There is a company that I once bought something from, something that did not at all live up to my expectations, something that was just cheap and tacky and not at all what I wanted. However, it was quite inexpensive and I wasn’t feeling particularly outraged, so I just grinned and bore it….
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Thanks to the social web, each of us has the unprecedented ability to offer not only monetary support but also the reach of our own online networks in support of a cause. Non-profits can also tap into a myriad of sites enhanced by social media to turbo-charge fundraising campaigns and galvanize supporters.
Picking up where last year’s list left off, here are some of the best funding sites that leverage social networks and online crowds to help you do some (social) good. If there are others that you find worthwhile, please share them in the comments.
Fully integrated into the world’s largest social network, Causes lets Facebook users launch and participate in online campaigns for collective action, like fundraising, signing petitions and garnering attention for a cause or organization.
For Donors: The Causes application prompts individuals to create grassroots communities or “causes” in support of specific issues or non-profit organizations and then invite their Facebook friends to join them in their efforts.
For Non-profits: Non-profits can use Causes to build communities of supporters, run fundraising campaigns, distribute petitions and build a volunteer base for free. In order to accept donations through Causes, a non-profit must be a 501(c)3 that is also registered with GuideStar. Non-profits still must pay the 4.75% processing fee via Network for Good.
Crowdrise offers online tools for personal fundraising, event fundraising, special occasion fundraising, team fundraising and sponsored volunteerism. Star power from co-founder Edward Norton and social media-powered, high-profile fundraisers have helped set this crowdfunding tool apart from others.
For Donors: In addition to starting a fundraising campaign, giving to one, volunteering or interacting within Crowdrise, you can accumulate points for your activities. You’ll earn 10 points for every dollar raised or donated and double points for giving to a featured charity. Top point winners get prizes such as electronics, clothing and giftcards.
For Non-profits: Non-profits can benefit from Crowdrise’s turn-key solution meant to complement their existing fundraising and volunteer activities. Basic accounts are free, and there is a $299/year cost for a Featured Account. Crowdrise deducts 5% on donations made through their site with a $1 transaction fee for donations under $25 or a $2.50 transaction fee for donations of $25 and up.
This site provides a secure donation system that powers the online fundraising efforts of many non-profits. It also has a Volunteer Network to connect individuals across the country with more than 200,000 virtual, local and global volunteer opportunities.
For Donors: Some people may not ever come into direct contact with Network for Good until they make an online contribution to a non-profit that uses DonateNow behind the scenes. But you can go to the Network for Good site and make donations and manage your giving history directly. You can also set up automated monthly giving, buy a charity gift card, or download a badge for your favorite charity to add to your website or blog.
For Non-profits: Using the DonateNow service, you can select from three plans: “Lite,” for a 5% fee per donation; “Main,” with a one-time account setup fee of $199.00 and a monthly fee of $49.95; and “DonateNow Deluxe” for $99 per month. The latter two plans have a 3% donation fee. They also offer a service called EventsNow powered by givezooks with transaction fees of 5.5% and $0.99 per ticket or donation and a fee-based e-mail service powered by Emma.
This site vets every classroom project request submitted by teachers and processes donor transactions. They then purchase all related classroom materials, ship the items directly to the schools and notify the principal of the pending shipments. They close the loop by providing photos of each project taking place with teacher and student letters and a cost report showing how donations were spent.
For Donors: You can donate to the classroom project of your choice and then invite your social network friends, fans and followers to join your efforts.
For Non-profits: Teachers are encouraged to submit classroom projects to the site and to use social media to garner support. Projects less than $400 have the best chance of being funded.
This site empowers individuals to raise money for causes easily and provides non-profits with fundraising campaign management tools.
For Donors: The site provides individuals with the tools to raise money or donate to a cause. Donors can choose to cover the fees that are normally passed on as a transaction fee to the non-profit.
For Non-Profits: FirstGiving partners with non-profit organizations so they can plan, execute and measure their online fundraising campaigns. Non-profits can sign up for an account and receive donations weekly, less a 5% fee. Non-profits can also let their supporters know that anyone can create fundraising pages on behalf of the organization.
Givezooks! is geared toward non-profits and provides them with tools to manage fundraising efforts. Fundraisers on givezooks! can be promoted using e-mail, widgets and through social media channels.
For Donors: While not specifically geared toward the individual donor, givezooks! provides a grassroots fundraising tool for non-profits. In turn, non-profits can encourage people like you to create grassroots fundraising campaigns on their behalf and individuals can tap into their own personal social networks for additional support.
