Social media can be an incredible force for doing good.
I’ve spoken about it a bit lately, sharing some real world examples in the deck below:
Examples don’t necessarily explain how to do it, so here’s a simple, grassroots way I used social media to raise $1,250 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association just yesterday.
Here’s how I did it.
First, I created a blog post explaining what I was doing.
Then I used Twitter and Facebook to broadcast my requests, Brightkite to post photos (which in turn, post to Twitter), Ping.fm to send information across all my networks, and a ChipIn widget to collect and tally donations.
All of the services above are free.
This blog has been my aggregation point, and it’s basically free, too.
The only hard cost was from Paypal, my clearinghouse for payments, totaling about 3%, which my firm simply made up the difference.
There are options that don’t cost, such as the Causes application on Facebook and MySpace, but the MDA didn’t have a link set up there.
What’s the upside?
What will Outsource Marketing, The Responsible Marketing Blog and I gain from all this? Well, I had fun and it always feels good to do good.
Everyone at Outsource Marketing is here because we care about more than making a buck—we want to do some good too. While my colleagues enjoyed seeing me forcefully removed from the premises, they were genuinely glad our firm was involved. Efforts like this reinforce the culture we’re working to build.
Sure, you can’t spend goodwill, but keeping your team happy reduces turnover.
And lower turnover results in higher client satisfaction.
And higher client satisfaction results in less client churn.
And less churn makes for a more profitable company.
I’ll take all of the above, thank you.
You can help the MDA (or a nonprofit of your choice) too.
If you are ever asked to participate in the MDA Lock-Up in your community, do it. The MDA offers “Wanted” posters and plenty of ideas to promote it around your office.
It’s easy, it’s fun and it’s for a great cause.
Ping me and I’ll promote it here on The Responsible Marketing Blog.
Tomorrow, it’s back to strictly marketing posts. Although I never heard a peep saying as much, I assume a few of you were beginning to suffer from “fundraising fatigue.”
Rest assured, I’ll stay out of jail for at least another year.
So, what’s the most creative fundraiser you’ve ever seen?
I raised enough bail to get out of jail at the MDA Lockup, but more importantly, we raised $1,250 for the MDA.
Your donations will help the MDA continue research for treatments and cures for 43 neuromuscular diseases, and help provide wheelchairs, clinic visits, support groups and summer camp for the families served by the MDA.
A few pictures follow. Mouse over for captions, click to enlarge.
Donations came from people as close as down the hall, to as far as Dublin, Ireland and ranged from $10 to $250.
Here are the generous people who donated:
Eric Anderson
Kevin Burgess
Tony Cheng
Renee Chow
LaDonna Coy
Mark Jordan
Mike Komola
Joseph McGrath
Mark McLaren
Freddy Nager
Deston Nokes
Victoria Ostrovskaya
Mike Rask
Shari Storm
Loni Syltebo
Amanda Wolfman
My firm, Outsource Marketing, threw in a dollar or two as well.
Thanks, everyone.
If you’d like to say thanks to the folks above, comment below.
Want to see what it’s like to be arrested, jailed and then subjected to waterboarding? Follow me on Twitter—I’ll be live-tweeting my experience tomorrow.
Today I received this very special letter from Lindsey, a little girl that gets to go to camp because of donations from folks like you that have shared a little of their hard earned money to make things a little better for someone less fortunate:
Although the whole jail and bail theme is creative and fun, this is serious stuff the MDA is tackling.
Won’t you help someone like Lindsey by making a donation of any size today?
You know you’ll feel great when do some good!
All credit and debit cards are accepted.
Thanks again for your donation!
. . .
Your 100% tax-deductible donation will help MDA continue research for treatments and cures for 43 neuromuscular diseases.
Your support of the MDA Lock-Up will also help provide wheelchairs, clinic visits, support groups and summer camp for the families served by the MDA.
I have no idea what I did to deserve this, but I was arrested and have been sentenced to hard-time in some gulag — I think I heard them call it “The Keg.”
Sounds scary.
I’ll be booked into jail on September 17th. I’ve been told if I can post $1,000 in bail before lockup they’ll go easy on me—they might even let me out the same day.
If not, no more Responsible Marketing Blog—there’s no Wi-Fi in the big house, ya know.
Can you donate $500? $250? $100? $50? $25? Anything will help!
To make donating easy, I’ve set up this simple widget. All credit and debit cards are accepted.
I’m really worried about this.
They keep saying, “You’re going behind bars for good!”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that sounds like they mean forever to me.
Any and all donations appreciated.
. . .
Your 100% tax-deductible donation will help MDA continue research for treatments and cures for 43 neuromuscular diseases.
Your support of the MDA Lock-Up will also help provide wheelchairs, clinic visits, support groups and summer camp for the families served by the MDA.
Last, special thanks to Eric Weaver from Edelman Digital who coordinated PodCamp, and to Guy Kawasaki and Chris Brogan, for using reaching out to their network to help me find great examples for this presentation.
So, who’s doing a great job in the social good space?
If you were forced to walk to the nearest source of water—a river, a stream, a pond—on foot, how far would you have to travel?
And how would it make you feel—deep down—if you had to give your children dirty water to drink after all that?
That’s the simple but powerful premise of the above charity: water public service announcement (PSA).
As New York City’s taps go dry, a mother walks to Central Park and is forced to haul dirty water home to her family.
Just as millions of mothers do in Africa every day.
Here’s what charity: water is working to solve
Right now, 1.1 Billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us.
Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation causes 80% of all sickness and disease, and kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.
Great marketing with no excuses
So many non-profits use their non-profit status as a crutch, calling in favors to create their marketing and communications materials. Usually, their marketing looks like, well, they’ve called in some favors to create their marketing and communications materials.
That’s not the case with charity: water.
The organization has worked their connections and managed to pull together some top-shelf work. For the video, award-winning cinematographer Ellen Kurasbuts, Hotel Rwanda director Terry George, and Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly all donated their time to the effort.
Their website is better than most commercial companies.
Their branding, messaging, copy, photography….are all playing well together.
And if you think they spending donations on marketing, think again. 100% of all donations are being put to use. All work is being done in-kind.
Bottled water?
But why are they selling bottled water, when bottled water is terrible for the environment? They’ve tackled that one head on on their Isn’t bottled water evil? page:
Question: “Isn’t bottled water evil? Why are you using plastic water bottles?”
Bottled water has gotten plenty of bad press lately. The industry is now $16 billion a year, and 38 billion plastic bottles get tossed into landfills each year. And 24% of all bottled water is actually just tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.
What could be worse? We think the fact that 1 in 6 people on our planet are forced to drink polluted water is worse. We think seeing 4,500 kids die each day from diseases like parasites and diarrhea is worse.
We are not a bottled water company. We want to give everyone on earth access to the same clean, safe drinking water that comes out of our taps. Our $20 bottle was created in response to the gratuitous excess of wealth and waste we see everywhere. There’s nothing special about the actual bottle. We pay 34¢ for each one, and the water comes from a spring in upstate New York. What is special, is what that $20 does for people in need. Early on, we pledged to always give 100% of the money away – very much unlike for-profit companies whose bottom line matters most.
There are hundreds of non-profits and for-profit organizations using bottled water as a tool to raise money for worthy causes. But charity: water is doing it better than any of them.
What’s the best PSA you’ve ever seen? In the non-profit space, who ‘gets it’ when it comes to marketing?
