19 Feb TwitCause Makes Good
Recently, using social media for charities and non-profits has been the conversation topic du jor, due in no small part to the massively successful text donation campaign for Haiti implemented by The Red Cross. Social media for non-profits and causes has been steadily evolving in both effective and creative ways because social channels are a natural way to disseminate information. Which is why TwitCause makes so much sense.
TwitCause, the brainchild of Experience Project, is a concept that builds on the idea that people are more willing to spread the word about good causes. You begin by following TwitCause on Twitter, and each Thursday they choose a new cause to tweet about. The included link sends you to a page where you can donate to the cause via PayPal, or you can choose to help by simply pressing the Retweet button and educating your followers.
Additionally, people can nominate the charities that they think should be supported by TwitCause, which then get voted on to be next up. TwitCause is hoping to get more businesses and brands involved by sponsoring matching donations, or having people tweet in order to get the brands to make donations.
In a recent guest post on Beth Kanter’s blog, Julio Vasconcellos, who manages TwitCause for Experience Project, wrote that it’s difficult to fundraise via individual donations. People are less likely to open up their wallets than they are to help spread a message to the people in their network.
In my opinion, it’s the latter concept that is most sustainable, and recently it’s looked like corporations and brands are beginning to take that stance as well. In my own recent experience with Home Depot, I had initially asked if they’d be interested in matching whatever I raised for the New Orleans rebuilding organization LowerNine.org. They generously surprised me by coming back with an offer of a $10,000 donation of gift cards from their Home Depot Foundation, arming the organization with the tools and supplies they needed most to get their work done.
You’ll find Pepsi following suit with their Refresh Everything contest, while Chase Bank just wrapped up a contest where people voted on which charitable organizations they wanted to win cash. Perhaps this is the next phase in the evolution of TwitCause?
Have you had an experience with TwitCause or using Twitter as a tool for raising awareness? I’m interested to hear about it in the comments.
