How to raise money to support your favorite cause

Target audience: Nonprofits, social change organizations, cause supporters, businesses

By Vivian Ramirez and J.D. Lasica
Socialbrite staff

In the old days — before 2005, remember? — we would solicit our friends to raise funds through walk-a-thons, cake raffles and similar homespun events. If you were raising money for a favorite cause, you’d look to your immediate friends, family and co-workers.

Today, social media has changed the game. With the surge of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, you can reach a much wider audience to raise money for your cause. The success of such online efforts varies widely: 30,000 runners in the Flora London Marathon raised $7.3 million through the online fundraising platform Justgiving. On a smaller scale, the Trail of Tails Pet Walk and Festival raised $41,000 for the Jacksonville, Fla., Humane Society using social media tools. And New York dancer Amanda Gravel raised $988 using the widget ChipIn for the campaign against breast cancer.

How did it work for them? Social tools now make it easy to solicit donations using fundraising widgets or badges, social networks like Twitter and Causes (part of integrated with Facebook). With Network for Good or PayPal usually handling the transaction, the solicitors can concentrate on sharpening their message and targeting the right recipients. Not all take the same approach: Some let you add advertising to your site, or create personal webpages, as a way to support your cause instead of ponying up dinero.

Depending on the size of your campaign and budget, cause advocates and small nonprofits now have lots of tools to choose from — further down, we’ll tell you about the ones for mid-size and large nonprofits. (See last month’s 10 mobile apps for social good for ideas on how to donate or volunteer using mobile devices.)

Here are 24 tried-and-true tools for online fundraising. Have we used them all? No. But if you’ve used some of these, add your observations. And we know there’s a 25th out there, so tell us your favorites in the comments below.

ChipIn: The easy way to collect money

1ChipIn is the most popular widget used by fundraisers today for distributed fundraising. It’s a simple tool you can place on your website or on a Facebook profile page. It amounts to a donate button that comes with a thermometer that measures the campaign’s progress. If you don’t have a site, you can subscribe to ChipIn and they’ll host your campaign for free. Subscribing to ChipIn is free, but you’ll need to set up a PayPal account to process donations. Every monetary contribution made through ChipIn is charged at a rate beginning at 2.5 percent of the amount donated.

GlobalGiving: Donate to grassroots projects

2GlobalGiving is an online marketplace for philanthropy where anyone can post an idea and get it funded. The nonprofit connects donors with community-based projects that need support in the United States and abroad. You select the projects you want to support, make a tax-deductible contribution and get regular progress updates — so you can see your impact. The organization sustains itself with a 15 percent optional fee you can add so that 100 percent of your donation goes directly to the project.

Change.org: Empowering people to take action

3A social enterprise, Change.org helps to raise awareness about important social causes and to empower people to take action, chiefly through partnerships with leading nonprofits. Actions might range from joining an organization and making a personal pledge to signing an online petition or calling a congressperson’s office about an issue like homelessness or sustainable food. In addition to signing petitions or leaving comments, you can raise funds by creating a page with photos, videos, logos and supporting materials. Change.org’s fundraising pages use donation widgets with progress thermometers that track the amount raised. Basic membership is free; it costs $20 a month for those who want customized pages. Donation processing fee: 4.75 percent for every transaction.

ChangingThePresent: Make the world a better place

4ChangingThePresent is a nonprofit that connects you with more than 1,500 meaningful if nontraditional charitable gifts — for instance, “stop global warming for $20″ or “adopt a tiger for $40.” Browse by cause or nonprofit to find a gift for friends or for your own charitable giving. The service also encourages donors to make simple donations of any amount through their home pages. A premium profile costs $100 per year. Donation processing fee: 3 percent of each donation plus 30 cents.

Razoo: Experience the joy of giving

5Razoo is a new way to donate and raise money online. Whether you want to donate money, run a fundraiser for your favorite nonprofit or raise money as a nonprofit, Razoo offers simple, secure tools to achieve your goals. A nonprofit based in Washington, DC, Razoo helps donors find inspiring giving opportunities and helps nonprofits and volunteers with fundraising pages, social media tools and donation processing.

