Using Web 2.0 Tools for Non-Profit Fund Raising

Over the course of the last 5 years, the internet's content has evolved from primarily site generated, static pages to user generated, dynamic communication environments. This trend is the result of widespread adoption of a group of technologies, collectively termed Web 2.0. This term describes various processes which have entered into common usage and which allow users to generate their own content and truly interact with others through their web browsers. While these emerging technologies have been embraced by individuals as sources of information and means of communication, they have also been leveraged by political campaigns and nonprofit organizations as a viable and effective means of outreach. Since 2002 online donations have grown by double digits every year, with growth in 2006 at 37% according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

With a low initial outlay of resources, web based services allow organizations to reach huge numbers of people across the globe. In the most successful examples, these services then enable the organic growth of self directed fund raising which can ultimately be a more efficient method of acquiring funds than traditional avenues.

In part the successful adoption of these new services has been driven by the proliferation of low cost, high bandwidth internet access both in the workplace and at home. Between 2002 and 2008 the percentage of households with broadband internet access has risen from 10% to over 50% according to Pew Research. This direct and simple connection to the web has led to an increase in the use of streaming media and active content as primary means of disseminating information. This combination of readily available communication technologies and inexpensive bandwidth has resulted in an explosion of interactive communication and information sharing on the net.

Many technologies can be included under the Web 2.0 umbrella; however those most commonly associated are as follows:

Blogging - short for "web log", blogging is the act of journaling online and soliciting commentary from readers. Bloggers range from individuals commenting on their observations of life through corporate experts providing information on technologies and products their organization produces. Each blog entry has a section for comments in which users can respond to the posting and/or provide additional information or links. There are numerous blog hosting services available on the internet including www.wordpress.com, www.blogger.com, www.blogspot.com, and more.

Wiki - From the Hawaiian word for "quick", this technology allows users to collaboratively edit and publish content. The most well known wiki is www.wikipedia.com - an entirely user mediated encyclopedia; this site has evolved by giving any and all users the ability to create, edit information within a basic structure. While Wikipedia has been criticized as inaccurate due to it's purely user edited format, it is one of the primary sources of information on the internet. Common back end Wiki technologies include SocialText, MediaWiki, Confluence, and others.

RSS - An abbreviation for three separate standards (RDF Site Summary (RSS .9 and 1.0), Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91 and 1.0) and Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)), RSS allows users to receive updates via subscriptions to a "feed". This can be in the form of news headlines, blog updates, or other pieces of real time information. This feed can be directed into a local reader (such as Microsoft Outlook) or into a web page.

Social Bookmarking - This term describes the act of sharing bookmarks and tagging sites with keywords in order to share resources for people with similar interests. The best known social bookmarking sites are Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) and Digg (www.digg.com), as well as the up and coming Stumble Upon (www.stumbleupon.com) which takes a slightly different approach. This site allows users to bookmark their favorites and rate pages depending on whether they like or dislike the content. Based on this feedback, StumbleUpon makes recommendations of other sites the user might like, allowing you to create a personally customized web browsing experience.

Social Networking - These sites allow users to create profiles which include descriptions of themselves and their interests, blogs to share their current activities and links to their friends profiles. These sites are often more sophisticated forms of the wiki concept in that they allow comments on the postings of others, but do not allow editing of other users' posts. The most recognized social networking sites for personal use are MySpace (www.myspace.com) and Facebook (www.facebook.com). Among the features that can be leveraged for fund raising are applications within the sites such as Facebook's "causes". This process allows a user to link to one or more causes that they support, and display and promote their support directly on their Facebook page. By elevating the visibility of the cause to their friends, this process drives both recognition for specific organizations and can lead to higher donations and an increase in volunteering.

Twitter.com - Technically Twitter is a micro blogging site which allows people to answer the question "what are you doing?" in 160 characters or less (the length restriction of a text message) from any location. Users can then follow their friends and have a constantly updating list of what everyone they know is up to. Most businesses use Twitter to market products, as the aggregation of "followers" as well as the use of hashtags (short keywords which allow users to search for "tweets" on specific topics) allows the organization to pass along links and advertisements to a broad audience.

Mahalo.com - Originally positioned as a hybrid of Google and Wikipedia, mahalo.com is a user generated database of customized search response pages. Mahalo allows users to recommend links and information related to specific subjects, and to develop customized search response pages.

Youtube.com and Flickr - These sites allow users to post photos or videos which can then be linked from other locations, commented on or recommended. Youtube has become a major media outlet, and Flickr has been acquired by yahoo and is used for photo sharing by millions of users.

In the Web 1.0 world, the internet was used as a source of information, and as such the dominant players were the search engines (www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.msn.com). As user generated content has become more prevalent, users have migrated to social networking sites such as www.myspace.com and www.facebook.com, and internet usage has shifted to a more interactive information sharing process. The primary focus of web 2.0 sites and technologies can be roughly categorized into three functions:

1. What are you doing?
2. What are you interested in?
3. Who do you know?

As such these can be powerful tools for advancing the cause of fund raising. A specific example of how one organization leveraged new media and web 2.0 technologies to enhance their ability to raise funds is the Barack Obama campaign for President (www.barackobama.com). This site allowed users to create accounts, receive email updates, join groups and organize events. It was a powerful combination of information dissemination and self directed fund-raising. Users could create customized pages which included a blog, links to other friends or groups on the site, and links to events. Event planning was simple and intuitive, allowing the users to advertise their event, use existing resources as materials, and communicate with volunteers and participants. This format allowed Barack Obama to raise unprecedented amounts of money from small donors with minimal resources. So how was his campaign so successful in their use of these web based services?

