Posts Tagged ‘causes’

PayPal Research Shows Strength of Community Trumps Popularity

Posted on: November 3rd, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 3 Comments

Paddyobrien

We live in strange times in which an online following is considered the mark of success. This era of weblebrity seems caustic at times with companies, nonprofits and individuals chasing personal brands for their time. Yet, as we dig deeper we see that real influence online does not necessarily tether itself to the most well known, rather the most engaged. Some research released today, The Effectiveness of Celebrity Spokespeople in Social Fundraisers, conducted on case studies within the PayPal network validates this truth.

The paper, my final as a Zoetican and co-authored with Henry T. Dunbar, concludes that online celebrity fundraising efforts are hit and miss. Further some of the biggest names get outpaced by lesser known web-based personalities or weblebrities who activate deep ties to their communities.

The research shows over and over again that the hyper-engaged online personality with an authentic story is the one to succeed. Here are some examples:

  • A campaign on Facebook’s Causes to raise money for a new children’s hospital. In it, a 9-year-old cancer patient with virtually no online presence generated more donations than any other individual, including television star Ashton Kutcher.

  • A DonorsChoose.org fundraising competition among bloggers —- including TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington and All Things D’s Kara Swisher —- was dominated by a blogger offering to parade around in a tomato suit.

  • The launch competition of Kevin Bacon’s Six Degrees social giving website: Despite recruiting more than 60 celebrities to create “charity badges” on the site —- including Nicole Kidman and Ashley Judd -— the top fundraiser was a woman who blogs about scrapbooking and has an autistic son.

  • The PayPal-sponsored Regift the Fruitcake campaign on Facebook was won by Operation Smile with the help of Filipina singer Charice and her engaged fans. Other more notable celebrities participated, but didn’t deliver Charice’s impact.

  • TwitChange, which hosts charity auctions where fans buy mentions, follows, and retweets from celebrities on Twitter. Through three auctions in 2010, two of the celebrities drawing the most attention and highest bids have been actor Zachary Levi (of TV’s Chuck) and celebrity photographer Jeremy Cowart, beating stars such as country singer LeAnn Rimes and celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton.

As practitioners and communicators, we owe it to ourselves and our clients to dig deeper, and learn the underpinnings of the online social web. Real influence is more than popularity, and this paper goes a great distance to highlighting the important components of authenticity, real strong community engagement, and a willingness to actively work with a community to affect change.

The whole paper is online, and embedded below. Over the next few weeks, expect to see several full case studies outlining the principles of the paper published here. Special thanks to PayPal’s Clam Lorenz, Network for Good’s Katya Andresen, DonorsChoose.org’s Anna Doherty, Operation Smile’s Kristi Kastrounis, and TwitChange’s Shaun King, all of whom provided the outstanding content and insights that made this paper possible.

Effectiveness of Celebrity Spokespeople in Social Fundraisers

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Beyond Facebook and Twitter

Posted on: June 6th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 12 Comments


Photos by Chris Suspect

NonProfit 2.0 crystalized as a great event last Friday with incredible conversations, even amongst competitors. But perhaps what made it most special was the utter lack of Facebook and Twitter sessions. No one, from keynotes to 23 attendee generated “unsessions,” wanted to talk about how-to Facebook or Tweet. That was the first social media conference in memory that did not include at least one conversation centered around Facebook or Twitter.

For some, there will always be a need for the basics, particularly about Facebook, which seems to change its interface and features every month. But it seems that the need for this type of information was not needed, at least in the DC Nonprofit 2.0 community. Not last week.

This was refreshing. It marked a line in the sands of time. Maybe it was an anomaly. Or maybe it is finally time to start talking about the pragmatic use of these tools rather than the basics. As a blogger who has covered social media use for more than five years this feels really good, providing a sense of the sector’s arrival.

Beyond this simple epiphany, Epic Change’s Stacey Monk delivered a stirring keynote on re-instilling love and compassion into cause work. Crowdrise’s Robert Wolfe opened the kimono discussing Edward Norton Jr’s involvement, and how MooseJaw led him to create a fun social fundraising site. Social fundraisers Razoo (client), Crowdrise, CauseVox and Causes demonstrated a congenial affinity for each other that you rarely see amongst competitors. It was really cool.

But in the end, the big takeaway from Nonprofit 2.0 was the quiet yet obvious absence of Facebook and Twitter as topics. What do you think? Are communicators moving beyond the need for simple information about these social networks?

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Why Launch the Inspiring Generosity Blog

Posted on: May 23rd, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 3 Comments

Mariah's Promise, Dog Rescue, in Divide CO is being evicted...
Image by Beverly & Pack

Today on Razoo’s site, Zoetica helped launch the Inspiring Generosity blog. As the managing editor of the blog, it is an honor to be involved with this ambitious effort. Further, it is a privilege to work with great bloggers like Alex Bornkessel, John Haydon and Estrella Rosenberg, and videographer Chris Suspect.

Inspiring Generosity seeks to catalyze a critical industry breakthrough for nonprofits in online fundraising. Currently, the industry is stymied with past attempts for social fundraising not achieving significant scalable success. The exceptions garner excitement, but are not creating widespread industry best practices.

In large part, we believe that social fundraising has yet to break through because the technology has not been intuitive, and approaches towards donors have largely been transactional and not relational. If you think about the latter reason, this is a larger issue facing all companies and nonprofits: Trying to force traditional marketing approaches into social as opposed to using these tools for relationships.

Inspiring Generosity seeks to address this transaction/relationship context, disseminate best practices, and highlight great case studies. Razoo has empowered the blog team to report on larger social fundraising issues, including what other industry leaders Causes, Crowdrise, FirstGiving, Fundly, Network for Good and more are doing right. For example, tomorrow’s post will be analysis of Blackbaud’s infographic on fundraising.

To do more than simply market on a blog — even going so far as to give your competition hat tips –takes some guts. Razoo, under the guidance of new CEO Brian Fujito, is returning to its core values of inspiring generosity. Together as a sector, done right social fundraising is an act that can strengthen the entire social good ecosystem and society as a whole.

Please join us on our weekly journey.

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