Fundraising on Twitter: It’s Not Always About the Money

Claire Diaz Ortiz
Manager, Social Innovation, Twitter

In my day job at Twitter, I immerse myself in the real life stories of individuals and organizations using Twitter to make a difference in the world around them. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until researching and writing my new book, Twitter for Good, that I took a long, hard look at fundraising on the platform.

In my efforts to explain my TWEET model for success on Twitter, I wanted to address the main concerns non-profits and social enterprises have. Again and again, questions about fundraising topped the list. How it works, why it works, and when it doesn’t.

Along the way, I came to a new, startling conclusion: it’s not about the money.

Nope, the real ROI of fundraising on Twitter is the relationships.

Here’s one example. Born2Fly is an organization dedicated to banishing sex trafficking, and they’ve worked hard on social media to do so. On September 9 of 2009 (09-09-09), Diana Scimone led a Twitterthon to raise $81,000. Did it work? In a word, no. Only hitting a fraction of her goal, Scimone regrouped before her 2010 fundraising campaign to figure out what she could have done better. Her key insights showed that using the online relationships she had cultivated would make 2010 a better year. Did it? Indeed.

Here’s another story I share in Twitter for Good : Global Citizen Year (GCY) encourages high school graduates to spend a “gap year” apprenticing for a social enterprise in a developing nation. Some of the best support they ever received came from cultivating a relationship (on Twitter) with Pulitzer Prize winner (and now GCY-supporter) Nick Kristof. Did @NickKristof write GCY a check? Who knows. But surely one of his thousands of readers did when he wrote about them in his New York Times column.

Again and again, I found in my research that the success of fundraising on Twitter highlights what we more or less have always known: In life (and on social networks) it’s all about the relationships we cultivate.

Do you agree?

Have your fundraising campaigns on Twitter been great successes or minor let-downs? If they succeeded, what factors contributed? If not, can you re-measure the “success” of a campaign in influencers reached and relationships made (with the long-term eye towards cash) to change the picture?

Want more from Claire Diaz Ortiz? Follow @ClaireD or download the first chapter of Twitter for Good for free. In the meantime, join her in the conversation.

Vena Jensen

Twitter For Good

I totally agree, Claire. And I find that people are sincerely interested in the question of whether social media is "worth the time and effort." Here’s how I’m thinking about these issues but I’m open for re-evaluation. The point of social media is not to "sell" but to create a new vehicle for dialog. I think of it as a newfangled telephone. Imagine how crippled your business would be without a phone? In the future, social media will be as essential to most businesses as a phone is today. That doesn’t mean you have to necessarily install a multi-line system today. It does mean you need to be aware of its benefits and how to use it and to make wise decisions about how to integrate it into your marketing plan. So just like in face-to-face (F2F) interactions, you need to establish trust with your potential customers. It’s harder to do via the internet for a number of reasons, but especially because there are so many "wolves in grandma’s clothing" out there. One way to begin to build trust is to share what you have to offer freely. This gives people an opportunity to test you and your services. You are offering a "taste" of what you have to offer in exchange for their agreement that you can continue to establish and build a relationship with them. Social media is also "word-of-mouth" marketing. When someone tries your service and likes you, they are in a position to tell others. It’s our job as marketers to provide our happy customers a.k.a excited donors with ways to share about their experience with us. Another way to benefit from social media is to use it to learn more about your target market. Are you interested in conscious capitalism? I’m facilitating a free "Ecopreneur’s Support Group?" Check us out at http://www.claritygreen.com/eco-entrepreneurs/. What is an "ecopreneur?" Ecopreneurs recognize that business holds immense potential to benefit humanity in extraordinary ways. They embrace capitalism – free markets, entrepreneurship, competition and voluntary trade – as an opportunity to create healthy, functioning abundant economies. Acknowledging that business is an interdependent, interrelated system, they are aware that trust, compassion, collaboration and value-creation are essential elements of win-win approaches that create thriving, healthy, sustainable communities and ecologies. More info… http://bit.ly/peFpvs
- Claire Diaz Ortiz
  
  Twitter For Good
  
  Ecopreneur = cool word.
  