Utilizing links to a broad swath of social networking sites, the Obama campaign allowed individuals to link their personal networks to the campaign website. The "Obama Everywhere" feature contained a comprehensive list of the social networking sites on which the Obama campaign had a presence and included every possible demographic of potential supporters.

The second key outreach strategy used on Barack Obama's sitewas constant updating. The content of the site changed regularly, both on the user generated side (individuals creating new events, updating blogs, etc.) and on the site managed side (new videos, links, news updates, etc.). This continuous change process provided a reason for the site to reach out to it's subscribers on a regular basis, which encouraged constant interaction.

Th final strategy was to localize their outreach. Through the ability to form clubs, invite friends, and create very specific, local activist groups, the campaign site succeeded in bringing a national action to a personal level through the use of technology. Users of the site could quickly and easily network with friends and/or meet people with similar interests which encouraged continued activism beyond simple fund raising. These groups included location based scenarios (Sudbury for Obama), interest based groups (Environmentalists for Obama) and demographic groups (Asian Americans for Obama). In this way potential donors and/or volunteers were able to find their niche and work almost immediately with people of similar mindsets.

This "niche marketing" process is a fundamental part of internet marketing and is referred to in many publications as the "long tail" approach. Following are two blogs which specifically reference this effect:

http://dot-org.blogspot.com/2007/01/long-tail-of-philanthropy-is-called.html
http://pndblog.typepad.com/pndblog/2007/11/niches-on-the-n.html

Barack Obama's site is one of many players using Web 2.0 technologies to reach out to donors. Sites such as www.kiva.org and www.donorschoose.org are using a unique process of facilitating the matching of donors with people in need, thus allowing people to feel that they are having a direct impact on the world in a very personal way. Kiva allows "entrepreneurs" in developing nations to make a case for a micro loan on their site. Donors then log on and help fund the loan. The entrepreneurs are rated for their ability to repay the loan, and many of them provide ongoing blogs which explain what they are doing with the money to help lift themselves out of poverty.

Donors Choose allows teachers to request materials for projects. Donors can then view projects in their area, or projects which seem interesting to them and choose to fund all or part of the project. Similar to Kiva, this very personal relationship between the donor and the recipient is a key component of the success of the program.

Based on observations of what organizations are currently doing with Web 2.0 technologies to enhance donor relations, there are three major factors contributing to the success of web based philanthropy:

Factor 1 - Low Barriers/Ease of Use
Factor 2 - Frequent Updates/Interactive Content
Factor 3 - Personal Connection to Grantee/Project Funded

Low Barrier/Ease of Use

The major common factors across all types of philanthropic ventures on the web are the ease of use and low barrier to entry. All sites feature a "quick donate" or "donate" button prominently displayed on their site to facilitate a simple process for donations. While there are many other methods of donating on the sites, including organizing events and researching grantees/projects, all of the sites that were reviewed had exceptionally simple interfaces and were written to be easy to understand. Each process had a quick 2-5 step wizard which would walk a potential donor through the process while assuring them of the security of their donation, thanking them for making it, and asking for minimal information. One of the most important parts of this facilitation process is the ability to safely and securely move funds from the donor to the grantee. Services such as PayPal, Acceptiva, and other bank backed sites allow donations to be processed, however it is important to note in the example of Barack Obama's site that it is a single page on which minimal information is required to process the donation, and most of that information is pre-populated through the account the user creates at sign up. As such all a user must do to create a donation is enter a credit card number and click a button. This is an incredible example of a low barrier to entry. On the very same page an embedded video of Barack Obama speaking on the subject of minimizing his reliance on big donors and special interests is automatically played, thus further encouraging the user to go forward with his/her donation.

Frequent Updates/Interactive Content
All sites provided a continuous stream of information should a donor want to receive frequent real time updates on the status of the causes they choose to support. From subscribing to RSS feeds of blogs to receiving email updates, each site contains a wealth of information on the daily workings of its individual cause. This constant stream of information serves to keep donors continuously engaged and to constantly reinforce the positive message of the impact of their donation, thus ideally creating a cycle of continued giving.

Further all sites were customizable in the amount of information/interaction they have with the donor. If a donor wants to subscribe to a blog via an RSS feed or receive email updates daily, each site had a methodology to facilitate that process. It is critical in maintaining positive donor relations to allow the user to determine the frequency with which they receive communication, but to ensure that if a user wants frequent informational updates they are capable of receiving them in whatever format is most relevant to them.

Personal Connection to Grantee/Project Funded
The final success factor, as noted in the section regarding Barack Obama's site, as well as in relation to Kiva.org, is the ability for a site to create a personal link between the donor and the recipient of the funds, and between the donor and others with similar interests. This is the fundamental nature of Web 2.0 and the key to successful organic fundraising growth through this medium. The facilities for people to gather together their friends, and make an immediate and tangible impact on a cause they find personally relevant is what continues to drive growth in the realm of web based philanthropy.

Conclusion
Web 2.0 technologies which leverage the ability of individuals to link their personal friend networks and interests to causes and organizations are powerful tools which can be used to create organic environments to enhance fund raising activities. The role of Web 2.0 services in outreach and philanthropic fund raising is growing and creative organizations are continuing to find new ways to use the internet to facilitate donor/grantee/volunteer communication. The most successful organizations create a broad presence across multiple social networking outlets, provide users with simple tools to facilitate the organization of events and to interact with other users, and provide a secure and reliable method of processing payments. This serves to create an organic environment where users with similar interests can feel that they are having a personal and tangible effect on causes they care about, which encourages a cycle of continuous giving as well as referrals to like minded individuals.

Sources:
Nicole Wallace, Journal of Philanthropy, After the Flood
Pew Research Center, Pew Internet, Home Broadband 2008