Causes App celebrates first birthday - but surely there is more potential for Facebook fundraising?

Last Saturday was an important anniversary in Social Networking terms, marking one year since Facebook launched Facebook Platform, the toolkit that enables the development of 3rd party Applications (Apps) that integrate directly with Facebook user data. The sudden explosion in Apps resulting from this was a significant driver of the site’s massive growth in popularity throughout 2007, and according to Facebook stats site Adonomics it has led to the release of almost 27,000 Apps to-date.

The same day was also the first anniversary of the biggest non-profit Facebook App, ‘Causes’ from Project Agape (now also available on MySpace).

A runaway success from launch in terms of installations, Project Agape marked the anniversary with the release of statistics on its first year’s activity. Apparently they now have a total of 12 million registered users (95,886 daily active users when I just checked) supporting over 80,000 US and Canadian non-profit organisations. Other countries are still being considered for inclusion, but in a post on the Causes discussion board earlier this month it was explained that “Supporting donations to UK-based charities is still a project we’re interested in, but we are strapped for resources and cannot provide a date”.

80,000 non-profits being represented on two of the world’s biggest Social Networking sites is undoubtedly great news, with the App clearly tapping into a widespread desire amongst site users to share their support for charitable causes.

However, when you look at the figures released in terms of hard cash it seems like Causes still has some way to go before it becomes a significant income generator for the organisations involved. Over the last 12 months, $2.5 million has been raised through Causes for 19,445 organisations - equating to an average of just $126 per organisation. No donations at all have been made to 75% of the 80,000 organisations being ’supported’.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think Causes is a great initiative and I do understand when other commentators have observed that this is $2.5 million that these organisations would not have had otherwise. However, I wholeheartedly believe that supporter engagement on Social Networking sites has the potential to deliver massively more in fundraising terms than what currently appears to be the equivalent of an online small change collection tin.

Perhaps it’s simply that the Causes ‘Digital Badge’ approach to supporter engagement just doesn’t lend itself to generating higher levels of financial engagement? Is it just too easy to install the App and choose a few organisations to support by putting their badge on your profile and that’s it - job done?

By contrast, those Apps which extend the tried-and-tested sponsored challenge fundraising approach to Social Networking sites seem to better illustrate the real Community Fundraising potential of sites like Facebook. For example, Justgiving.com (which enables individuals to set-up fundraising pages in support of their sponsored activities) has seen significant uptake of its Facebook App (see their latest stats here) and identified Facebook as its second biggest referrer after Google - a trend confirmed by Hitwise UK.

Anyone else got any examples of where organisations are managing to raise significant amounts on Social Networking sites?

Online Fundraising and the Hype Cycle

The other day I got chatting with a colleague about the ‘Hype Cycle’, used by technology consultancy Gartner to illustrate the adoption of technologies through the lifecycle of hype, disappointment and (in some cases) the eventual delivery of practical benefits. As shown in the chart above, the Hype Cycle comprises 5 phases:

1. Technology Trigger: the breakthrough, product launch, or other event that generates significant press and interest.

2. Peak of Inflated Expectations: A frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.

3. Trough of Disillusionment: Technologies fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and technology.

4. Slope of Enlightenment: Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the ’slope of enlightenment’ and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.

5. Plateau of Productivity: A technology reaches the ‘Plateau of productivity’ as its benefits become widely distributed and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

In the light of all of the current discussion about the potential for Social Media (aka Web 2.0) to deliver real benefits for fundraisers (aka Community Fundraising 2.0) this got me thinking about just where different aspects of online fundraising are on the Hype Cycle - a useful thing to consider if you’re in the process of planning any mid to long-term online fundraising activity.

On the ascendancy between technology trigger and peak of expectations we have things like Twitter - the micro-blogging social network that is generating a load of discussion at the moment but not, as far as I can tell, as yet being linked to any significant fundraising activity.