For Non-profits: To get started, non-profits pick a plan, create a custom givezooks! fundraiser: a campaign, event or wish list. Organizations also select their payment gateway: Sage, PayPal, CyberSource, Authorize.net or AmazonPayments. The givezooks! Social Fundraising platform starts at $129 per month. Their Events product is priced separately based on a transaction fee starting at 2%.
HelpAttack! wants to make it easy and fun for anyone to “turn social actions into social good.” Anyone can pledge any amount of money for each action they take online (currently on Twitter and Facebook) and give it to their favorite non-profits. There’s a gaming and discovery component so users can unlock coins and learn about new non-profits and causes to support.
For Donors: Sign in to HelpAttack! with your Twitter or Facebook ID, choose a non-profit from the site’s database to support and pledge a specific amount per action for a 30-day period. Then simply go about your tweeting, commenting, uploading photos to Facebook, and engaging with your friends online. At the end of 30 days, the site tallies your social activities, and you can return to the site to make good on your promise.
For Non-profits: Any 501(c)(3) can be included in the site’s database and cultivate philanthropists from their fans and followers. The fee for non-profits is 4.75% via Network For Good. HelpAttack! has a freemium model with the paid upgrade costing $25 at sign up and an additional 4% from the donation stream.
Jumo, a registered 501(c)(3) organization, considers itself a social network that connects individuals and organizations. Created by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, its functionality is linked closely with Facebook.
For Donors: You must have a Facebook account to sign up and use. As a donor, you can find issues and projects to support, follow related news and support those causes. In some cases, you donate to an organization through a donate button on their Jumo page.
For Non-profits: Jumo is open to all organizations or groups with a charitable mission. Non-profits can add their organizations or projects by clicking on “Add a Project” at the bottom of every site page. In some cases, a page may already be set up in an organization’s name, and they can click “Become the administrator” on the page to claim it. To receive donations through Jumo, non-profits must provide their organization’s EIN. Donations on Jumo are processed via Network for Good so there is a 4.75% fee per transaction.
Founded 11 years ago, JustGive was created to help individuals find charities to support. The JustGive Guide narrows a database of over 1.5 million charities (from Guidestar) down to the 1,000 organizations that meet stringent requirements and then groups them into 19 categories. The site also offers various ways individuals can support their causes, such as charity gift cards, charity wedding registrations and charity gift collections.
For Donors: The minimum donation through the site is $10 and payments can be made via American Express, Discover, MasterCard, or Visa. You can also set up recurring donations to process on a monthly basis. Track the donations you make through your giving history, which helps at tax time.
For Non-profits: To create or correct their listing on JustGive, a non-profit needs to first register with Guidestar. Organizations can set up a JustGive donation page and download a “Donate Now” button to put on their website or blog and lead donors to JustGive to process donations. JustGive provides a record of donations downloadable as a CSV or PDF file. There are no setup costs but there is a 3% fee per donation.
Razoo provides tools to search for and donate to charities, create an online fundraiser with no setup fees or monthly subscriptions and collaborate through social media.
For Donors: You can find and support your favorite cause or non-profit or set up your own fundraiser. You can also organize a team or join someone else’s to raise money including races and mission trips.
For Non-profits: With Razoo, non-profits can accept online donations and create fundraising campaigns for specific projects or start a fundraiser for a good cause. You can also claim access to your organization’s listing (based on the IRS Business Master File) to share your stories for free on your fundraising page and use the DonateAnywhere widget to accept donations through Razoo. Razoo’s per donation transaction fee is 2.9% with an additional 2.0% for team fundraising tools.
SocialVibe is part of the social offerings from branding agency Svnetwork. The company refers to SocialVibe as a “social media utility” that connects people with brands in support of causes.
For Donors: By interacting with brands who have set up campaigns on SocialVibe, you can contribute to non-profit organizations partnered with the site. Each time you share branded content on your social media channels and blogs, you earn points that translate into micro-donations for the cause of your choice. The more social media accounts you connect to SocialVibe, the greater your impact. You can also add the SocialVibe app to your Facebook profile.
For Non-profits: SocialVibe is limited in how it works specifically with non-profits. It is currently affiliated with 40 charitable partners in the areas of education, environment, heath, hunger and poverty, animals, arts and culture, and peace and human rights.
Sparked is an online-only volunteer network that incorporates crowdsourcing principles to bring talented individuals together in support of non-profits.
