Academy

A new era in social fundraising?

Anyone who has been involved in a social-media-based fundraising effort knows that getting attention and shares is easy, but conversion’s another story.

A few years ago, we helped the University of Ottawa Heart Institute brand, produce and spread an online campaign for Mother’s Day, featuring Olympic medallist Joannie Rochette. The iheartmom.ca campaign was popular among figure skating fans and women’s health advocates on Facebook and Twitter, as well as on related blogs worldwide, but fell short of its ambitious fundraising goals. (It ended up with a second life, however, as Joannie Rochette took “ownership” of the brand for her ongoing fundraising efforts for UOHI.)

A great cause, a charismatic spokesperson and a memorable brand. So what happened?

The problem was the limitation of Facebook, our primary medium. We set up a fundraising page at causes.com, which at that time had pretty good connectivity with Facebook. But while people happily joined, they were wary of giving their financial information once they left the “safety” of their social platform for a third party.

Currently, the standard practice is still to “link out” to a secure e-commerce application run by the registered charity or not-for-profit on its site. But again, there is the barrier of extra clicks, leaving your comfort zone, and spending time filling out more forms. But that all may change very soon.

Toronto’s Artez Interactive — a company that specializes in multi-platform online fundraising — has just launched the Friendship Powered Fundraising (FPF) app for Facebook.

See a video demo after the break.

Non-profits: embrace the pearls for your cause

I bought myself an Apple TV recently. And I’m not the only one who connected the TV on the internet. It is the new thing to explore.
It changed my media consumption madly. Instead of watching the regular stuff I spent my spare time with exploring short films. And there is a lot out there. The kind of stuff I’m not watching on my desktop computer. Because I’m too impatient for. But slumped on the couch is a different story.

That makes me think. What can non-profits do with with new online evolution? The connected TV is in it’s early stages but you can already can do something. Without any budget.
Build yourself a playlist on Vimeo or YouTube and start exploring. As the title above says ‘embrace the pearls for your cause’. I see it as a new way of storytelling.

Book Review: How Advertising Will Heal Your Business and the World

Author: Mark Woerde
Published May 2011
Publishing on Demand
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Free copy paperless copy at Letsheal.org

I became interested in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) a few years ago and was further intrigued after I attended “Conscience Capitalism” conference in 2011 at Bentley College just outside Boston, Massachusetts. There I learned a great deal from the likes of John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods and marketing guru Philip Kotler, things like aligning a brand with a good cause and finding a niche market for responsible advertising.  Yet for me there was something missing, it seemed the companies doing CSR were simply looking for a marketing strategy to attract a different target audience and thus expand their bottom line. They may have been looking to expand business to the healthy hipster type because it is where the money is.  The sad truth is however that but for a few, most did not have much to say about what it meant to actually “do good with your brand.”

More after the break…

Talk: Craig Newmark on Building a Community of Trust

In the movie Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack goes “back to the future” and discovers that his friend Lou has become incredibly wealthy due to a little search-engine-that-could that he aptly named “Lougle.” It’s a fun example of how an individual’s name can become a familiar household term based on a single choice to use that name in a product.

Can you think of another example of this? You got it—craigslist. In the States, craigslist is synonymous with connection. Hundreds of thousands of people utilize the ad-free website to find jobs, frisbee leagues, used furniture, and to barter their services. The founder of this incredible site is Craig Newmark, a self-professed nerd who has dedicated his life to customer service.

At the iStrategy conference on global digital marketing in San Francisco, Craig Newmark was not there to speak about his great invention. Rather, he wanted to talk about where he’s putting his energies now: craigconnects.

At first look, craigconnects seems to be a way for him to organize his personal efforts on giving back: military veterans, technology for good, and back-to-basics journalism. And right now, it is. But a few points that were brought up in his talk on how to build a community of trust provide a few hints as to the potential of his own model.

Social Photography in your Communication Strategy: Instagram

Instagram is huge. Recently it became the largest mobile social network. Remarkable because the social photography app is only available for the iPhone until now.
I started with Instagram also last year. I stopped with Twitter and now I’m trying to express myself without words. I love it.

I was curious if brands, and in particular non-profits, use the network in their communication strategy. That was a disappointing search.
Socialfresh published an article in the autumn last year with a small list of brands using Instagram. And I found a smaller list of non-profits.

One of them is charity: water, the non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
Gorgeous pictures from their field work and inside pictures which give the viewer a nice insight in their work.
I spoke with Paull Young lately, the Director of Digital at charity: water. I was curious about their thoughts and strategy. Read it after the break.

Clean water from a charity: water project in Brus Laguna, Honduras.