Causes: Empowering anyone to impact the world

6Causes is a wonderful way to gain attention for a cause. Co-founded by Sean Parker, an early member of Facebook’s executive team, Causes allows fundraisers to solicit donations from their own contacts and recruit volunteers who want to participate on behalf of a cause. People who use the site as a way to socialize can also participate in fundraising ideas by posting Cause profiles on their Facebook page. Donation processing fee: 4.75 percent through Network for Good; only Facebook members anyone can donate.

givezooks!: Support a cause in minutes

7givezooks!, an online fundraising platform, lets individuals, nonprofits, foundations and companies create an account and start raising funds for a cause. It’s new givezooks!eventslets nonprofits create and publish events online, create, send and track email invitations and reminders, promote causes through Facebook and Twitter, sell tickets and manage RSVPs. Transaction fee for events: 2.5 percent per ticket purchased or donation received (up to a maximum of $19.95/per ticket). For online campaigns for nonprofits, monthly subscription fees start at $129/month with no transaction fee.

FirstGiving: Tools to benefit charitable causes

8FirstGiving is a U.S. subsidiary of U.K.-based JustGiving. The site provides easy-to-use tools to benefit charities. Subscribers are able to fundraise through their own Web pages on the site. The basic platform of is free. For those who want to customize their pages and to link them back to their own sites, the annual fee is $300. Donation processing fee: 5 percent plus 2 percent for credit card processing.

SixDegrees: Spread a ripple of good

9SixDegrees.org, an affiliate of Network for Good, enables social networking with a social conscience. Through the site, you can support your favorite charities by donating or creating fundraising badges — as well as check out the favorite causes of other people, including celebrities. Through tools such as donation widgets, which can be posted in places around the Web, people are encouraged to give to causes easily. The badges provided by SixDegrees can be customized by adding photos, videos and other narratives. Progress is tracked at the top of the badge, though the badges do not have thermometers. Donation processing fee: 4.75 percent with no setup costs.

RT2Give: Retweet a worthy cause, give $10

10RT2Give is Twitpay‘s fundraising solution for nonprofits that handles secure processing of donations over social networks such as Twitter. Last month on World Malaria Day, three organizations teamed up for a week and used RT2Give to raise money for disease-preventing bed nets. (Each $10 donation was matched by the Case Foundation up to $25,000.) Twitter itself used the TwitPay platform for donations to its Hope140 campaign to #EndMalaria. The site can use some copy editing: It says “pay with bank account,” but then asks for your credit card number. Expect to see a lot more of these campaigns on Twitter (note: Twitter-based Tipjoy bit the dust last year).

JustGive: Removing barriers to charitable giving

11By setting up a fundraising page on JustGive, nonprofits can solicit donations and set up a Donate Now button that they can use on their own sites. Donation processing fee: 3 percent with no set-up costs or monthly fees.

Crowdrise: Using social networks to raise funds

12Crowdrise is a new service that gives cause supporters an easy way to crowd-source fundraising. Whether you’re running a marathon, volunteering or have causes that you care deeply about, create your own fundraising pages, choose from over a million charities to raise money for and then share them on social networks. Crowdrise provides incentives to users by awarding bonus points toward prizes.

YourCause: Fundraising through personal Web pages

13 The mis­sion of YourCause is to empower indi­vid­u­als to change our world — leveraging your own voices, net­works and spheres of influ­ence to improve the lives of oth­ers. The ded­i­cated and accom­plished Your­Cause team is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing and facil­i­tat­ing the efforts of a car­ing member com­mu­nity and the causes they cham­pion so passionately.

Better The World: Raise money for causes by surfing

14Better The World is a plat­form that lets you raise money for your cause simply by surfing the Web — and down­loading a side­bar that will be used to dis­play rel­e­vant ads on the pages you visit. Char­i­ties span­ning the whole world have part­nered with the com­pany to give users every­where many options to choose from.

Pifworld: Play it forward

15The letters PIF in Pifworld stand for “play it forward.” Playing it forward is donating online to a charity project and inviting friends to do the same. The Amsterdam-based site launched in March 2009 and currently has over 45 charity projects on the platform. By mobilizing communities, together we can create positive change and eventually help wildlife, save a rainforest or build a school.

PincGiving: A platform for online fundraising

16PincGiving helps corporations and charities with their philanthropic goals. Donate to the charity of your choice in the USA, Canada, UK and Australia; enable fundraising on your organization’s website; create a peer to peer fundraising campaign or access millions of dollars in grant money, all in the currency of your choice.

Universal Giving: Donate or volunteer for global causes

17Universal Giving is a marketplace that allows people to give and volunteer with top-performing projects all over the world. The organization passes along 100 percent of the donations you make to the nonprofit of your choice.