For Donors: Instead of donating money, you’re giving time and in-kind contributions. And if you have a spare moment, Sparked will help you fill it. You provide the site with your specific skills, such as copywriting or graphic design. Specify what types of causes interest you such as environmental or health. You’ll then start receiving requests from the site to help non-profits on relevant projects such as developing copy and designing a new direct mail piece for a conversation project.
For Non-profits: Any non-profit can create a profile specifying their sector and needs. They can then post challenges that are distributed to the vast volunteer network. Note that this site does not provide fundraising tools.
Before heading to any of these sites, take a look at the trends in social fundraising outlined by Geoff Livingston and then go forth and do social good. Hopefully, these resources will help you be strategic about your asking and giving.
Special thanks to Beth Kanter, Maggie Christ, Debi Aronson Pfitzenmaier and Andrea Weckerle who contributed input during the researching of this post.
Interested in more Social Good news? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover resources and information on your favorite Mashable topics.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, urbancow
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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
Marketers plan to increase spending on e-mail and social media marketing more than any other tactics in 2011, according to a recent survey.
As marketers find opportunities to build audiences, conversation and conversions with clever cross-promotion between the two mediums, e-mail and social media tactics are becoming increasingly popular and intertwined.
Dingo, a pet food company in Ohio, used Constant Contact to create a promotion that rewarded customers with a $20 coupon if they signed up for the company’s newsletter and “Liked” its Facebook Page, with the catch being that the page needed to get to 5,000 fans (from a base of around 300) for the promotion to kick in. Mike Halloran, the owner of Dingo, says it reached its goal within three days, as pet owners found out about in the Dingo newsletter and forwarded it to their friends and “liked” Dingo on Facebook.
Mark Schmulen, general manager for social media at Constant Contact, says that Dingo’s campaign illustrates a growing trend among customers. “Of all channels, e-mail marketing and social media go hand in hand better than any other,” he said. “Getting your customers to share your message with friends is the most effective way to grow your business.”
Gary Levitt of upstart e-mail marketing provider Mad Mimi sees a similar trend. He cites one of his customers, bag and accessory retailer Timbuk2, as a great example of how to integrate e-mail and social. The company’s strategy is “to use a Facebook application to handle [contests] rather than setting up and optimizing a landing page of its own.”
The company’s e-mail newsletter — which has more than 100,000 subscribers – recently featured a promotion to win a free bike, helmet and messenger bag to fans of the company’s Facebook Page. So far, the opportunity has driven more than 6,500 clickthroughs to the giveaway, versus just nine clicks (yes, nine) to the company’s prompt that encourages e-mail subscribers to become Facebook fans.
These promotions can also work the other way, however. Shoe retailer Crocs not only promotes social media through its e-mail newsletter, but also promotes its e-mail newsletter through social media. For example, the company will inform its Twitter followers or Facebook fans about a special offer that’s only available to newsletter subscribers. The company also lets Facebook fans sign up for its e-mail newsletter from an app that’s built into its page, something that Andrea Stow, senior global eMarketing manager for Crocs, says has resulted in a “gigantic leap in our e-mail subscribers.”
Stow continues, “Our strategy is understanding and knowing that there might be duplicates [subscribers to multiple mediums] — but the more customer touch points, the better conversion we’ll have.” Jeff Rohrs, vice president of marketing at ExactTarget, the company that powers Crocs’ e-mail marketing, adds, “What I really like that Crocs is doing is they realize they don’t have to abandon the channel — it’s not an either/or scenario. You work them all together and you end up with more subscribers, fans and followers overall.”
That reach, says Stow, gives Crocs the ability to stay in touch with customers year round — important for a company that only expects its average customer to buy new shoes two or three times per year at most.
Although companies like Crocs, Timbuk2 and Dingo are still relatively early movers in the integration of e-mail and social media — Schmulen believes only 10% of Constant Contact customers are using social media to its full potential — the pace of evolution in the space is only going to accelerate.
Both Constant Contact and ExactTarget made big bets on social last year with their acquisitions of NutshellMail and CoTweet, respectively, and both now speak of a next wave of innovation built on more precise targeting based on social data. To that end, Constant Contact acquired BantamLive in February, a deal that Schmulen says will let his customers “see who’s talking about [them] and who the actual influencers are.” Similarly, Plaskoff of ExactTarget says his company is working on tools that leverage user profile data through Facebook’s open graph API.
Concludes Schmulen, who was also a co-founder of NushellMail, “What we’re seeing today [is the] social call to action [becoming] the primary call to action inside of newsletters.” Expect that trend to continue as marketers start to realize the benefits of doing so and technology providers continue to integrate e-mail and social tools into one package.
