Charities 3.0 New Ways Of Fundraising Money

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18 September 2014

Before the Internet, people donated anonymously. Now if your not blasting it around Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram does it still count as philanthropy? Times have definitely changed. Thanks to social media and a bit of creativity any cause can be hear and has the chance to raise the money they need. These social media campaigns and Internet memes are just a new formula of fundraising in a digital age. Trends in social media come and go. Some of these trends last no longer than a few weeks, while others eventually become permanent fixtures of online interactions. But basically all you need is a creative idea and a bunch of helpful friends willing to spread the word! Campaigns like this can drive gigantic awareness.

Top Social Media Charity campaigns of all time:

Whilst it did come with some controversy on wasting water and showing off the main point is that it helped to raise $100 million for the ALS cause. The Ice Bucket Challenge spread like wildfire, with thousands of people dumping freezing water on their heads coined with a hashtag to create a widespread endeavour. With celebrities starting the trends E.g. Bill Gates, Charlie Sheen the campaign was automatically exposed to 16million people that may have not known about the foundation before. The challenge has proven the long-held theory that video will be the dominant online medium of the future. Becoming the equivalent to stalking cats on YouTube — the video is fun to share because it taps into something everyone can enjoy watching.

Asking women to take photos of themselves without makeup and upload them to social channels seems risky. Yet thousands got involved in the UK in the name of Cancer awareness. This social media phenomenon grew organically in the matter of weeks, raising a total of 7M. The idea of giving supporters the power of running the campaign themselves is what made it so attractive.

It allows men to play with their image by growing a moustache for the month of November, to raise awareness of men’s testicular cancer or mental health. The campaign’s immense success is ultimately down to how easy it has been for people to get involved. All starting from a chat between a few friends in a pub, it has since become a global fundraising machine. Creating something universally entertaining is a creative way on capitalizing on the idea that everyone finds moustaches fundamentally funny. Effortlessly viral content is easily shareable and turns anybody into a walking, talking, social billboard sharing #selfie’s.

This campaign is a great inner circle fundraising campaign. People who are willing to take part in a charity run, at the same time are asked to raise money for the cause. So they do and they ask their friends on Facebook for the donations in their names. And people are more likely to help a friend who is doing a good deed for a cause than just donate for a charity on its own.

But again it’s not exclusive to the big charities. If you have a cause you need money to raise for you should go for it. A girl diagnosed with a knee cancer in June 2014 managed to raise 70% of the target in 3 months thanks to Facebook and an idea to share among friends knee selfies to raise the awareness of the cause and make something different. Fundraising online is now digitally effortless; People think of Kickstarter as the go-to site for artists, filmmakers and other creative types who need funding for a creative project. Non-profits can use CauseVox or Catalyst which are designed to help fundraising for nonprofits. The secret to utilizing apps for Facebook such as the crowdfunding tool FundRazr, allows you to have maximum share power. Some crowd-funding campaigns make headlines periodically by raising jaw-dropping amounts of money.

The key elements needed to help you with your fundraising:

• clear message what is the money for and how much has been raised so far (and how much more you need)
• you can help to materialise the donations by defining what is the equivalent of the sum, e.g. 10GBP (for IV), 200GBP (for the MRI) etc.
• think about a creative idea to spread it
• a challenge or a funny photo/video
• get a group of ambassadors (friends) who will help you spread the initiative to their friends and contacts

Don’t forget to thank all your fundraisers (you can even give away some little things like stickers or simply thank online) It’s amazing what social media can do. And it’s sure that we haven’t seen it all yet.

Any predictions what will be the next big thing after the IceBucketChallenge?