That’s me on the left. Perhaps you read my recent post on the SocialNicole.com blog titled “The Social “Media” Effect – How a simple post tossed me into a lake”. The post talks about how social media led me to do something a bit crazy this past weekend – jumping in an ice cold lake. Go ahead and read it- it’s worth a laugh. But it will also give you some background to what I’m going to talk about here which is personal fundraising online.
Most nonprofits are struggling with this wide wide world of the social web, and how to integrate their current fundraising and communications efforts and use social media as a tool to help fundraise. It’s a challenge – especially for the small nonprofit. Yet my story about social media causing my jump into a lake is a great example of how your online and offline community can be leveraged for success in growing your cause and increasing your online fundraising.
But I left something out of my story…
What I hadn’t told you was that a friend of mine popped up on Twitter and said “Gee, maybe I should join you in jumping in the lake.”
This friend, Danny Sussman, decided to jump in on Monday (1 day after I started my personal fundraising online) after we had lunch to discuss the Deep Freeze Dunk. Danny is your average guy who loves Twitter, but he’s not a social media professional and certainly did not have the advantage of the deep networks I personally have built on social media. So when he jumped in to participating in the dunk – he also jumped into a friendly competition with me.
In fact, to onlookers during the past week our banter on Twitter and Facebook may have seemed a bit like heated trash talk. Lo and behold, Danny and I were actually on a team together but individually trying to out-raise each other. But at the end of the day, we had worked for a joint cause- our team, Haiti Outreach and the new school to be built in Haiti this spring!
But this social media adventure didn’t just recruit Danny. This single post on Facebook turned into the recruitment
My original Facebook post that started this personal fundraising campaign for Haiti Outreach.
of a total of four individual fundraisers, two of whom are social media savvy.
Our four-person team managed to leverage its online and offline communities. We used what we could: Facebook, Twitter, email and phone to get donations and pledges. This small team that popped up due to my one single social media post ended up raising a quarter of the total raised at the Deep Freeze Dunk event!
Our total was over $4000 raised. The final break down for our team was:
Danny: $1,525
Nicole and Abby: $2,119
Sue: $750
Ok, so maybe I had a little help from my daughter @AstronautAbby – but Danny knew what he was getting into! I won the competition, but Danny ultimately forced me to work my butt off to win. This was the most challenging week I can remember! And you can still donate to our cause!
In the end, the Deep Freeze Dunk had 64 jumpers and individual fundraisers – yet 4 of them raised almost ¼ of the almost $20,000 total raised.
Why is this important for your nonprofit and what can you learn? Stay tuned as we follow up with that soon – with tips for you to take to your nonprofits.
Article by Nicole Harrison
Hi I'm Nicole Harrison, founder of SocialNicole a full service social media agency. This blog is all about using social technology to connect, engage and grow companies. If you liked the post, consider signing up for our monthly enews packed full of everything social. Thanks for visiting!
Nicole has written 61 awesome articles for us at Nonprofit Talk | Nonprofits Empowered and Connected
Twitter: @http://twitter.com/#!/socialnicole | Facebook