SocialVibe: Partnering with brands to support charity

18SocialVibe is a micro-fundraising social media utility that connects nonprofits and individuals with brands, empowering them to engage with sponsors and share branded content with their social graph to benefit their causes. SocialVibe has raised over $700,000 for more than 40 nonprofits by getting corporate partners to engage in a more interactive means of advertising. Users of the site don’t have to donate money at all as corporate sponsors do all the donating. Individuals are simply encouraged to donate ad space on their social network sites by adding the SocialVibe widget to their MySpace, Facebook or other networking pages or blogs.

Giving Impact: Empowering supporters through sharing

19Giving Impact, a Web-based service from Minds on Design, describes itself as “an online fundraising platform for nonprofits that empowers supporters through sharing and offers organizations flexibility to run multiple campaigns with a custom donation experience at an affordable price.” Like any new venture, proceed with caution, but we wish them well. Giving Impact charges a monthly fee of $30 with a $1 transaction fee for donations under above $20; donations are handled through PayPal.

Tools for larger fundraising efforts

Nonprofits looking to launch much wider campaigns that entail more sophisticated outreach and monitoring may want to look into higher-end fundraising packages. Depending on your needs, these solutions may provide better support for long-running or large-scale campaigns. In general, these services may cost from a few hundred dollars a month to thousands of dollars or more for a campaign. This is not a comprehensive list of fundraising solutions but rather a few that struck a chord with us:

Artez: Turn supporters into fundraisers

20Artez Interactive provides a suite of online fundraising tools that let you tailor a campaign to your nonprofit’s specific needs. Supporters can easily make donations and purchase tickets to an event. Artez also make it easy for you to extend your event or cause’s brand into the realm of social media, and it provides customers with a rich set of reporting tools.

Convio: Converting fans into lasting donors

21Convio provides marketing, fundraising, advocacy and donor database tools to nonprofits. Its TeamRaiser for Special Events module allows users to translate their mission into online or integrated marketing programs that can acquire, engage and convert individuals into becoming lasting supporters. Users are able to set up individual and team fundraising pages with measurement and reporting capabilities. Constituent360, an online constituent database, is included as part of TeamRaiser.

Care2: Access to a huge community of social activists

22Care2 doubles as both an online community with more than 12 million people who actively involve themselves in both social and environmental causes and as a platform for activism and fundraising. By bringing together nonprofits, individuals and socially responsible businesses, it is able to help nonprofits and companies find new supporters for their causes and in the process help them grow targeted email lists of supporters, activists and potential donors. About 500 large and mid-size nonprofits have used Care2’s social networking strategies, which include its click-to-donate races, email strategies, online petitions, healthy living solutions, eco-shopping and e-cards. Campaign fees start at about $5,000.

Donor Perfect: Helping cultivate donor relationships and achieving terrific fundraising results

23Donor Perfect comes in packages for small and growing nonprofits and packages for mid-size and large nonprofits. Depending on the size of your organization, Donor Perfect offers an online software solution to encourage giving among your supporters. Smaller packages are priced at $39 and $119 per month and the premier package costs $199 per month.

Kintera: Supporting your organization’s walkathon and other “team” fundraising events.

24Kintera’s Friends Asking Friends is being used by larger nonprofits such as Amnesty International USA. Since it allows the creation of sophisticated and customized distributed campaigns for fundraisers with multiple pages, it has become a convenient tool for many large-scale campaigns. With the use of this software, administration can be centralized no matter how many the supporters and volunteers there are or how many pages had been set up for the charity’s purposes. Setup fee for Friends Asking Friends is $1,400, plus a percentage of each donation solicited.

Final thoughts

Determining which tool is best for your organization requires planning and research. Look around and know what other organizations are using and how it works for them. If you’re planning to purchase software, compare prices and see if the price is worth the potential payoff. Consider whether your staff is equipped with the technical skill to run the software. If not, are you willing to spend a bit more for technical support?

If you’re an individual supporting a cause or a small nonprofit, you should try out some of the free online tools. Go ahead, start supporting your cause!

Do you use other tools for online fundraising? What has worked for you? Tell us #25!

Related

• Behind the success of 10 top Causes (Socialbrite)

• 10 mobile apps for social good (Socialbrite)

• A directory of top cause organizations (Socialbrite)

• Social bookmarks of fundraising tools and cause platforms (compiled by JD Lasica on Delicious)

The post 24 tools for fundraising with social media appeared first on Socialbrite.

