A Real World Social Media Spin-Off

This post is from the Tweetstream of @mattrhodes from the UK agency Fresh Networks. He and his colleagues come up with things I would not be aware of otherwise, and I'm grateful!

I'm also an Anglophile and a huge fan of the National Trust and all they do, so their take off on Farmville definitely caught my attention.

What a clever concept! The idea of letting people become sort of virtual farmers and have control over this farm is fascinating. What a good way to get people involved in the production of their food and the protection of the land on which it's grown. This is also a different take on Community Sponsored Agriculture and a really engaging one. Plus who can resist a cow who looks this sweet?

All in all, it's something I'm going to enjoy following and hope some of my friends will get some good ideas.

Using Facebook to Drive Traffic

My firm assumption is that marketers are using Facebook to accomplish something, and hopefully they are clear about precisely what that is—good objectives! I’ve had several questions lately that have caused me to think about how marketers are using their Facebook Wall pages (assuming the wall is the most trafficked) and what they are using for landing pages.

So I did a small and totally unscientific survey of some of the sites I follow. Some of it is food for thought; all is interesting. In the interest of disclosure, all my entry points came from searching ‘name facebook.’ Am I the only one who can’t find anything on Facebook itself?

I’ve written about Coke’s social media strategy.
Wall Page. Their main link leads me to a big happy Coke logo; when I click through it invites me to be a fan. No thank you; closing that out leads me to the main Coke page. Easy to get from there to wall page. Took me several clicks but interesting, so I’m not annoyed. Wall is completely fan posts; see nothing from Coke at the moment. You might find it worth reading their House Rules.
Landing Page. None on wall at the moment because they are fan posts. Feeds page has lots of Twitter from the UK at the moment that take you to an offer page on the Diet Coke UK website. The Coke page seems to be the main page for corporate links; see for example their recycling page on the Living Positively site. There’s much going on here; all seems to be well thought out.

I’ve also written about the Pepsi Refresh program, which seems to be Pepsi’s sole communications focus at the moment.
Wall Page. The main link takes you to the Pepsi Refresh Project page. This is a marketing campaign, not a corporate site per se. On the Wall page(s) they have covered all the bases; Pepsi Only, Fans Only, Pepsi + Fans. I’m a bit slow to catch on; I’ve looked several times before understanding this option for corporate fan pages. Try it out and see what I mean. Interesting!
Landing Page. On the Pepsi Only Wall page, most of the current posts go to either to an update message on the Refresh Everything site or to a YouTube video. Some link back to the Pepsi Refresh Project page on Facebook—think about that!

Intuit has a lot of web savvy.
Wall Page. Actually, they have several Facebook pages. I choose the Small Business Spot because I like what they’re doing with it. They have a small business grants program—interesting. When I looked at that wall page it was a mix of Intuit posts, a warning from a user about incompatibility with Chrome, and some user questions. Interestingly enough, the same coffee-drinking user who warned about Chrome compatibility is answering other user question(s). Nice! Lots of questions about taxes; Intuit seems to be responding. One frustrated user says customer service on Facebook is better than in the telephone call center. All in all, a lot that Intuit can learn here and people seem to be getting their issues resolved.
Landing Page. Links from Intuit posts go to their blog, their community, their Kiva page and probably more, depending on the message. This was the first corporate page where I saw wall posts all post linking to the corporate Facebook page, in this case the Small Business Spot page on Facebook. Offers and links there take visitors to the Intuit small business website.

I’ve written about Legal Zoom also.
Wall Page. Can a bunch of lawyers carry on a good conversation? This site says they can! The main link takes me to their Notes page. I find that uninspiring, but they have a reason; pushing Start-A-Business month. Their wall page is a nice mix of LegalZoom and fan posts. Many fan posts are quite complimentary—amazing! Also some cute lawyer-related stuff like a link to a Hollywood Reporter article about the lawyer stationed backstage at the Oscars. Great content strategy!
Landing Page. As you might guess, their content strategy results in links to many sites. Some, like Inc magazine, appear to be partners in support of small business. Let’s hear is for these lawyers—they are being positive, supportive and interesting!

