Frank Barry, professional services manager at Blackbaud and blogger at NetWits ThinkTank, helps non-profits use the Internet for digital communication, social media and fundraising so they can focus on making an impact and achieving their missions. Find Frank on Twitter @franswaa.
Year-end preparation is in full swing for most non-profit organizations. The reason being that many non-profits receive as much as 40% of their annual donations during the month of December.
If you drill into that 40% number a bit, you’ll see that of the $263 billion Americans give to charity each year, 5.7% is given online, according to the index of online giving study that my company produces; 46% of that online giving takes place in the last three months of the year, with 30% in December alone. Needless to say, non-profits all know that this time of year is critical to their overall fundraising success.
As the non-profit sector mobilizes, we’re also seeing life in the non-profit technology world. What’s interesting about the examples below is that they’re all focused on helping the non-profit supporter — and not the actual non-profit — make a difference with tools to raise awareness and money through social media.
1. HelpAttack!
With social media at the very heart of its efforts, HelpAttack! is offering do-gooders all over the web a unique and social way to support the causes they love.
All you have to do is head over to helpattack.com, log in using your Twitter account and create a pledge. Essentially you’ll be pledging to give a dollar amount for each tweet between now and 30 days from the day you make your pledge –- simple as that. According to Sarah Vela, the CEO of HelpAttack! “This new way to donate is quick, easy, fun and offers a layer of social responsibility to online activities.”
The socially enabled pledge system offers non-profit supporters a quick, easy and fun way to support their favorite cause while also giving non-profit organizations a newfound funding stream that raises their visibility on social networks.
During the holiday season HelpAttack! invites “all non-profit organizations seeking new ways to collect funding through year-end campaigns to visit the site, add themselves if they’re not already listed, and share this new way of giving with their supporters,” says Vela.
Since its launch a few weeks ago, HelpAttack! has seen more than 5,000 causes added to the system with the average pledge amount hovering around $21.
2. Causes Charity Gift Cards
By now you’ve probably heard about, seen or used Causes.com. It’s one of the largest applications on Facebook with more than 140 millions users who have given more than $27 millions dollars in support of non-profit work around the world to date. It has also become very well known for its birthday wish –- a simple way to donate your birthday to charity.
In an effort to help give people another way to support their favorite charity this holiday season, Causes teamed up with Easter Seals, Red Cross, UNICEF, WWF, and CARE to create $25 and $50 prepaid gift cards that can be found at Safeway and Vons supermarkets in California. “This is the only card in the world that says the person you are buying it for wants to do good for the world,” said Causes co-founder and Chairman Sean Parker.
3. Skip1.org
Skip1.org is a very small non-profit organization focused on bringing food and water to those who need it most. To do this, the organization has come up with a clever idea: skip something else. Basically it’s asking people to donate the money they would have spent on a meal, a coffee, a magazine, a haircut or anything else that could have easily been skipped to help support their cause. One hundred percent of the money donated to the organization goes to the charitable work it does.
This holiday season Skip1 and Invisible People are teaming up to bring you a special SkipDay™ focused on helping fight homelessness in the U.S. Instead of doing a traditional toy wrap, you can join hundreds of volunteers, physically and virtually, on December 12 in creating “GLove Bags” –- bags packed with clothes, food and much more that could fit in your car’s glove compartment.
Instead of leaving empty-handed after the event, Shelena Bryan, founder of Skip1, will be asking everyone that participated to take a GLove Bag with them so they can personally give it to a homeless person in their area. According to Bryan, “The power is in the giving of the GLove bag, not just the creation of it –- will you step up and give out the bag, or will you just pack the bag and forget about it?”
Watch the video:
Your Year-End Giving
Let us know if any of these campaigns have sparked your interest or if you’re planning to give this holiday season. Share your thoughts in the comments below
More Social Good Resources from Mashable:
- Checkins for Charity: The Rise of Geo-Social Good
- 10 Inspiring “Buy One Give One” Projects
- 4 Real Challenges to Crowdsourcing for Social Good
- 9 Creative Social Good Campaigns Worth Recognizing
- 5 Easy Ways to Support a Cause Through Your Social Network
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ideabug
More About: causes, causes.com, charity, crowdrise, facebook causes, helpattack, non-profit, nonprofit, skip1, social good, social media, year end giving
For more Social Good coverage:
- Follow Mashable Social Good on Twitter
- Become a Fan on Facebook
- Subscribe to the Social Good channel
- Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad