Facebook fundraising is nothing new but it is, however, evolving and becoming more elaborate as you’ll see in the examples below.  It’s also becoming more widely adopted especially by larger companies. It’s only a matter of time until social media fundraising (via Facebook and other social sites) is “the norm”. It will soon be a staple in nonprofits’ marketing and fundraising plans. Some are already doing it right, others are not, and some are in between. Take a look at the following examples with Coca Cola and Walmart who have both teamed up with nonprofits for fundraising campaigns.

Coca Cola and Ocean Conservancy have launched a social media campaign on April 14th in honor of Earth Month. They are hoping to raise $200,000 to support Ocean Conservancy’s efforts in keeping oceans and rivers clean and help raise general awareness of their marine debris programs.  This campaign involves a Facebook application where you can upload a photo to “oceanize” yourself and then use that photo as your profile picture in which case Coca Cola will then donate $1 to the Ocean Conservancy in your honor. Sounds all good right? Well there is some good, bad, and ugly here.

Good:

• There is incentive to share the photo and raise awareness for this cause…but mainly because you have to share it by making it your profile picture in order for Coca Cola to make the donation in your honor.
• There is the potential for this to go viral. Eyebrows will certainly be raised when your “friends’” profile pictures are of them snorkeling, swimming with sharks, or getting cozy with a dolphin.
• The campaign is on the “Live Positively” tab on the main Coca Cola fan page where there are already over 5,000,000 fans (a.k.a. “likes”). This means Coca Cola did not have to worry about creating a new platform or audience. People are already there (on the page) and are ready and willing to listen.
• They make uploading photos easy because you can choose one that is already in one of your Facebook albums.
• Coca Cola is using cross channel promotion to get word out about this. They are using print and online advertisements all with the tagline, “71% of the Earth’s surface is ocean. Shouldn’t 100% of it be clean?” to create consistency.

Bad:

• Profile pictures are not to be taken lightly in the Facebook world. While it seems to be the perfect opportunity for creating a viral campaign and a perfect tool for generating awareness, how many people are actually willing to de-glamorize their profile picture and dedicate it to a tightly cropped photo of their head in a wetsuit on a body that isn’t even theirs? So while there is great potential for success if people embrace this concept, there is also great potential for this campaign to be much less accepted than Coca Cola may have originally anticipated.

Ugly:

• Coca Cola missed an important segment. I am sure there are plenty of people who would have otherwise participated if they could have “oceanized” themselves but not been obligated to make it their profile picture. Not everyone may consider a $1 donation on Coca Cola’s behalf incentive enough to change their picture but perhaps some kind of stronger incentive would be enough? This segment should have been given more consideration so that Coca Cola could have better involved everyone in the campaign (not just one type of participation/engagement level).

Walmart and the ASPCA have launched the “Lend a Paw” campaign in honor of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month. Unlike Coca Cola’s campaign, this campaign has a Facebook page all on its own with over 2,000 fans (again, or “likes”) but perhaps taking the Coca Cola approach (making it a tab on the company’s main Facebook page) would have been better. There are almost 1,000,000 fans on the Walmart page and these fans are more likely to find this campaign on the pages which they are already spending time on. Anyway, Walmart will donate $1 (up to $100,000) for each wall post spreading the message about this campaign. (There is a pre-generated message and all you have to do is click the “Create a Lend a Paw Post” on their fan page). So what’s good, bad, and ugly here?

Good:

• Instant gratification – as soon as you click “share” you see your post and know that it equates to a donation from Walmart. There is a tally on the landing page too that lets you know how much money was raised so far (which was $872 at the time this post was written).
• Participants (or anyone for that matter) can view overall progress at any point by checking out the tally.
• It’s setting the scene for peer to peer fundraising because the wall posts are meant to encourage others in your social network to keep spreading the word in order to keep those donations rolling in from Walmart.
• There is integration with Twitter as well so you can share the same message via Tweets.
• The simplicity of the campaign is nice…

Bad:

• But is it too simple? Is there enough going on to generate buzz? Probably not.
• I have not seen any cross channel promotion for this campaign.
• There is no mention of this campaign on the Walmart Facebook page or the ASPCA Facebook page.

Ugly:

• So many missed opportunities here. There is very poor promotion surrounding this campaign. As already mentioned, there are no links to the Lend a Paw page on either organization’s main Facebook Page but there is also no mention of the campaign on either of their websites either! How do they plan on getting 100,000 posts?? The lack of effort is not good on their part. Do they really care or is this just a half-hearted PR thing?

So while Facebook is becoming more widely used in fundraising, it is looking there’s going to be an adjustment period until people figure out what works and what doesn’t and that will be different for every organization. As for Coca Cola and Walmart, I think these organizations will figure it out by trial and error but having a full understanding before diving into social media fundraising is obviously ideal. You have to understand the network, the users, the demographic, and behavior before it can be a success. Using Facebook as a fundraising tool has already proven to be a success with one of our clients. Click here to check out the case study. Results from this campaign included increasing the number of fans for their Facebook page from 39 to 268 and raising over $1,000 in donations in a short amount of time. With the right understanding and preparation and forward thinking Facebook fundraising can indeed bring in results.