  Yup, you’re right when you say that the same rules that apply for F2F interactions apply on social media as well. I’d say that is the #1 mistaken idea of what social media is and most of the terrible social media campaigns out there have gotten this wrong;)
Lakshmi Narayana

FUNDRAISIING THROUGH NETWORKS

Dear

It is true that Social Media / networks helps to build relationships. In addition, it helps to display, create evidences,better connectivity, better understanding of concern, commitment and grass root reality and builds faith & trust. Continuation of relationships certainly leads for the mobilization of resources which includes funds.People or the civil societies needs support not money alone.

I am using the media and networks for building the relationships and further to work for the empowerment of the marginalized groups. It all depends on the purpose of building the relationship. Is it for the individual or for the cause. When is is the for the cause of the people or the community, certainly relationship works for the mobilizations of resources.

My efforts in this direction for the cause and civil societies have resulted for:

@ getting technical support and guidance

@ fund support for running the projects

@ Sponsorship support for creating livelihoods

@ to spread the vision, mission and message among the wider circle of

stakeholders

@ to get appreciations and awards

@ to improve the accountability with better visibility with participation.

The process is going on to use more such forums with technology for the sustainable and quality development.
- Claire Diaz Ortiz
  
  Tech Help?
  
  That’s wonderful about the tech help you received — do you mean in the area of micro-volunteer work, or how did the volunteers help you out?
DanielBassill

Twitter as part of strategy

Thanks for hosting this discussion.

I feel that Twitter, as well as forums like Facebook and Social Edge, are great for expanding your network and for drawing people to more in-depth leading and collaboration in other portals and in face-to-face interactions.

However, unless you have a high celebrity or political profile, lots of advertising dollars and/or a huge existing network, I don’t think any organization can raise significant dollars in short term campaigns.

Over time the networks you build can lead to a growth of resources… if the power and purpose of your work is important enough.

Recently I’ve posted some links to writers who talk about the combination of social media and in-depth learning. One writes of something called MOOCs, or Massive Open On-line Course, where people from many places participate in facilitated learning. Through Twitter and other social media attention can be generated for MOOCs and similar deeper learning forums. What is learned can be shared through the social media in efforts to expand the number of people involved.

As part of a cycle of activities such efforts could lead to movements of people working toward common goals.
- Claire Diaz Ortiz
  
  Twitter as part of strategy
  
  Interesting you mention MOOCs — someone recently mentioned those to me and I’ve been seeing how they might be useful within the field of social media;)
  - DanielBassill
    
    Twitter as part of strategy
    
    I worked in retail advertising for a large national corporation for 17 years and we had a repeating 12 month calendar of ads and events intended to draw customers to our stores.
    
    Social media have the potential to work like advertising, by the crowd rather than by a single organization. They can draw people to places with more in-depth learning about an issue, and to places where they can become volunteers, donors, organizers, etc. supporting one or more place based organizations.
    
    This animation/video looks like a "figure eight". In the middle intermediaries can provide information as people look for places and ways to get involved and as they look for ways to tell their friends, coworkers, etc to also get involved. http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/…/rebuild_real.swf
    
    At this stage the team building, network building and finance building are still works in progress. As we find ways to strengthen the role of intermediaries and information-aggregators, social media can play a greater and greater role of day-to-day attention-building and action-influencing.
Mozart Guerrier

Twitter’s ROI

I would have to agree with your assessment, Claudia. We have found twitter to be an incredible tool for collaboration, the cross curation of content, and even creating content!
DanielBassill

ROI of Relationships

I encourage you all to read Clair’s guest blog article at http://www.bethkanter.org/ror/

If we can map our network and show how our actions expand relationships and our influence we can demonstrate the impact of network building and intermediary organizations.

However, until we find investors who will provide the dollars/talent needed to do this network mapping most of us will not be able to demonstrate our role and will not be able to sustain it.

I’ve been building a network analysis group in one of my forums for a couple of years but with inconsistent manpower to help me. Take a look at http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com/…/forum

This is an open forum and I use it to build a library of ideas and articles so members of the group can expand their own vision and apply this process to other work than just the Tutor/Mentor Connection.