I've been on Twitter since almost the beginning and have watched charitable giving and fundraising go from the edge to mainstream. Twitter is establishing itself as a charitable giving and cause marketing channel.
Last month, the Twitter community came together online and offline in over 180 cities around the world to raise money for charity:water with the highly successful "Twestival" fundraising event which brought in over $250,000 for clean drinking water in developing countries. The event attracted a lot of attention because it was an example of integrating a live charity event with Twitter. (See this white paper by Susan Mernit for a detailed case study.)
We're now seeing the concept of a Twitter "Tweet-a-thon" evolve. The first Tweet-a-thon took place in September, 2008. It was launched by Dr. Mani who raised money for heart surgeries for poor kids in India. Last month, Joel Comm sponsored a Tweet-a-thon event that was larger in scale, included celebrities, and live streaming. The dual purpose was to promote Comm's recently published book and to raise money for a ministry that provides clean water in Kenya. According to Joel Comm, $13,000 was raised.
The next reiteration a "Tweet-a-thon" fundraising event is taking place until March 5th and the goal is to empower marginalized women and girls in the world’s poorest countries. What's different is that you don't have to give money out of your own pocket.
During the four-day campaign, each Tweet will leverage a 10 cent donation – up to 50,000 Tweets – from NCM Fathom to the global humanitarian organization CARE. The Twitter campaign honors International Women’s Day and the upcoming event A Powerful Noise Live! in 450 select movie theatres nationwide on March 5th.
Here's how you can donate ten cents (or more) to the cause without spending a dime of your own money:
Each A Powerful Noise Tweet must include the hash tag #apowerfulnoise to generate the donation. Twitter users are encouraged to craft their own Tweet or use one of the examples below.
“I support empowerment of women worldwide with this tweet. Each tweet raises 10 cents for CARE. #apowerfulnoise http://shortn.it/tweet-a-thon”
“First time you can raise money for worthy cause by sending a tweet. Help CARE support women globally: #apowerfulnoise. http://shortn.it/tweet-a-thon“
Twitter users may donate their avatar and replace it with an image of the red female sign. The image is available here.
The campaign site features a twitter counter.
So far, 488 tweets or $48.80 has been raised.
Something is bothering me a little bit about talking about this sort of fundraising as an example of the power of twitter. The success of this sort of fundraising doesn't have anything really to do with Twitter. This is more a twitter marketing effort, disguised as fundraising. The person donating the actual money isn't using Twitter, and the people using twitter are not donating any of their own money. Something just doesn't jive. Twitter could disappear and this sort of idea would still work the same way.
Posted by: Glenn | March 03, 2009 at 09:57 AM
That's an interesting perspective, Glen. However, I highly doubt that Twitter the company is involved in this in any way. Yes, by choosing Twitter as the platform for this fundraising effort, NCM Fathom and CARE are "promoting" Twitter but that is not the underlying purpose of the tweet-a-thon. The way I see it, the purpose is to raise awareness of A Powerful Noise. NCM Fathom's contributions are a bonus and an incentive to individuals to raise the awareness. It feels like a win-win to me.
Posted by: Laura Norvig | March 04, 2009 at 10:38 AM
Laura: I agree with you. This is a cause marketing project, not philanthropy. If it brings the organization a little money, that's great.
Posted by: Beth Kanter | March 04, 2009 at 05:00 PM
Fantastic!
I don't think anyone has ever tried this in Romania...
Perhaps we'll give it a go.
I'm starting to appreciate your blog more and more with each post
Posted by: Andrei | March 05, 2009 at 02:14 PM