The San Diego Zoo is one of my all-time favorites in many ways. Its website ranks up there with the best of corporate sites.
Wall Page. The main link takes you to their wall pages. They use the same Zoo Only, Zoo + Fans and Fans Only set of pages.They have a lot of happy visitors and lots of adorable baby animals to talk about. What's not to like? The Zoo uses a polar bear as their icon for administrator posts. Wonder if they are thinking about that after SeaWorld?
Landing Pages. Their links go everywhere—pages, blogs, live webcams; they have great content. How can fans not like a baby panda or a little tapir? Their website is engaging and using Facebook the way they do creates more engagement as well as driving a great deal of traffic to the website. The zoo has had a family of blogs for quite awhile. They are, of course, on Twitter, Tweeting away with happy visitors and about zoo animals. There is a link on the Twitter page to the Live Panda Cam. They have a platform and are making excellent use of it. Look at how they cross post on blogs.

I started this with a misperception, and I just left it there. It’s not necessarily a wall page; it can be a series of wall pages. It is not a landing page. A vibrant content strategy leads to many links to many kinds of content both on the corporate site and to related content on other sites. All keep the fan base growing and engaged.

The major take away is that there is no one right way of using a Facebook fan page. It depends on your strategy and the way you want to interact with fans and visitors. Whether it’s baby animals or lawyers being amiable, it’s all about 2-way communication and dealing with customer questions and issues. The five above have all gotten the message!

9/11, Service and Social Media

On September 11 a lot of people want to do something. Using social media to support that very human emotion makes sense.
This morning I got an email from Service Nation, a non-profit that encourages citizen service opportunities. Among the service initiatives they are promoting on 9/11 is a Cities of Service Program. The idea is for individual citizens to submit service ideas/opportunity to the major of their city. The email linked to a simple form for that purpose.

New York City Mayor Bloomberg appears to have led the way with a program to encourage New Yorkers, especially young people, to volunteer for service. It has an active website, many non-profit organizations as partners, and initial commitments from citizens from all walks of life to serve.

There’s a catchy and engaging part of the program called “Share Your Blank.” The point is that everyone has something worthwhile to share. The program not only allows them to serve, it allows them to talk about their service in order to inspire others—social media in action.

One important point is that initiatives like this don’t happen in isolation. I heard about it from Service Nation. NYC had a lot of partners when they launched the program. It seems vibrant and active, so they probably have more now.

It’s not only a lesson in encouraging service; it’s a lesson in making social media social. Both are appropriate on 9/11.

Rock the Outdoors!

Some of my best post ideas come from friends as is the case with the Nature Rocks campaign from The Nature Conservancy. Thanks!

This is a complex, highly-integrated campaign that’s rather difficult to pick apart on two levels. The first is The Nature Conservancy program itself. The second is its relationship to a program sponsored by another national environmental organization.

TNC itself is sending the welcome page (left below) to its own email list. I didn’t get the original email, so I don’t know whether they sent the page itself or a text link to it. The welcome page is the home page of a campaign microsite. The objective of this campaign is explicit; empower parents to enjoy the outdoors this summer with their children by giving them necessary tools. The page has a user-submitted image that changes daily and the opportunity to submit your own nature pictures. When you click through you find a robust content page (right below).
The main campaign page lists outdoor activities in the left bar and more in-depth planning resources on the right bar. I looked at some, not all, of the Nature Activities. There’s lots of information and some interactivity (a carbon footprint calculator). Their newsletter is described as the Great Places Network; interesting but a bit confusing.

In terms of integration, look at the nav bar at the top of the Nature Rocks page and the TNC home page, right. The TNC nav bar graces the top of both pages. (No icon for Nature Rocks; the My Nature Page takes you to the campaign page).

