Community Hunger Day is Oct 22

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Twitter Fundraising Strategy for Sunny

Commenter, Sunny, wrote the following comment in the Comprehensive Facebook Fundraising Post a couple of days ago. I though I'd reply to all...

Sunny 2 days ago

Brilliant Mike!! You have inspired us to 'borrow' your approach and aim for $100 000 for our favorite charity: abundantwater.org

Strictly speaking we're entering Hugh Jackman's competition: http://twitter.com/RealHughJackman/status/15198...

We will get a thousand people, around the World, to pledge pictures of themselves holding a banner.

Any chance you could cast an eye over our 'strategy'?

Keep up the inspiration

Sunny...
Hugh Jackman, has limited his announcement to a single update. I have seen no other explanation or expansion on the rules other than the one tweet...

--- "I will donate 100K to one individual's favorite non profit organization.Of course,you must convince me why by using 140 characters or less."

Part of me wants to dive into figuring out what Jackman's judging criteria might be. It looks like we won't get that from him through Twitter.

It looks like you have chosen to get as much attention as you can by challenging 1000 people to pledge a picture.
My guess is that Jackman won't recognize that as a group effort unless the text of the tweet is also the same tweet, written the same way. Part of what I'm guessing is that he won't be clicking on a ton of links as he reviews all the different pitches that he has to sort through. Plus - you could make the case that it is a waste of some of your 140 characters to include a tiny url. The one rule "140 characters or less" might be violated by including a link!?

The picture holding a banner idea is great, but, I think that you might get more attention (in Jackman's feed) by having everyone change their profile picture for you, instead of including a link in your tweet. This way, you also avoid the possibility that a link is something he ignores.

-Suggest common wording in the actual @reply you ask people to send to Jackman
-Suggest commonalities in the way the banner is made. 3x5 card with bright red marker.
- Provide a suggested picture (if people don't want to make their own banner) so your respondents want to just use a picture that you provide.
-Your request, to the people who might take you up on this, needs to be simple enough to consume and understand in 140 characters. But also be easily found in a place where the strategy, case statement and inspiration can be consumed in a long form (blog post)
- Make the strategy easily forwardable, part of your 1000 will come from people who you will never meet.
- Try to get the charity involved (even in a small way) for them to show legitimacy to your campaign.

My Attempt to inspire Fundraising on Facebook

Well, I should relay the story of last October's facebook fund raising escapade at some point. This is my way of saying thank you to my donors and trying to inspire more generosity from their own passion for justice.

Fundraising and Twitter - rabbit trail off the Dallas Twestival

Here is an article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy that asks the wrong question.

Hildy Gottlieb urges readers not to succumb to the “sirens song” of social media, which lures charities with the promise of raising money fast—and on the cheap.

I don't know why the conversation of fund raising and social media continues to exist at this level. Sound fund raising principles have continued to be developed over history. Stick with the sound principles, and strategize with how technology might apply with some of the steps and not others.

Acquisition, Cultivation, Solicitation and Stewardship -- which of these steps can best utilize social media?

If you answered Solicitation you are wrong.
If you answered, Solicitation in small amounts, you are still wrong.
Social Media platforms are not naturally conducive for fund raising.

Social media is synonymous with "conversation"
Lets all say it out loud, together...
Social media is synonymous with "conversation"

Cultivation is the step that most naturally utilizes social media. But cultivation has an end goal of solicitation. If your entire conversation is bent towards, "Eventually, I am going to ask you for money." Few people will want to engage in your conversation. Your conversation won't sound genuine.

Do you have permission to solicit your social media audience? Certainly, but if you turn your cultivation into solicitation, you could kill it in a matter of weeks. Use social media as a platform to develop advocates. Advocates can message their own audience on your behalf for small donations. Let them be the solicitors for you, and you won't have to kill the conversation.

Prerequisites for succeess...
1. Willingness to change the way you communicate. (2-way, not 1-way)
2. Willingness to change the way you control conversations. (let go)
3. Willingness to embrace technology in ways that make sense to your strategy. (twitter contains potential tactics, it is not a strategy)

Facebook and Fundraising

I have mentioned I work for a technology company. It is actually an agency that assists nonprofit organizations in their online communication and fund raising efforts. So about a year ago, the hermit stuck his foot out of his shell and dipped his big toe in to the wide, facebook ocean.

The abuse your psyche takes while adopting facebook behavior is subject matter for another post. I just want to mention one of the transitional states that happened for me, and what propelled me into an advocate for the tool.

I joined facebook about a week before the video application was added. As soon as I saw that you could send private and public video messages to your friends walls and inboxes, facebook felt much better to me. I can't tell you the number of facebook friends who were so excited to get video messages. Especially in those early days, it was the only thing that kept me using the tool.

Then I was asked to pledge a dollar amount for this non profit group that I really cared about. In the process of figuring out how I would meet my pledge, I decided to use my facebook network. At the time I sent out this video, I had about 330 "facebook friends."



I reached my stated pledge goal within four days. By the time the day of the event came, we had raised 180% of my pledge, just using facebook.

There are dozens of little observations that can be made and applied to fund raising strategies that I could share with you from that little experience. However, at the end of the day, I really just applied sound fund raising principles and applied them to the facebook distribution channel.
I owned facebook on this one.
I honestly was able to do this without facebook owning me.

So the hermit comes late to the party, flirts with technology from a distance, and then is able to use the tool (without my facebook friends being used I didn't get punched in the throat one time!) and not be owned by the technology.