Just past the peak and on the brink of tipping into the trough of disillusionment there is fundraising in virtual worlds. I still remain convinced that at some point in the future some form of 3D virtual environments will become commonplace for everyday transactions like retail and fundraising. However, despite the interest in the American Cancer Society Second Life Relay for Life and various other Second Life non-profit initiatives last year, I think we’ve got quite a long way to go in the meantime.

Then, some place between the peak of expectations, the trough of disillusionment, and the slope of enlightenment (depending on who you ask) we have fundraising widgets and social networks. Anyone still needing convincing of the fundraising opportunity offered by the latter need only take a look at the Hitwise data from last year which shows how social networks are taking over from email as the primary drivers of traffic to key sponsored event fundraising site justgiving.com. There’s still a lot of testing to be done, but I don’t think it’ll be too long before widgets and social networks arrive on the plateau of productivity and begin to significantly out-perform the ‘old school’ of email as the drivers of online fundraising income.

Movember online fundraising campaign grows to include six countries

Movember, was started back in 2003 when a couple of Australians decided to support the Australian Prostate Cancer Charity by getting sponsored to grow their Mo-s (as in Moustaches) for the whole of November - subsequently named ‘Movember’.

In 2006 the idea was exported to New Zealand and in total more than 56,000 Movember fundraisers (or Mo Bros) took part. Not content with that, this year the event is growing even further with moustache lovers in the UK, US, Canada, and Spain (website not yet live) also getting involved - each in support of their own national prostate cancer charity.

Country-specific information, downloadable blog and MySpace widgets (wot - no Facebook app?), and local event details are available through the main Republic of Movember site. There’s also a wealth of fun Mo-related stuff around the site, although I found the navigation a bit opaque and fear that a lot of casual users won’t get the most out of it.

However, it’s certainly an excellent example of how the internet can enable a great fundraising idea to go international, sharing learnings and resources to help maximise the net income raised by the charities involved.

Social networks driving sponsorship fundraising

I spotted a very interesting blog post earlier this week by Robin Goad, Research Director at Hitwise UK, reporting on the rapidly growing importance of online social networks, like Facebook, for sponsored event fundraising.

He was prompted to investigate the subject after his cousin sent him an invitation via Facebook to sponsor her through Justgiving.com. As shown in the chart above, on researching how people are requesting sponsorship through Justgiving he found a very clear trend - with social networks clearly taking over from email.

Macmillan Cancer Support offers virtual coffee in support of fundraising event

Macmillan Cancer Support, the charity behind one of the UK’s largest fundraising events - The World’s Biggest Coffee Morning - is really getting into the Community Fundraising 2.0 spirit this year, with “virtual” coffees being shared through email, Facebook, and even in Second Life.

The email approach is a fun way to spread the word about the event, enabling you to send your friend a virtual coffee which is then drunk at an animated microsite - complete with slurping. Requests for small donations are made throughout, including extras if you want to send a virtual biscuit or muffin with the coffee. Having dispatched the virtual beverage you then get the opportunity to share the whole virtual coffee experience through a link on your Facebook profile.

If that’s not virtual enough for you, then on the day of the event - this Friday 28th September - you can drop-in to the charity’s new Second Life Macmillan cancer information centre to take part in a Second Life fundraising auction or just to throw a few Linden Dollars (the SL currency) into the giant coffee cups around the place. After the event Macmillan intends to continue using the centre as a source of information and support for any Second Life users affected by cancer, as well as offering a retail area where visitors can purchase real life Macmillan merchandise.

All-in-all, a great example of a charity using a mix of online channels in an innovative, fun and engaging way to help involve more people with their event. Apparently nearly two million people took part last year, raising over £6.7m ($13.5m) - so here’s hoping all of this virtual activity pays-off in real income growth terms after Friday.

Jeans for Genes goes for Google Maps mashup to support its annual fundraising appeal

Jeans for Genes, who organise the annual fundraising day when you get to wear your jeans at work or school in exchange for a donation in support of seven of the UK’s medical charities, has unveiled a Google Maps mashup at the site denimisethenation.com to show who across the country is taking part.