Guest post by Kari Dunn Saratovsky
Case Foundation

Armed with just $45, a laptop, and a small handheld camera, Mark Horvath set out on a journey that will forever change the face of homelessness in America. I had the opportunity to catch up with Mark as he made his way back to California following a cross country-road trip that documented stories of the homeless through a series of powerful, raw, and unedited videos — all of which can be seen on his vlog, InvisiblePeople.tv.

So, how do you raise awareness about a cause you are so passionate about with no money and no consistent resources to lean on? You put faith in the kindness of others, you leave a lot to chance encounters, and you leverage social media in ways that you never thought possible.

People often ask me, “What exactly is a social citizen?” It’s Mark Horvath. Mark’s work and his use of social media is extremely innovative, but it’s more than that — he is the real deal. Perhaps there is no other individual that does a better job of explaining the plight of the homeless to the general public. About 15 years ago, Mark found himself on the streets of Hollywood, and the purpose of his vlog is simple: to make the invisible visible.

In the interview, Mark shares his thoughts about the power of social media to bring attention to homelessness. But, recognizing we all have our individual passions, Mark encourages everyone to remember: “People are listening, and you do have influence.” It’s what you choose to do with this influence that is truly powerful, and social media gives you the tools you need to take action and tell stories.

While Mark’s Road Trip U.S.A. may be coming to an end, he will continue to share stories on Invisiblepeople.tv. For more ways you can get involved in addressing homelessness in your community, here are 10 actions you can take from Change.org.

The post How social media can give a face to the homeless appeared first on Socialbrite.

White House push for social innovation from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

By JD Lasica

At the Social Capital Markets conference this week, one highlight came in the opening keynote and panel discussion with Sonal Shah, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, who spoke about the federal government’s support for innovative, bottom-up social and community programs. Above is a 2 1/2-minute snippet. Some highlights of her talk:

• She talked about allocating resources toward high-impact models through the Social Innovation Fund that was part of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The Foundation Center has the details.

• She underscored the need for working across sectors, with the federal government playing a role to bring together nonprofits, the private sector and government agencies.

• Shah also pointed to the need to identify tools to help foster a culture of social innovation. (Perhaps Socialbrite can play a role here.)

I had my hand raised throughout the Q&A session but wasn’t called on. I would have said: Many people in the audience no doubt have some ideas on how to move this agenda of social innovation forward. Aside from the handful of foundations and nonprofits in contact with your office, how can we do so? What’s the best public forum? Where should these conversations be taking place?

By Beth Kanter

I was fortunate to have a press pass to SoCap09 this week, which got me a front row seat for the keynote address by Sonal Shah and panel discussion with Andrew Wolk, Root Cause; Vanessa Kirsch, New Profit; and Carla Javits, REDF, moderated by Jeff Bradach, Bridgespan Group.

Sonal Shah gave an overview of the goals and strategies for the Office of Social Innovation. Nathaniel Whittemore of Change.org, who was sitting next to me, has a great write up of the keynote. Marco Puccia has notes here as well.

I live tweeted the key points.  The main themes that resonated for me:

• Don’t get distracted: Sonal Shah warned, “Don’t think about us as the ‘office that does cool stuff.’  She was warning against shiny object syndrome and used a different “s” word.
• Government and feedback loops – how can they take the field’s learnings and incorporate in theirs?
• Measurement is the major theme as the sector grows up. There was an emphasis on finding consistent or standardized quantitative benchmarks.
• However, there was also a plea not to make evaluation painful, collecting huges amount of data and not using it to improve a program.
• A different spin on the concept of mistakes and failure: “Mistakes should be considered failures if they fail to correct the problem. And if the correction creates new problems.”
• The need for some experimentation before a program or project rolls out or scales.  There is something beneath the language of “what works” that can kill innovation.
• That it is about effectiveness and quality, not growth

I learned a new term, “Hockey Stick Returns,” that colleague Nedra defined for me. The context is that many projects don’t offer this.

I attended a panel called “The Future of Social Innovation on the Web” This all-guy panel was facilitated by Dennis Whittle, Global Giving and featured Premal Shah, Kiva.org; Jonathan Greenblatt, Our Good Works;
Steve Newcomb, Virgance; and Ben Rattray, Change.org. I tweeted some of the key points.

