She’d been running for years, and raising money for cancer research, but when Lisa Miller turned 35 this summer, she decided to mark the milestone with something big: a two-day cycling odyssey on Alberta’s Cowboy Trail. But Ms. Miller had no idea just how big her participation in the Ride to Conquer Cancer would be – until she put out her fundraising plea on Facebook.
“Almost every other day, I had somebody link it on their own page,” says the energetic blonde.
Social media turned out to be the only fundraising platform Ms. Miller needed. Pledges poured in from friends at home in Edmonton, as well as the rest of Canada, the U.S., and even Egypt. By the time she got on her bike that weekend in June, she’d raised $2,700.
Ms. Miller is a charity’s dream: She’s highly connected, tech-savvy and ready to give. And she’s using social media to bring in dollars to non-profits at a minuscule fraction of the cost of a direct-mail campaign.
But while it might seem that socially minded Facebook friends are everywhere, fundraisers such as Ms. Miller are still a drop in the bucket. According to an industry survey of 980 charities, roughly half raised nothing on social networks in 2011. Those that did mostly raised less than $10,000. Only 4 per cent raised more than $100,000.
Nevertheless, as the number of Canadians who report donations on their taxes has hit an all-time low of 23 per cent, charities are increasingly turning their attention to sites like Facebook and Twitter, battling to figure out how to make them work as money-spinners. Social media is seen as the way of the future.
Certainly, humanitarian crises have shown the way, especially since the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. While the donations may come through as $10 or $25 clicks, when millions of people rise to the occasion, as happened after the Haiti earthquake, a billion dollars can be raised quickly, through the Internet. Bill Clinton calls it the power of small donations.
But attention can flag for the charity with ongoing needs, where there isn’t immediate urgency.
“People who become friends with a charity on Facebook, it’s nice, but it doesn’t turn into money,” says James Appleyard, CEO and chairman of Toronto-based Artez Interactive, whose main business is licensing software that powers online donations. Through its clients, Artez tracks giving patterns across the country.
“How do you get past the slacktivism, where they just like you on Facebook or retweet you [on Twitter]?”
Once charities connect on those networks, they have a 20-per-cent chance of convincing people to donate for the first time, and the same chance of convincing established supporters to donate again, according to Cygnus Applied Research Inc.
“The value of social media for fundraising is minimal today,” the Cygnus study authors wrote, “but is likely to be much more important soon when donors under 35 (86 per cent of whom have Facebook accounts) develop a greater capacity for giving.”
Some charities, such as Movember, which raises awareness and money for prostate cancer research, have had encouraging success: In 2010, Movember raised $6.7-million through Facebook, but that was only 12 per cent of the total raised in Canada.
For the moment, using social media for communication, and getting the story out there, is its key strength. This fall, the Terry Fox Foundation surpassed 20,000 Facebook friends, who are doing their most important work away from the charity’s page, posting photographs of their runs or telling stories of loved ones touched by cancer. Since the organization never asks directly for money through social networks, these personal appeals are key, says national director and chief financial officer Brett Kohli, preferring to focus on building relationships with its supporters. It’s a strategy many non-profits have adopted.