For anyone new to the term, a ‘mashup’ is a hybrid web application that combines data and/or functionality from more than one source. The Google Maps API is one of the most popular mashup interfaces, as it enables data from any source (so long as it has a geographic reference) to be displayed as an interactive map.

In the case of Jeans for Genes, as well as adding your location - shown by a denim patch - you can also leave a comment saying what you’ll be doing. The site can be searched by city, postcode, organisation or name to see who else is getting involved and there are plenty of clear links to the main fundraising site. Overall, it’s a really effective way to illustrate the breadth of the campaign and make individuals participating really feel that they’re part of something on a national scale.

Other UK nonprofit organisations using a Google Maps mashup include the NSPCC with its Be the Full Stop site and The Museum of London with Map my London.

While in the US, Lucy Bernholtz reports on her Philanthropy 2173 blog that there is also a Guidestar Google Maps mashup and another from volunteering organisation VolunteerMatch showing locations of opportunities to volunteer.

Anyone know of any other nonprofit mashups? Let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

Changes to Facebook measurement cast new light on fundraising apps

At the end of last month, Facebook announced a significant change in the way it measures and ranks applications – shifting from simply reporting the total number of installations to measuring what it describes as ‘user engagement’.

In its announcement on the Facebook developers blog, ‘engagement’ is defined as “the number of users who touch your application every day (measured from midnight to midnight each day)”. This is now displayed alongside each app in the application directory as the number of ‘Daily Active Users’, together with a percentage showing what proportion of that app’s total number of installations that represents.

This is undoubtedly a real step forward for anyone interested in the marketing and fundraising potential of Facebook apps – in particular because it enables the clear differentiation of apps which are installed and then forgotten from those with the sort of lasting appeal which results in regular use.

To illustrate this, I checked-out today’s engagement scores for the seven fundraising apps I reviewed last month - and the results make for interesting reading:

Causes: 255,396 daily active users = 6% of total installed base (c4.256m)

Change.org: 233 daily active users = 3% of total installed base (c7.7k)

Justgiving: 549 daily active users = 8% of total installed base (c6.8k)

Chipin:34 daily active users = 1% of total installed base (c3.4k)

NSPCC: 54 daily active users = 4% of total installed base (c1.3k)

UNICEF UK: 5 daily active users = 1% of total installed base (c500)

Sponsor me: 77 daily active users = 12% of total installed base (c600)

It’s clear from this list how the new metrics enable us to see just how active the users of each app are (albeit based on a daily snapshot), rather than simply judging the success of an app based on how many people have installed it.

Interestingly, today’s two most ‘actively used’ fundraising apps turn-out to be Justgiving and Sponsor me - both directly supporting Facebook users in the promotion of individual sponsored events and so inherently likely to drive more daily engagement as their users work to drum-up support from their Facebook friends.

As more organisations look to develop their own branded apps, hopefully this new form of measurement will encourage them to shy-away from the simple (and sadly forgettable) ‘badge app’ linked to a donation website and to think more creatively about just what functionality might make their app keep users coming back and engaging with it long-term.

Justgiving Facebook fundraising app doing great

Shortly after Facebook became the first online social network site to allow 3rd party developers to create applications integrating directly with user data back in May 2007 (more on this here if you missed it), the folks at Justgiving.com came-up with their own app to enable Facebook users to add a neat ‘dynamic progress bar’ to their profile to show how fundraising through their individual Justgiving page is progressing.

The good news is that, according to today’s post on the Justgiving.com blog, in just a couple of months users of the app have now passed the 4,000-mark.

This on the same day that the FT reported that Facebook has just entered the UK’s top 20 most popular online destinations - continuing the trend I mentioned last month.

So, any charities with supporters raising funds for them through Justgiving fundraising pages - should be sure to let them know about the Facebook app, just incase they’re amongst the ever growing number of Facebook users. Alternately, any charity developing its own Facebook group - here’s a seamless way to integrate fundraising directly into it.