After the session,  after waiting an hour for Premal Shah to be available for a quick interview, he graciously shared his thoughts on what Web 3.0 looks like as did Dennis Whittle. I also interviewed Shara Karasic , who was in the audience. Premal talked about the need for creating magic for the users and building in workflow software that was facilitated relationship building through the ladder of engagement.

Dennis introduced each panelist with a personal story of how they met. I loved what he said about  Premal Shah — that he wanted to apply for a job at Kiva after hearing him speak.   He set up the panel with a definition of Web 3.0 — it wasn’t about the real-time web or semantic web. He defined it this way: “If Web 1.0 is about one-way communication, and web 2.0 is about two-way communication, Web 3.0 is about building a bridge between two-way online communication and offline actions and impact.”

He asked each of the panelists to describe where they think the field is now.  Ben Rattray said: “The vast majority of social good platforms have failed because they have modeled social good platforms on commercial applications.  We assumed that if we  created a generic platform that  people would start their own actions. They don’t. It isn’t as easy to throw up an action on the web as it is to throw up a video. We faced challenges. The vision is to provide a platform for collective social action. It is so easy for people who care about an issue — it is easy to connect.   There must be catalytic organizations. If you build the platform, will spontaneous organizing happen?”  No! Synthesis of grassroots organization to channel social change.

He asked each of the panelists to discuss what they were most proud of in their project’s achievements. Jonathan Greenblatt of All for Good talked about the work they were doing to bring volunteer opportunities to Americans who want to serve. He also spoke about his accomplishments with Ethos Water.

Premal Shah talked about the importance of the user experience to create a compelling reason to give:

“Kiva is at the intersection of money and meaning. There is going to be a socially responsible investment. There is a third axis — it is not about ROI or social impact. It’s the user experience that drives adoption. Never underestimate something that is fun and has short feedback loops. If we want people to engage, it has to be easy, fun, and addictive. Return on experience versus investment.

Dennis also asked panelists to share some of the criticisms they’ve received along the way.

Several themes that came out in the discussion:

• The line between for-profit and nonprofit
• Balance between cooperation and competition
• Are there too many social entrepreneurs? If your idea isn’t high quality, why not work with someone else instead?
• Don’t give up!

The post How the government can help spur social innovation appeared first on Socialbrite.

Change.org: Helping you take action online from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

One of the most impressive and influential sites in the causes space, Change.org, has really come into its own in the past six to eight months. The social enterprise is helping raise awareness about important social causes and empowering people to take action, chiefly through the efforts of leading nonprofits.

Here’s an interview I conduced with Ben Rattray, founder and CEO of Change.org, after a meetup at TechSoup’s offices in San Francisco. Ben describes the organization this way: “We’re an online community and media network for social issues, focused on engaging and informing people about the most important issues of our time — global warming, homelessness, fair trade — and compelling them to take action.”

Actions might range from joining an organization and making a personal pledge to signing an online petition or calling a congressperson’s office about an issue. “This is one of the things we’re most interested in innovating on and partnering with other organizations on — finding the most powerful actions possible for people to advance issues they care about.”

Thousands of nonprofit organizations have signed up and “claimed their profiles” on Change.org, allowing them to add additional information and interact directly with supporters and donors.

The video is a little dark because we were placed in a room not set up for video interviews. But the organization’s story is compelling. The interview is 5 1/2 minutes long.

Watch or embed video on Vimeo
Download video in high-quality H.264 from Archive.org

The post Change.org: Turning concern into action appeared first on Socialbrite.

You can also ask the team of advisors any question you’d like and get a public response, sort of like Yahoo Answers but powered by experts. Excerpt:

We are currently building the largest database of nonprofit, government, and social enterprise jobs on the web and have just hired a team of career advisors to provide daily advice and guidance to help people of all backgrounds find and develop a career in social change. We have also partnered with more than a dozen leading organizations that will give Jobs for Change reach to millions of people interested in deeper civic engagement.

I am curious how Idealist and Social Actions play into this since they are the most frequently visited/used sites by myself and others I know to find both jobs, volunteer opportunities and more in the social benefit sector. I’m also excited to see how the advice and question/answer content develops. After the site is past this initial launch, it’ll be nice to relegate some of the home page to valuable content, too (and not just logos of partners).

What do you think?

• Have you tried it out – what do you think?
• Do you use Idealist.org or SocialActions.com already?  Do you think you’ll switch?
• Are you an organization with job openings – will you list your opening on Jobs for Change?
• Do you go anywhere else online to get career advice?

This post originally appeared at Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech.

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