Philanthropy 2.0

Crowded Roads Ahead for Charity 2.0:Caroline McCarthy over on CNet explores the impact of the rapid growth of social networking and the sustainability of online fundraising. If you don’t get enough fodder from her great interviews with Scott Harrison from Charity:Water and Toby Daniels at Think Social, Beth Kanter continues the conversation by focusing on the recent epidemic of “cause fatigue” on her blog.

 

Social Media and the Shifting Power Dynamics of Philanthropy: In a new post, Nathaniel Whittemore takes a closer look at this week’s announcement of the  NonProfit Times annual "Power and Influence Top 50."  A special shout out to my boss, Jean Case, who is among the list of the 50 people driving and shaping the world of philanthropy and civil society. As Nathaniel notes, “while the list is full of amazing people, there is one type of person conspicuously absent: bloggers.”

 

Diary of a Social Venture Startup:The good folks over at GOOD Magazine have a new series of posts documenting what it takes to start a social venture. This week they focus on a key element vital to getting your business off the ground: the right team. If you enjoy Joe’s post, you should check out the series.

 

Would the real social network please stand up?: While this post is actually from last week, I didn’t read it until this week so I’m including it for those of you who are behind like me. It’s another terrific and thoughtful post by danah boyd and Bernie Hogan. They distill three distinct ways of looking at social networks – and explore how these different social networks relate to one another (or don't) and what they can mean when measuring social capital. I promise it will get you thinking.

 

 

I’d offer a summary of their summary, but Allison Fine has already done that work, so you can hop on over to her site and check it out or refer to the full article on mashable here.

 

Essentially what the study found was that yes, there is “tremendous opportunity for nonprofits to participate as trusted providers of credible information and ultimately cultivate the next generation of major donors through the social web.”  Great news for all of the early nonprofit experimenters out there testing these new approaches and working to build up their online networks.

 

While I know that the study clearly focused on dollars – I couldn't help but also think about where donating time and making an emotional connection to donors plays into all of this. I was recently introduced to the work of Jennifer Aaker at Stanford University, her research shows that nonprofits can benefit financially when they help potential donors make an emotional connection to the organization and its mission.

 

I had the pleasure of attending Jennifer’s Power of Social Technology class earlier this month as her students presented their end of year projects. Each group chose a topic of importance to them and then developed a social media campaign to move people to action, mostly by donating money, but also to sign petitions, volunteer their time, etc. To see some of the students projects you can check out their class blog with links and brief reflections on each. For the most part the students did a great job pulling at our heart strings and convincing people to take action -- and while they were passionate evangelists, at the end of the day they were doing it for a grade. It seems to me that as a general rule it must be much harder for nonprofits to make that emotional connection online rather than face to face. 

 

So, all of this leads me to my question for YOU. If you are leveraging social media to raise money and most of the interaction with your donors is happening virtually, are you still able to pull at people's heart strings and help them make an emotional connection? What campaigns or organizations are doing that best?