In one sense, the duplication of the nav bar is good integration. It, however, makes it rather difficult to navigate around the Nature Rocks site. From most of the activities page you can use the back button (once you discover that Home takes you to the TNC home page!) to get back to the Nature Rocks main page. On the newsletter signup page I couldn’t get back at all. I had to close out and that closed me out of the entire site. This could easily have been fixed by a Back to the Nature Rocks Home Page text link at the top of each page. Simple usability testing! But overall, a great site with a succinct mission statement at the top of each page.

I didn’t set up a My Nature Page, although I’m a huge fan of personal pages and content feeds. What it reminded me of, though, is a classic question from CRM. When groups get too enthused about the concept I ask, “Do you want to have a relationship with your ketchup?” In the traditional context, most people answer “No.” Web 2.0 has changed that; think back to the Heinz promotions. But it hasn’t changed the basic premise. Each of us, individual or family, has the time and energy to manage only a few relationships. When we set up a personal page and invest time and effort in it, will we want to change? Think first mover advantage here, although better ideas can always trump.

When I searched to find out what kind of PR they were getting I discovered a whole other aspect of the campaign. Briefly, it’s a national campaign sponsored by The Children and Nature Network. The objective of the campaign is to provide local grassroots organizations with tools to help children experience the outdoors. It links to a Nature Rocks main page, which lists TNC, REI as well as C&NN as the partners in the endeavor.

By now, are you confused? Probably! Unless you follow the links, you don’t see how it all fits together. That’s the marketer perspective—and when you take the trouble to tease it out, both the C&NN and TNC programs have clear objectives, my signal that there’s a significant underlying strategy. Each is one piece of the puzzle, and there obviously are others.

The visitor doesn’t care. There’s great information on each site. The sites link together to provide more good content; they provide a pretty good user experience, and they really do offer tools to parents who are challenged in terms of outdoor experience for their children.

A word about REI. I saw their partnership in the first press release I found. I couldn’t find anything else that touted their involvement—including anywhere on their web site. REI does a lot of good things. Why fail to promote one of them? I’ve written a lot lately about cause-related marketing because I think it's a great way to create positive brand associations while doing real good.

This is a great program and any parent can find tools for successful outdoor experience. A lot of parents will find it valuable. Kudoos to TNC and other organizations who are getting the word out about these tools!

Doing Good PR by Doing Good

Have you gotten emails from a non-profit like the Red Cross encouraging you to “vote” in Target’s Bullseye Gives campaign? I’ve gotten several from the Red Cross, the only one of the 10 participants whose list I was on. When you click through to their Facebook page, you can play the video and they give detailed instructions on how to vote, just to be sure.

I’m sure that other organizations were equally active in trying to get their supporters to participate. With each email, Target is adding to its brand reputation and 10 non-profits stand to benefit significantly.

The campaign was also picked up by news organizations and bloggers around the country. I searched Google News over the weekend and found over 5 thousand entries for “bullseye gives.” That’s also major.

When you look at the Target campaign page, you can see that almost 300 thousand people voted. That’s a sizeable number and suggests multiple emails send to large lists by all the organizations. That’s probably the only issue here; the final results are likely to be proportional to the size of the organizations’ email lists, so care should be taken in choosing participants. In this case, each received an amount that provided a nice boost to their fund-raising efforts.

The obvious take away from this cause marketing program is the thousands of news stories and the millions of emails it generated. All of those linked Target with 10 undeniably worthy causes and highlighted both the good done by the non-profits and the willingness of Target to provide significant support to them.

There is a deeper message. The days when intrusive advertising could be counted on for effectiveness are over; I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said that, but it is undeniably true.

Message to business: you have to find new ways of reaching people in the post-advertising world.

Prediction: look for more innovative approaches to cause marketing as a way of reaching people with a positive message in a way that has real social impact.