Interestingly, I’ve just noticed that in the 15 minutes or so since I took the screen shot above showing 4,367 Justgiving Facebook app users - the number showing on the Facebook application page has now risen to 4,374. That’s around 1 new user every two minutes - which can’t be bad!

Infact, that sort of growth fits with some equally amazing Justgiving stats listed in an earlier posting on their blog - including the fact that on average a Justgiving fundraising page is made every 1 minute and 9 seconds, and that a donation is made every 7.8 seconds!

Update 24/08/07 - you can read about the other main Facebook fundraising apps currently available here

Second Life Relay for Life event set to top US$100,000

As mentioned last week, the third annual Second Life Relay for Life was held in the virtual world of Second Life this weekend on behalf of the American Cancer Society.

The great news is that, according to the Second Life Insider blog, the event looks set to raise over US$100,000 - more than double that achieved last year.

As promised in my earlier post, I’ve put a selection of snapshots I took at the event here on Scribd (a site like YouTube, but for documents) to try to give a feel for it. Although, to be honest these really don’t do justice to just how amazingly well designed and implemented the whole event was.

Coming just a couple of weeks after the Guardian and Intel sponsored Secondfest Second Life music and arts festival, this is another great example of the type of international event that is now possible in the virtual world.

However, the big difference between the two - which for me makes the Relay for Life event stand-out head and shoulders above the commercial Secondfest - is that Second Life Relay for Life was begun by a group of Second Life residents working with the charity to re-create its ‘real world’ Relay for Life event.

These ‘grass roots’ community origins have led to the whole event being significantly richer and more engaging than the commercially sponsored Secondfest, as well as appearing (to me) to be better designed and run.

This is something that other charities looking to become active in Second Life could do well to learn from - working with the in-world community to develop something that works for them is undoubtedly the best way to develop an effective Second Life presence.

Like any big event, the great success of the Second Life Relay for Life is down to an incredible amount of hard work by a team of highly talented and dedicated people. It’s certainly no easier to pull-off, just because it’s ‘virtual’. Infact in many ways it’s far harder. I certainly felt for the organisers when I spotted a group of walkers who had got stuck at one point on the route because a temporary technical glitch had caused the road ahead of them to cease to exist. That’s not something you see happening on the London Marathon!

For anyone inspired to consider the possibilities for promoting their own charity in Second Life, I’d suggest you take a look at the Nonprofits in Second Life site and then just get yourself in-world and spend some time travelling around and talking to people. If you’d like some ideas of interesting places to visit, then let me know and I can give you some pointers.

American Cancer Society’s Second Life Walkathon back for a third year

On July 27th and 28th, the American Cancer Society will be hosting what it is describing as “the largest contiguous event Second Life has ever seen” in the form of its third annual ‘Second Life Relay for Life’.

Building on the great success of the charity’s ‘real world’ Relay for Life events (now also run here in the UK by CRUK), in 2005 a group of Second Life residents worked with them to re-create the event within the virtual world. In its second year, over 1,000 people took part by walking their Second Life avatars along a custom-designed track – raising more than $41,000 (in ‘real world’ US dollars).

This year is planned to be bigger and better, with a community goal of $75,000 and all sorts of fundraising events, including an auction of items created by top Second Life designers.

Admittedly, in comparison to some of the ‘real world’ sponsored events run by big name charities, $75,000 isn’t a vast sum. However, by working with Second Life residents to pioneer this type of community involvement, the American Cancer Society is achieving far more than purely raising funds on the day. They’re successfully communicating their cause in a new and highly engaging way to an online audience who get to support the charity in a way that is most interesting and relevant for them.

I’m often heard mis-using a JWT quote about the future of advertising, because I think it’s a very strong reminder for all fundraisers: “The future of fundraising is to stop interrupting what people are interested in and to become what people are interested in”. This is an excellent example of a charity doing exactly that

If you have an opportunity, do head-on down to the event to see it for yourself (it’s free to join Second Life and really pretty easy). Alternately, if you find Real Life enough to handle without adding a Second one then don’t worry, I’ll post some snapshots from the event afterwards so you can see what you missed.