Beth Did It!
by Michael HoffmanTuesday, January 2nd, 2007
Wow. Us nonprofity folk have been talking a lot about Web 2.0, that phenomenon where consumers of media are also publishers and everything is portable, and what it means for nonprofits. The bandwagon is being jumped on and the backlash has started, leading one to think maybe the whole thing has peaked.
Me, I think this is for real. While I am sure there is some “irrational exuberance” to the whole thing that will shake out, Beth Kanter just proved that the world of portable content and blogging and all that other stuff we are talking about can have a real impact.
Network for Good, an organization that helps nonprofits take donations online and individuals find and keep track of the nonprofits they donate to, partnered with Yahoo! to promote something they call Charity Badges. A Charity Badge is like a donation widget that you can put on your site, blog, MySpace page, etc. to encourage a group of people to give the same cause, through Network for Good, of course. Yahoo! ran a promotion through the end of the year that said the Charity Badge to get the most unique donators (not the most amount of money, but the most individuals giving) would get their total donations matched up to $50,000.
Beth Kanter, who I have talked about here before as someone who is a kind of nonprofit Web 2.0 guru, took up the challenge for an organization she is involved with, the Sharing Foundation. Now the Web 2.0 piece of this is the Charity Badge itself, but also Beth’s online network of bloggers and communities where she could promote the contest. [We must give Beth more credit than the size of her network. She (and/or the folks at the Sharing Foundation) has a good marketing head as well. They focused on unique donors and so told everyone they needed to give her only five minutes and $10. As you will see the average donor gave a lot more than that.]
How did Beth do raising money for the Sharing Foundation and against everyone else who was trying hard to win this contest? See for yourself. And while you’re at it, it’s not too late to give.
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:04 am
[…] Wow. Us nonprofity folk have been talking a lot about Web 2.0, that phenomenon where consumers of media are also publishers and everything is portable, and what it means for nonprofits. The bandwagon is being jumped on and the backlash has started, leading one to think maybe the whole thing has peak. (continues) […]