This is How Quickly Social Media Is Changing

In March of this year I attended the Nonprofit Technology conference put on by the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. The first session of the day was Social Media 101, where I learned that I was definitely beyond 101.

Hey you never know, it's all relative.

One of the questions they posed to the audience was whether or audience members checked Facebook more than once a day. If you checked it multiple times a day you were considered to be a more "savvy" social media consumer.

They also said that six months ago, that question used to be "Do you have a Facebook profile?" but they found that nearly everybody did, so they had to change the question to how many times a day you check that profile to be an indicator of how well you knew social media.

Six months.

I wonder if perhaps six months from now the question will be "Have you de-activated your Facebook profile yet?" It seems that I've been seeing/hearing a lot of buzz with a backlash against Facebook and all of their revised "privacy" policies. Or as one person wrote, she got tired of "being forced to opt out of yet another shady invasion of privacy thinly disguised as a service."

I've had a couple of FB friends make a statement that they were de-activating their accounts.  Their take was that if people felt strongly enough about keeping in touch w/them, they should already have their cell phone number.

It will be interesting to see what the next six months bring.

If you don't think fundraising's changing...think again

Every year I walk for the March of Dimes. They have an annual walk the last Sunday of April which raises millions of dollars for the organization. I have walked in rain, in slushy snow, on beautiful 70-degree days, on sweltering 90-degree days, all in April in Minnesota. (Note to any brides who may be reading this: don't plan an outdoor wedding in April in Minnesota!)

I've also walked with my dog, with a baby, with a baby and a toddler, with just a toddler, with my friends, with my co-workers, and once with my husband. (That was the same year we walked with said dog.)

This is my 12th year walking for March of Dimes' March for Babies, previously called WalkAmerica. Here's a picture of how I may have fundraised my first year, back in 1998:

1. I could have written letters using language MOD provides to their walkers to write to my friends and family, asking them to help me raise money. (I know I didn't though, I just emailed them.)

2. I emailed friends and family, telling them what I was doing and why, and asking for their donations to help.

3. I would have received checks or cash from friends and family, which I collected in an envelope and turned in on the day of the walk, along with a sponsor sheet that I filled in by hand, showing who all the donations came from. In most cases I simply provided a name and dollar amount of my sponsors.

4. It would take March of Dimes months to tally all the revenue from all of the walk sites -- in about 3 months they would have an idea of how much money had been raised.

Here's how I fundraised this year:

1. I activated my fundraising webpage from 2009 and updated it for 2010. I told a new story and put up a new picture.

2. I used one of their "badges" to put on my blog, showing the photo I had uploaded to my personal site and where I was at against my goal ($0 of $900).

3. I also put another badge on my Facebook page.

At this point the fundraising began -- I hadn't sent out a single email, hadn't sent a link to my page to a single person. But I received a $25 donation from a friend of mine who had seen my badge on my Facebook page, and decided to donate right away instead of waiting for me to ask her. (Thank you, Tad!)

4. A week or two later, I changed my Facebook status to post a link to my fundraising page, asking people to help me with my campaign.

5. A month before the walk, I sent an email to friends and families with a link to said fundraising page, asking for their support.

6. A week before the walk, I sent an email again to my friends and families reminding them that the walk was coming soon and asking them to help.

7. I am currently creating a fundraising e-card which I can send to friends and families, and can also post to my Facebook page, which uses my personal photos to create an entertaining animated card.

As of this Thursday, I'm going to turn in my online sponsorship form and the three physical checks I received -- all other funds were raised online. The name and address of every person who has donated to me online has been collected, which helps MOD in future communications. I will receive my t-shirt ahead of the walk on Sunday, and won't have to worry about handling a large amount of cash on the day of the walk.

March of Dimes already knows how many millions have been raised nationwide, and can project how much more money will come in on walk day and in the weeks following. Thirty days after the walk they will probably have a tally of all the money raised, and will be able to plan their research spending appropriately based on this revenue.

A quick "shout out" to all the people who have donated so generously to my campaign. While I probably won't reach my big hairy audacious goal of $900 this year, I am sure I will reach the $500 level, all to go to a cause that means a lot to me.

Text Donations for Haiti Relief: A New Channel Has Arrived

The whole phenomenon of the fundraising that occurred via texting in response to the Haiti earthquake was amazing. And what a telethon -- $57MM raised from the telethon alone at last count, with $25 million raised in text donations (outside of the telethon).

People may not remember this but the 9/11 event was the first time that there was an outpouring of donations via online giving. The American Red Cross website actually shut down for a day after 9/11 because they couldn't handle the amount of traffic of people trying to make online donations to them. It cost them many millions in lost donations when that happened, and opened up the whole new way to give: online.

Prior to 9/11, online donations were possible but not likely. Nonprofits often didn't have a way to accept online donations and the security of the credit card transactions was inconsistent based on the technology. After 9/11, nonprofits tried everything they could to get people to migrate to the web -- it's much less costly to get people to donate online than to create a direct mail piece, print it, stamp it, send it out, then process the paper donations upon their return. What a way to open up to a whole new generation of donors, people for whom the internet is an integral part of their lives, including shopping, purchasing, entertaining, ultimately living.

After 9/11, nonprofits finally made in-roads in their attempts to drive people to the web. Trust in online giving increased and a breakthrough was made.

The millions that were texted to the American Red Cross in response to Haiti is yet another break through in giving.

A way of transacting that was previously known to a small subset of the population has gone mainstream. People like myself, who have never texted any kind of financial transaction, and have hardly texted at all, gave via texting for the first time. The intrastructure which allows for this kind of donating was already in place -- no systems went down, no donations were rejected, all went smoothly.

A new channel for giving has been opened up.

Now the question is, what will nonprofits be able to do with the new channel? Will they once again go through the process of trying to drive people to give via texting, only to find that generating content and reasons to migrate to the nonprofit will be immensely more powerful than pushing people there? Only time will tell. I'm excited to be a part of this new world in philanthropy, to be able to test things out and see what works.