to reach out to the “borderless activist,” who is a source of new inspiration, energy and funds for every organization.
• More and more social media users want to get their information from blogs and social networks, and these sources are among the most trusted sources of organizational information.
• The viral nature of social networks means that strong social campaigns can spread more widely, and penetrate more markets, than traditional fundraising campaigns and events.
  
• Platform-based donations offer the perfect opportunity for transparency, which donors crave.

I’ve raised a few of the issues facing social network fundraising, and a few thoughts about how to address them. I’m sure there are a whole lot more. I’d like to open up this conversation and hear what you think are the current issues facing organizations raising funds through social media platforms – and the best means to overcome them.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say!

Additional Food for Thought: Social Networking for Fundraisers by Frank Barry and Jeff Patrick

TheNew York Times’ article Utilities Turn Their Customers Green With Envy provides a few good pointers for social network fundraising, even though the article is about utility bills. The Sacramento, California utility company created a pilot program that issued personalized bills to some customers, using “smiley faces” and “frowny faces” on the utility statements in order to illustrate how a customer’s electricity consumption compares with his/her neighbors’ consumption. Those who received comparative, personalized statements cut their energy efficiency by 2% more than those who did not receive smiley or frowny faces.

The article article also cited an experiment conducted by social psychologist Robert Cialdini, of Arizona State University, and another colleague that illustrates the effect of peer pressure.  “…(Cialdini) and a colleague left different messages on doorknobs in a middle-class neighborhood north of San Diego. One type urged the residents to conserve energy to save the earth for future generations; another emphasized financial savings. But the only kind of message to have any significant effect, Dr. Cialdini said, was one that said neighbors had already taken steps to curb their energy use.”

Social network fundraising should include competition to reap higher rewards.

image courtesy of Cambodia4kids

The concept of social network fundraising is leveraging one’s own social network to raise funds. Facebook and MySpace are two online social networks that have figured out that leveraging one’s peer network for good is good business…and raises funds. They utilize the concept of “people to people fundraising” — raising money from people you know, rewarding them and making it fun. Beth Kanter posted a summary of the concept in her post here, and be sure to read the comments which offer further amplification of the concept.

How can we leverage our networks to raise funds the most efficiently?  Think about what the municipality of Sacramento learned:

• People react (and change behavior!) based on how they compare with their neighbors/friends.
• People compete to be as good as their neighbors/friends, as long as the comparative results are public.

There are many great examples of organizations utilizing Facebook Causes, Chipin and other online donation programs and widgets which incorporate the two points. For example, the Facebook Causes application allows network friends to view who else has donated, what amount, and how close the network is to reaching the entire fundraising goal. Joe Green, founder of Facebook Causes says “Facebook and other social networking sites mimic existing relationships, making users feel more pressure to get involved.” (Beth Kanter’s Five Things I Discovered About Facebook Birthday Cause highlights all the best features of the Birthday Cause application.)

Can we quantify what difference the “public” aspect of people to people, or network, fundraising makes compared to non-disclosed givers and amounts? I’d love to hear of further pilot studies using online giving where one group knows how much its peers/network friends are giving and the other does not.

My bet? Peer pressure is just that, and it makes a big difference.

Further reading:

Online fundraising widgets at We Are Media and a toolkit for getting started linked here.

Social micro-fundraising tools: screen shots and compilation on Mashable.

Wild Apricot also compiled a List of Online Fundraising Tools to consider, many of which are peer-to-peer based tools.

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