Is it time to nix your annual appeal and just send out a tweet? Not necessarily. Geoff Livingston of Razoo Foundation argued that social media can be integrated into a nonprofit organization’s annual giving campaign. Razoo Foundation convinced Community Foundation of the National Capital Region (CFNCR) and the United Way to organize a game-like fundraising initiative where “If I only give $10, it makes a difference,” according to Livingston and his colleague Ifdy Perez. The result was #give2max, a hashtag that flooded the inboxes and Twitter feeds of nonprofit organizations and their fans and followers across the #DMV (District, Maryland and Virginia region).
Give to the Max Day is a 24-hour online fundraising drive for nonprofit groups that serve the local DC area. It was first held on November 9, 2011. The next one is on Thursday, September 20, 2012, Livingston said. Over 1,000 organizations benefited in varying degrees, raising over $2 million in total, said event organizers. Social media outlets were essential in raising 25 percent of his group’s annual budget on that day, said panelist Reese Butler of the Kristin Brooks Center and National Hopeline. At the AARP on Thursday, February 16, Butler and staff from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, AARP and Razoo discussed factors contributing to Give to the Max Day’s success. I also spoke with Perez after the panel.
Ingredients for a successful social media-based fundraising contest
1. Everyone’s a winner. “You don’t have to submit an RFP to compete. You don’t have to go through a long application process, and you don’t lose,” said Perez about Give to the Max Day. She contrasted it to contests where participants ask social media users to help them win a pot of money, for which “there are only 4 awards and you’re done.” In Give to the Max, energy spent on social media was a direct appeal to donors, according to Perez.
Razoo’s fees were 2.9 percent of each donation to cover their bank’s processing fees for credit card transactions. Audience member Kathy Healy said Razoo’s fees were low compared to those of similar service providers. Healy hoped to get The Bethlehem House, where she works, involved this year.
2. Time constraints. Having the event last only 24 hours was essential to getting donors excited about Give to the Max Day, said the Corcoran’s Jessica Hazlett. On the same day, the Corcoran launched a video celebrating the program’s 20th anniversary. The Corcoran was raising money for a free youth program.
Butler said that their Facebook status updates “asked everyone to hold off” their donations until 11 pm, so that they could win the $1,000, award for that hour. Which they did. Butler’s group was raising money for a virtual crisis center.
3. Multiple awards. 12th place and 44th place were awards meant to “keep people in the game,” Livingston said. The Day also featured hourly awards starting in the afternoon, when about 30 to 40 percent of the day’s giving occurred, according to Livingston.
In addition to a one-to-one matching donation, Butler’s group rewarded individual donors with with gifts: wristbands, a deck of designer playing cards, and a PostSecret book. The Corcoran segmented their faculty and staff into teams and enticed them with a free meal with an executive, as well as a $5000 matching donation by their COO. Many of the Corcoran’s participants were faculty and staff.
4. Building community. Critical Exposure’s development staff Alison Hanold said she heard about the event through word of mouth, and that it was hard to not know about the event if you worked in the local DC nonprofit scene.
“The first thing that I did was put together a group of local bloggers,” to get the buy-in and input of the nonprofit tech community, said Perez. “Sincerely and genuinely, we really wanted this to be a community thing,” she added. She was proud when Shana Glickfield and Jill Foster hosted a “flash mob breakfast at Ben’s Chili Bowl on the morning of Give to the Max.”
Livingston recommended that organizations employ a “core street team” to reach out to supporters on Twitter and Facebook. For example, Butler said 95% of their donations came from friends asking friends, starting with their “main sponsor,” PostSecret’s Frank Warren.
Razoo partnered with the Community Foundation, the Nonprofit Roundtable, and others to reach out to nonprofits directly, according to Perez.
5. The right words.When planning a similar event, Perez taught AARP’s Jen Martin that phrases like “please donate,” “help us,” and “contribute” were turn-offs, according to Martin. Better phrases included: “be a part of this,” and “the cool kids are doing this,” Martin wrote in an email interview.
On Give to the Max Day, Perez said she cheered contestants on via Twitter, and even watched some nonprofits “team up.” She said she also blogged about stories of individual impact.
Livingston said he has lived in DC, Maryland and Virginia for several years. As the event’s chief strategist, he said he saw Give to the Max Day as a chance to bring the area’s nonprofits and residents together in a holistic, “collective identity.”
