How can web 2.0, ‘peer-to-peer’, or ‘friend-to-friend’ fundraising benefit your school or church group? With so many options now available, which one do you choose? Do you simply put your cause on Facebook, or set up a webpage stating your cause and goals then email everybody and hope for donations to roll in? What do you do a week later if you haven’t gotten any response? How do you get donors interested and keep them involved? Video is one of the most powerful tools on the internet and has the potential to be one of the most successful platforms to promote the need for donations to a cause. Even so, people are still struggling to find the best use of video sharing along with other web 2.0 technology for raising money.
The modern concept of a friend-to-friend approach using web 2.0 fundraising websites is appealing because of its relative ease and far-reaching potential. Donors anywhere on the globe can be exposed to your nonprofit’s cause because of the world-wide-web. Simply asking people to donate is highly effective, yet most of us feel more comfortable sending a solicitation email than cold-calling people asking for money. According to an article in the NonProfit Times dated November 9,2009,, “Those surveyed who said they planned to give said emails or newsletters (27 percent) and direct mail (28 percent) also influenced the decisions, the first time the two channels have been almost equal. Peer-to-peer fundraising is still making its mark – 23 percent said an email from a friend or family member encouraged them to support a fundraising effort.” By combining email with social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, the requirement to ask face-to-face and in real-time is diminished. In the comfort of their own computer desk, what will motivate them to give? If you aren’t looking your potential donors right in the eye, how do you maximize your opportunity for them to commit in this age of web 2.0 fundraising?
With the right on-line 2.0 fundraising tools, schools, churches, and athletic teams can engage their supporters in ways that were not possible in the recent past. It is a known fact that a story well-told motivates people to give. Pitching your nonprofit’s cause via video allows potential donors to put a human face on your cause and enables information and emotion to be passed to the viewer. Because donors like to have closer ties with those that they are supporting and want to see results — the difference their donations are making, video-sharing is an effective tool to accomplish this by keeping donors updated and informed about a cause’s progress. This allows donors to feel that they are partners in the nonprofit’s work that you are asking them to support. It doesn’t matter if they are donating to a large charity or to help their niece’s cheerleading group go to camp, supporters like to see the smiles their donation helped put on those real faces. Since feedback is important, showing gratitude to the donors with acknowledgments, or even a special ‘Thank You’ video is also a nice finishing touch. The actual making of the video can be as simple or as sophisticated as the cause requires or is able. Schools and churches may find that the production of the video may be leveraged into a class or group project that brings people together, fostering community and additional sense of purpose. It is a plus if the video-sharing platform allows multiple video uploads and archiving to better keep supporters engaged.
According to THINKSOCIAL at the Paley Center for Media Advancing the Public Interest of Social Media: “Supporters want to know the destination of their donations, and non-profit organizations and donation platforms like charity:water, DonorsChoose.org, and Kiva are answering that question with information and powerful storytelling and images. Furthermore they are making it easy for their participants to share specific people and initiatives in need to celebrate the successes along the way. Examples include… ‘Invisible Children’ as part of its ‘Schools for Schools’ campaign, blogs photos of schools being built thanks to donations from ‘Invisible Children’ supporters. DonorsChoose.org posts photos and thank-you notes from the students whose classrooms received requested school supplies or were able to go on an educational field trip based on donations from the site.”
As in real life, the key to a successful web 2.0 fundraiser is to conduct an event or a campaign with a timed duration. Having a defined beginning and end to your campaign creates a sense of urgency that open-ended donation sites lack in their appeals. In a study conducted by techsoup.org average donation amounts were higher in deadline-driven appeals than in open-ended campaigns.