What’s not to like about that?

Boone's Army is on the March!

I’ve written about the Pickens Plan before. Although having $58 million to spend on creating and energizing a community doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t guarantee being smart. I watch on a daily basis, and what I see is consistent effort, good community management, and considerable activity taking place within the community. All is indicative of a well-conceived, well-managed effort. Seems to me Boone Pickens is getting his money’s worth, although I’m sure he would say that the real proof will be getting elements of his plan put into action.

To continue the push, Wednesday through Friday of last week there was a Virtual March on Washington—the first thing just like it that I’ve seen. Once again, it was well organized and flawlessly executed. He explains much of what’s going on in this video. According to the website today 4,558,010 people took part. That sort of participation doesn’t take place by accident!

People who are members of the plan--”Boone’s Army” he calls them—were informed multiple times about the coming event. Members can set preferences for frequency of content, and if I investigated the timing carefully I’m sure I’d find that they were timed so every member with email contact got at least one message. Most of us got several.

Each day, Wednesday through Friday, members of the Army got a message—from Boone himself, of course—urging participation. Each day had a different theme to encourage repeat participation. When you clicked through to the site, you found it well organized to support the march.


What impressed me most was the message page. It had the usual prepared message, but this one was easy to edit, unlike others I’ve used. Most impressive of all was the list of recipients. Along with the usual suspects, it included “Your U.S. Senators” and “Your U.S. House Representative.” The contact info in step 2 is optional, but my guess is that they have congressional district in their database for virtually all members (they’ve worked hard on that also). They could personalize correctly whether the sender choose to include contact information or not (and apparently some of our elected representatives do require it in order to receive email messages). This application was powered by Capitol Advantage. Turns out that’s the publisher of print Congressional directories, and they now have an email personalization product. Cool! Especially since it works!! The acknowledgment message contained the names of my senators and representatives to prove that it did.

Once again, Boone Pickens and the generals of his Army (whoever those generals may be; I still can’t find out) seem to have done it all right. They built up interest, motivated people to participate, and gave the appropriate autonotification. I expect the website to be updated in a day or two with a follow-up on the march, doubtlessly accompanied by another video from Boone.

I keep recommending the Pickens Plan as a best practices site for non-profits. None of the ones I know have $58 million to spend, but the truth is that a lot of that went for television to jump start the Plan in the initial stages. The online portion can be copied by all but the very smallest non-profits; they’ll just have to be satisfied with building participants more slowly.

What can corporate marketers take away from this? Good management of social media programs for one thing. My sense is that Boone Pickens has no interest in seeing any of his money wasted. Beyond that, in a new media age, corporations should think about being a participant themselves. You can see several corporate partners on the site. Owens Corning was one of the early supporters—an obvious tie-in with their energy-saving product lines.

This is the age of the soft sell—not the hard sell or the intrusive ad. Non-profits do good. Corporations can do well by supporting carefully-chosen non-profits.

Three stakeholders win—the non-profits, the corporations, and society as a whole!

What About the Changes on Facebook?

If you’ve missed it elsewhere, Facebook made changes on Wednesday that affect brand pages. When C. C. Chapman visited my class that evening we looked at the changes and wondered if the inability to moderate wall comments would scare away some brands. Caroline McCarthy had a good post on CNET yesterday that explains some of the issues.

You should check out some of the brand pages that you’re interested in. Target is one that gets Facebook and does interesting things. Check out their page and notice all the comments on the wall and look at their reviews page. All of us should "fan" (note that that's a behavior) a few good brand pages and watch what they do.

I noticed on my page that C.C. has updated the page for his agency, The Advance Group. The portfolio page represents the work of the agency and their boxes page shows the other ways you can follow this group of social media marketers.