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Interactive television experts gathered on Saturday at SXSWi in Austin, Texas to discuss the future of social TV.
Panelists, which ranged from the likes of Chloe Sladden of Twitter to Gavin Purcell from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, discussed ways in which they incorporate social media into popular television shows such as “No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”
Fred Graver, the senior VP of Travel Channel, spoke to the audience about his initial skepticism regarding the integration of Twitter into “No Reservations.” “It wasn’t a no brainer for us.” said Graver. “The whole thing here is if you have 36-48 hours before the show premiers, do you want to spend your time talking about Tony (Bourdain) live-tweeting? And that was a big discussion but we decided, yes lets do it.”
Doing it proved to be successful for Graver and the Travel Channel, with “No Reservations” currently at more than 1 million “likes” on Facebook and an increasingly active Twitter following.
Watch the video for more highlights from the discussion.
MUSIC:
Artist: Pitx
Song: See You Later (ft. Fireproof Babies, Bmccosar)
Source: Freemusicarchive.org
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In the summer of 2010, Foursquare’s Head of Business Development Tristan Walker and American Express’s Vice President of Global Marketing Capabilities David Wolf started talking about ways to work together to redefine loyalty for local merchants.
The fruit of their conversations is now on display in the city Austin, Texas where 60 merchants — including Whole Foods, Starwood Hotels and Stubb’s BBQ — are offering Foursquare users “spend $5, save $5″ rewards when they load the special and swipe their AmEx cards.
The pilot program started Friday and will run through Tuesday, March 15. Participating merchants have posted “Austin Unlocked” window clings to highlight their participation, and Foursquare users need only register their American Express cards to unlock this new type of special — the Loyalty Special.
On Friday, Walker and I journeyed to Le Cafe Crepe so he could demonstrate the special in action. Upon arrival, Walker launched Foursquare, checked in to the cafe, tapped to redeem the offer and then hit the green “Load to Card” button to initiate the special — see a 44-second walk-through in the video above.
Several minutes later (there was a long line), Walker placed his order, the cashier swiped his AmEx card, and then together we waited for proof that the $5 savings reward had been activated by his swipe. Seconds later, Walker received a push notification alerting him that he had successfully redeemed the special. Soon thereafter, he also earned the “Swiped @ SXSW” badge — for each badge redeemed, American Express is donating $1 to Grounded in Music.
Walker was quick to point out that the experience was nearly frictionless, happening exactly at the time of sale without requiring integration with the cafe’s point-of-sale system.
This is what Walker and Wolf believe is a ground breaking initiative that finally creates the closed loop between a consumer’s digital behavior and their offline spending behavior.
Wolf calls the South by Southwest Interactive relationship with Foursquare, “phase one.”
Being a first-of-a-kind program, AmEx decided to not only fund the offer — it’s paying for all of those $5 credits — but to also send out a street team to recruit and train local merchants, print up informative cards for attendees and make QR code pins to get the word out at the festival.
American Express is making the financial investment because it believes it can use phase one to get to phase two: when the company’s local merchant network will be able to set up, run and fund their own offers.
Wolf talks about the partnership as a strategic move on behalf of the company to align itself with a hip startup working on the location-meets-loyalty challenge. “We wanted to partner with a young, innovative company who understands the importance of providing value to merchants,” he said.
Wolf also explains that “American Express is anxious to play in this space because of this closed loop of information that we get.” To create the closed-loop effect, American Express is allowing a third party to access its APIs for card member data, merchant data and transaction data for the first time ever.
On Foursquare’s end, Walker speaks of the startup’s desire to work with a preeminent company that truly understands loyalty, understands customer appreciation and has connections to local merchants. One of Foursquare’s goals, he says, is to recreate the type of brand affinity that consumers have with American Express.
“Foursquare has taken inspiration from AmEx’s ‘member since’ designation as to how we allow our users to evangelize or stake their claim to place. Much the same way that AmEx allows for that ‘member since’ designation, we want to create a ‘regular since’ designation … and allow merchants to communicate with those folks who are the most fervent, and are evangelists for their brands,” said Walker.
In working with AmEx at SXSW, Foursquare is taking this “regular since” idea to the next level, while also delivering on its closed-loop promise to American Express and the participating local merchants.
Next up, phase two.
Disclosure: American Express is a Mashable sponsor.
Image courtesy of Flickr, The.Comedian
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