June 02, 2008
Is Facebook's Fund Raising a Bust?
The announcement by Facebook last week that its Causes application has raised $2.5-million in its first year drew disappointment in some quarters.
Writing on the blog TechCrunch, some posters say that figure is encouraging, particularly given that most Facebook users are young and don’t have much disposable income. But other comments suggest that $2.5-million is a tiny number for a site that has 12 million users.
Adam Hyman points out on TechCrunch that the $2.5-million total works out to being only $0.21 per user. “How can anyone call this a success?” he asks.
A blogger who identified himself simply as “FT” adds that Facebook receives a portion of the money raised by the application, so smart donors would be better off contributing to the charity directly.
Lael writes that Facebook’s causes doesn’t provide users with enough of an incentive to donate. “Most of the people I know who have the app installed haven’t ever donated. I think it’s just too easy to feel good by adding a cause and not donating,” she says.
But other writers on the TechCrunch blog point out that the Causes application is as much about raising awareness and support for charitable causes as it is a way to raise money.
Austin Hill writes: “More important then the actual number of dollars donated (although a good thing) is the social affect of users displaying the causes they want to associated themselves with.”
Other writers suggest that Facebook Causes is just getting started, and that, as its users age, they will be able to contribute larger sums.
(Read The Chronicle’s article about Facebook fund raising.)
What do you think?
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I think that there is an inordinate amount of pressure forced on charities — particularly social service organizations — to devote resources to MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites. I think that a lot of this pressure comes from younger staff and donors who want to see the organization become more “relevant” to their peers.
The problem is that many NGO leaders accept this pressure and convince themselves that social networking sites are the road to endless revenues… but very few will ever see a return that justifies the amount of time they invested on it. For example, compare the return of spending 20 hours building a nice MySpace page with 20 hours on the phone thanking current donors. Which activity would raise more money over the long-term?
We are now in the world of Web 2.0, and this trend is the same thing that happened in Web 1.0 … when every non-profit thought that they could just slap a “Donate Now” button on their Web site and all of their problems would go away. Enabling donors to contribute online is essential, but is not the end-all of fundraising. I think that the same will eventually be said for social networking.
I recently led two different seminars on the topic of online communities and fundraising: one of the core points that I tried to impress on attendees was that social networking is great for some organizations, but it is hardly a fit for all organizations.
I think that non-profits should take the time to put up a basic page on the top social networking sites, but build it in a way that does not require a lot of updating. The focus of the profile/page should be to drive traffic to their main Web site.
My fear is that many non-profits are going to waste a lot of time and energy trying to raise money through these media.
Remember: fundraising is all about relationships. Social networking sites are just another form of communications, and are not in themselves relationships. We still need to work the basics of “friend-raising,” whether we’re offline or online.
Jeremy Gregg, Editor
The Raiser’s Razor
http://theraiser.blogspot.com/
— Jeremy Gregg Jun 2, 11:03 PM #
Well said!
— Katie Jun 5, 02:10 PM #
Two questions:
How many donors are there, as opposed to Facebook users?
What’s the size of the average gift?
— Bill Huddleston Jun 6, 11:01 AM #
I was initially really excited about the Facebook Causes application. I started blogging just a few months before America’s Giving Challenge and I was excited to see such a neat and creative thing happening. After America’s Giving Challenge I never heard of anyone using the Causes Application.
I would prefer if the causes donation page worked more like the general Facebook page. It would allow for videos and other applications to be used. I have been a lot more impressed with applications that allow you to integrate existing campaigns via Facebook. Firstgiving has a great application and Global Giving has a pretty good application as well.
Jason Dick
www.ASmallChange.net
— Jason Dick Jun 9, 10:06 PM #