No one is talking much about the effects on non-profits. In fact, I thought that non-profit pages were to remain under the Groups rubric. I checked out one of my favorites, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and it clearly has been converted. MSCPA is an organization with many passionate supporters, as you can see if you look at one of their pages. This is the wall page from their Angell Memorial Hospital. They will have people bring up issues from time to time, as people are currently discussing the closure of animal shelters as a result of the recession. These people are posting with sadness and understanding, but others could post in a more critical way.

It’s nice to look at this as a great way for consumers to contribute. Businesses and non-profits also have to look at the monitoring and response function. If you have your own page, you have to keep an eye on it. But you also need to be watching what people say about you on other pages.

It sounds to me like a serious set of feeds and filters for any business or non-profit that’s serious about its online reputation. When Facebook talks about filters, they are talking about personal Facebook pages and the way individuals can control their feeds, which is fine, but I doubt that it’s sufficient for businesses. There are some third-party Facebook tools out there, but a quick search didn’t reveal the kind of tool I have in mind.

I’ll keep looking. In the meantime, if you know of any monitoring tools specifically for Facebook, let me know!

Now It's a Twestival!

Marketing Charts had a good summary yesterday of the recent Pew Report on Twitter use (get the full report here). Marketing Charts says it’s 10% of adult Internet users and Pew says 11% of them use Twitter or a similar update source. A little rounding error between marketers is not significant—Twitter has become a phenomenon.

So I was interested when C.C. Chapman used my Facebook page to invite me to a Twestival last week. I’ve been watching from afar; it seems to be the first Twitter effort of this kind in support of the non-profit Charity:Water.

This is a personal timeline:

• I saw C. C. Chapman’s post on my Facebook page via his Feed on or about February 10. It was interesting and unusual, so I clicked through to the Boston page.
• I checked out the main site. At that time, it was inviting people to the event. It has since been updated with results.
• I found out that David Karp from First Giving was going to use it as a case history in my social media class last night. He did a great job and the students were intrigued by this application of a tool that, interestingly, few of them use. (Wonder if that’s changed since last night. . .)














• When I opened my email this morning, there was a message from Scott Harrison of Charity:Water. The content was a report on a particular well project; he does a great job of bringing home the value of contributions to his charity. He had a thank-you and update on the Twestival at the bottom.
• According to what I see there were 199 cities besides Boston that held Twestivals on February 12. That’s reach!

The people I know who were involved are part of the social media community, as I’m sure are many I don’t know. They are connected; they communicate. If you take a look at the Twestival site, you’ll see that they also know how to build a website to support this kind of global activity.
This is all food for thought. The word spread on the Internet; people attended live events around the world; Charity:Water raised at least a quarter of a million dollars. This was done with a lot of volunteer effort and some corporate sponsorship.

It used multiple social media channels (including eBay—see the Auction button; is that social?); it engaged a lot of people who actively communicate.

Probably few organizations—either non-profit or for-profit—can entirely replicate this. But they can look and learn. And one important thing to keep reminding ourselves is that no one channel reaches everyone these days. Neither does random effort. It takes a lot of work, a lot of expertise to pull off something like the first Twestival. And it helps if you have a huge network of contacts!

So go forth, and keep building your networks!

A Brand-Driven, Viral Fundraising Business Model

One of my students introduced me to SocialVibe—thanks, Tao! It is another interesting business model—a combination of fundraising for non-profits and cause-related marketing for brands. As Tao pointed out, the focus on social networks also makes the efforts viral.

Leading brands have signed up as sponsors. Consumers who want to raise money for a cause (members) select their cause and create a widget (they call it a badge) using graphics supplied by the non-profit and the sponsor. The member then posts the badge on a social networking page and earns sponsor points by getting donations there. As the site points out, it’s a chance to do good without the member committing a lot of his or her own funds. For the brand, it’s impressions on the social networking sites that are probably a lot more effective than paid advertising impressions.

Some causes are seeing it as an especially effective way to reach certain target audiences. To Write Love on Her Arms is a teen suicide-prevention advocacy that is actively using the viral power of the site. But others are going beyond just the obvious teenage target audience. A Canadian publication talks about using sites like SocialVibe to get out messages that attempt to stem the tide of obesity and the related problem of Type 2 diabetes.

Another active user is Charity:Water, a non-profit with another “new media” business model of its own.

It is impressive and heartening to see non-profits making effective use of the Internet in their fundraising efforts. It is also impressive to see corporations and brands joining in these efforts in a way that is beneficial all the way around.

It’s a good thought for the holiday season!

Guest Post - Ringtones for the Blind Part 2

Yesterday, Laura described the ringtone project for the Perkins School for the Blind. Today, she takes us through the often-difficult process to it successful conclusion.

Although our web administrators at Perkins are very talented, ringtones were not within their scope. Therefore, I began to investigate what other organizations were doing in terms of branding and marketing.

First, I emailed and telephoned the organization which had been reported in the press to have created Obama’s website. The company is called mStyle and, of all things, happens to be located in Boston! The emails I sent to the address posted on their site bounced back (not a good sign for a company in the technology space) and the telephone messages I left – three in all – were never returned.

Next, I Googled ‘ringtone downloads’ and ‘creating ringtones’ and other similar phrases and found a number of articles promoting this as a new way of reaching a younger audience.

What I discovered in my research was that some websites:
a) clearly had problems with the downloads (The National Zoo in Washington, DC has a message “Due to temporary technical problems, the ringtone samples and store are offline”)
b) worked through a consolidator of some kind (meaning that you are sent to a website which is not your website, and the consolidator makes money),
c) made the ringtones available, but not for free (in some cases as a donation to the cause as in the case of this Unicef campaign against violence in Kenya)
d) made the ringtone downloads so difficult to find that I never found them, although they had been cited in articles about ringtones (Ford Mustang, Porsche)

I ended up finding a new company called Myxer, which responded immediately to my email. The VP of Business Development called me back within an hour. When I explained to him what I was trying to do, he told me that although much of what they do is to enable people to make their own ringtones, or to download an artist’s ringtone, they also work behind the scenes with companies like Friendly’s Ice Cream to provide free downloads.

One of the ways Myxer makes its money is by showing ads on the text message you receive once you have requested a free download from a specific artist.

If your company or organization agrees to pay the equivalent of the cost of the ad placement, Myxer will not show ads and just provide your ringtone download without showing any other company’s advertising. This is the direction I chose to go in. Nonetheless, I had to give up the requirement that the delivery of the ringtone would be branded only with the Perkins brand and not with a third-party provider. When a visitor downloads the ringtone from the www.perkinsbrailler.org website (or from Friendly’s), you receive a text message from Myxer directing you to the Myxer website to finish the download.

Myxer was incredibly courteous to work with, turning their organization inside out to get us up and running in our very short timeframe. Moreover, they offered to provide the service for free until we reach a certain number of downloads, believing that our cause is worthwhile.

And we are up and running…

Still, this has not been easy. We have had feedback that people can’t seem to do the downloads – partly because they don’t understand how their cellphones work, and partly because the technology is complicated.

As was reported in a recent article in AdWeek, the technology is not really ready for primetime yet. Apparently this is due to a variety of reasons, including:

• A large number of carriers, all having their own restrictions

• A wide variety of equipment with varying capabilities

• The type of message being sent, with some phones unable to receive some types of messages

This was validated recently when I attended a luncheon at which the CEO of Nokia spoke. During the question and answer period, I briefly described my own foray into the world of mobile marketing and asked him whether there was any initiative among various manufacturers of equipment as well as providers to standardize the technology and make it more universally accessible. He indicated that this is a very important question and although there are explorations being made, there is no solution at this time.

Our initiative is intended to be international since the Perkins Brailler is sold all over the world. But, the problems only escalate when you are talking about ringtone downloads with carriers in India or Africa.

