Charities reap money from online social networks

The opportunities for nonprofit groups to win money through contests are proliferating, adding yet another weapon to charities’ fund-raising arsenal.

The latest example starts on Sunday when visitors to the Target Corporation’s Facebook page can vote for one of 10 charities eligible to win a portion of $3 million the retailer will be giving away.

“It’s a national trend, not only in the philanthropic sector but also among businesses, to look at how best to leverage social media,” said Laysha Ward, Target’s president of community relations. “Contests like this can help our nonprofit partners learn to use this new media to build not just financial resources but also awareness.”

GlobalGiving, an online system through which donors can support charitable projects around the world, is in the middle of a contest that will give American nonprofit groups the chance to win as much as $6,000 and a permanent berth on GlobalGiving’s list of vetted programs.

“Many nonprofits are looking to diversify sources of funding and leverage new kinds of social networks in different ways,” said Mari Kuraishi, co-founder and president of the GlobalGiving Foundation.

Ms. Kuraishi and Ms. Ward also pointed out the benefits to their organizations.

For Target, Ms. Ward said, the contest is an opportunity to demonstrate the company’s commitment to supporting nonprofit work and enhance its brand. For GlobalGiving, it is an opportunity to expand its work in the United States, Ms. Kuraishi said.

In recent years, companies like Amazon.com and Trip Advisor have had contests similar to Target’s. And in each of the last two years, American Express has sponsored a contest called the Members Project, which gives its cardholders the chance to propose charitable projects and then vote for the one they think most deserves to win some of the company’s money.

In April, the actor Hugh Jackman challenged Twitter users to explain in 140 characters or less why he should support their favorite charity. The charity supported by the most convincing “tweet” would win $100,000 from Mr. Jackman – although two organizations, Operation of Hope and Charity Water, ended up sharing the prize. Also using Twitter, Bob Woodruff, the television reporter who sustained serious injuries while covering the Iraq war, and his wife, Lee, will try to raise $1.65 million over the Memorial Day weekend for their foundation, the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which aids injured service members and veterans.

The contests push charities to use the Internet in new ways. One of the surprise findings of the Case Foundation’s Giving Challenge, a contest conducted through Causes on Facebook and Parade Magazine in 2007, was that participating charities with similar missions often worked on behalf of each other so that each one would have a chance to win a daily prize of $1,000 for having the most unique donors in a 24-hour period.

“One of the big takeaways from this was that some of the small guys on the block were able to do some really powerful things,” said Jean Case, chief executive of the foundation.

The point of the Giving Challenge and many of the recent contests has not been to judge the participants’ fund-raising prowess but rather to gauge interest in their work and cause. Participants in the Giving Challenge, for example, won prizes based on how many unique donations they received, not how much money they raised.

The Kids in Need Foundation, which works to provide free school supplies to needy children and school districts, is participating in two contests this month, Target’s and CommuniCause, which offers a “social media makeover” as a prize.

David Smith, the foundation’s executive director, said the organization had been looking to cultivate more individual donors to decrease its reliance on corporate donations. “That’s why these programs are so good for us right now,” Mr. Smith said, “because they require using things like e-mail, Facebook pages and other social networking tools that we’re experimenting with to win.”

On May 2, for instance, Kids in Need was 71st on the list of favorite charities on CommuniCause. It set to work sending out e-mail messages, and a few days later it had risen to ninth place, Mr. Smith said.

Operation Gratitude, which sends care packages to soldiers deployed abroad, is hoping to win the Target contest to have more money to pay its biggest expense – postage. The organization, which relies on volunteer labor and corporate product donations, can ship 7,000 to 8,000 packages a day, but only if it has $80,000 to $90,000 to cover the mailing costs.

“I’m by nature an incredibly competitive person, so this has kind of sparked my juices,” said Carolyn Blashek, founder of the organization. “Social networking dovetails with what we do in so many ways, and since May is Military Appreciation Month, there’s a whole lot of symbiosis for us in this contest.”

 

Source: Stephanie Strom, New York Times

 

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