All in all, quite a learning experience! But until the technology matures, this is still going to be a difficult road to traverse.

Guest Post - Ringtones for the Blind -- Part 1

Today I'm delighted to have a guest post from Laura Matz who is Director of Sales and Marketing for Perkins Products at Perkins School for the Blind, a world-renowned organization located in Watertown, MA. Laura contacted me last summer in the early stages of this marketing program. I've followed the development of the program with interest, and am pleased that Laura has provided us with a detailed narrative of the issues she faced. Today is the introduction; watch for the steps to a successful conclusion tomorrow.


I work for Perkins School for the Blind, responsible for international marketing and sales for a small division within Perkins which sells the Perkins Brailler® – a low-tech device used all over the world which looks like a typewriter and creates printed Braille. After 57 years, we have just launched the Next Generation™ Perkins Brailler® - a ‘reimagination’ of the classic Perkins Brailler, incorporating a sleek design, contemporary colors, and cool, new features which users have asked for.


Since one of the target audiences is young people who are blind and visually impaired – ages 8 – 15 and older – we decided to create an audio campaign, for obvious reasons. We contracted with a brilliant musician, Raul Midon, to write an original song for us. Raul, aside from being an internationally known, gifted guitarist and singer, is also blind and uses Braille.

One of the goals of the campaign is to enable a young person in a mainstream school who is blind or visually impaired to be able to show the new Brailler to his or her sighted classmates, and feel proud that it is a cool device; not something that looks old-fashioned or obsolete. In addition, we wanted kids to be able to share the song with their friends, blind or sighted, using the modern, new media with which kids communicate these days.

Therefore, we decided to turn the song into ringtones and post them on the website for download. I began to look for a company that would guide me through the technology hurdles and allow me to:
a) Offer the downloads for free
b) ‘Private label’ the downloads, meaning that I didn’t want to go through another website in order to download
c) Ensure that there was no advertising associated with the download, which could compromise the ‘integrity’ of a non-profit organization such as ours.

The example which I wanted to emulate was Barack Obama’s website which makes the downloads available for free, makes the process simple and does not appear to go through a third-party. Also Bounce at Procter and Gamble makes it free and easy to download their jingle.

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow!

A Mother's Day Card from Charity:Water

It's always fun to open up the email box on Mother's Day morning and see what's there. This year in addition to the expected there was a lovely surprise from one of my students. Dave had sent me a card announcing a donation of $20 in my name to Charity:Water. Not only was it a nice gesture; it was viral, encouraging me to send another card. When I clicked through I found that I could designate my donation for any one of three countries. If I didn't care to make a designation in the time allotted, the choice would be made by Charity:Water. I didn't send the ecard, but I did match Dave's donation, so the single card actually raised $40.

On the donation page (and throughout the site) there's a statement of Charity:Water's uinique value proposition--100% of the donation goes to a fresh water project. How do they do it? They have separate channels for donations to support the running of the organization and they seem to get numerous in-kind service donations also. The focal point of their fund-raising is actually a $20 bottle of fresh water, which we in developed economies take for granted, but according to the site, 1.1 billion worldwide do not. A man who used to sell $350 bottles of vodka to nightclubbers though he could sell $20 bottles of water for a cause, and he was right!

Charity:Water is the creation of Scott Harrison. As the story goes Scott came to New York as member of a rock band and soon became a successful fixture on the New York nightclub scene. Tiring of that, he looked for a greater purpose. His first step was to volunteer on one of the Mercy Ships. He returned to found Charity:Water. It's clearly a charity of the Internet age. They have found multiple ways to engage visitors in the work they are doing, providing a great deal of rich content and giving an opportunity to select a project in a specific location. Look at the projects page to see ways in which they keep donors up to date on projects they've sponsored, including using Google Earth to pinpoint the location of wells they have provided.

There are two important non-profit strategy issues here. First is the business model, in which all publicly-solicited donations go to the work of the cause, not to a blotted, overpaid administrative structure, which we've seen too often in recent years. Second is the way in which they use the web, not just to solicit donations but to keep donors informed in a very personal way. Not all organizations are going to be able to copy the business model. All non-profits should look at the way Charity:Water uses the web today and watch for continuing developments as this organization grows. It is clearly an organization to watch--both for the good work they do and for the exceptionally effective way in which they do it.

Non-Profits Explore Social Media

Today constituent management firm Convio announced a major suite of applications designed to make it easier for non-profit organizations to tap the power of Web 2.0. I wrote earlier about the software that allows fund-raiser participants to create their own personal pages to solicit gifts. The new applications allow customers to create their own APIs, integrate various member/donor databases and take advantage of social networks like Facebook and Flickr.

At first glance, many of these applications are not DIY. It’s going to take some programming to turn your logo into a live connection to your website or to a landing page that registers new acquisitions. Once you have it, though, it is easy to post it—and to ask loyal members of your community to post it on their websites, blogs, and social network pages. That will work for non-profits in a way that it won’t work for corporations. And that’s DIY. Once you have the logo or another API, ask your supporters to post it and to encourage their friends to do the same. Corporations have to pay for that (the Amazon or eBay affiliate programs, for example). Non-profits will get it free from people who care about their cause.

Some social networks are offering special services to non-profits. It’s another traffic builder and it doesn’t hurt their public image. ASPCA, with its channel on YouTube, continues to be a leader in use of these techniques. Many of their videos feature individual animals available for adoption and, looking at them, one has to believe they result in successful adoptions. They also offer informational videos and ones like the one featuring Tony LaRussa, which was originally a PSA spot.

The channel also includes entertaining user-submitted videos that are tagged “aspca” like “Charm School.”


MySpace offers “A portal to all that is good on MySpace.” There are a lot of pages on politics on MySpace, remember The Obama Girl?” That was a supporter’s offering; the campaign has its own MySpace page, as do many others. And no, I didn’t check how many “friends” each campaign has there as a measure of its appeal to young voters. I’m not going there.

For-profit marketers take note. As long as these pages are on the “free” networks, they are going to offer advertising space. That’s a useful way to target specialized audiences with ads and sponsorships that align the corporation with good causes. Is it better than having your own commercial-looking page? Time (and marketing experiments and good metrics) will tell.

In the meantime non-profits are going to continue to explore Internet frontiers, and they deserve our support.
Sphere: Related Content

Using the Tools

It’s always a pleasure to receive an email from your daughter, especially one that has a picture of your adorable grandson. This one was special.

Her family signed up to participate in the Walk for Animals sponsored by MSPCA and Boston’s Angell Memorial Hospital earlier this month. The email included a link to their personal page complete with a picture, personal fund-raising goal and a link to their bulldog group web page. The scrolling list of donors indicated that various people and pets had already contributed.

Sure, I would have made a contribution anyway; they are my kids. But this made it easy for me. Even better, it made it easy for them. It was personal and appealing but very soft sell. Because it was a simple text email it was easy to forward. I did, and my friend’s cat made a contribution also. The system also provided an email template for participants to thank their donors along with the standard email acknowledgement by the MSPCA.

I wasn’t there, but I’m told that people, dogs, and a pair of ferrets had fun. The cats on leashes and the parakeets in birdcages strapped to strollers didn’t look as happy. But, according to the MSCPA, they raised over $330,000 with this event. Every communication provided links to the website and the HTML ones included a lot of the site functionality.

All this was powered by Convio’s TeamRaiser fundraising software. That made it easy to replicate some of the MSPCA home page components on the personal pages. It also interfaced with the MSPCA donor database, capturing new names and updating donor records.

The participants are an integral part of an event like this. Using interactive tools to improve their experience and produce desired results for the organization is a win-win.