"It, importantly, creates norms," Sklar, who is in the planning phases of building a social giving start-up called Charitini, said of personal donation campaigns. "It creates social norms within your peer group so that giving becomes something that people are naturally inclined to do."
Caro writes about how individuals are leveraging personal networks for fundraising campaigns - including Charitini and my DonorsChoose birthday drive, woo! It also mentions the Crowdrise marathon drives, like my pals at Team Interactive who raised over $100,000 (and I did my small, non-running part for that too).
Here’s the part about my birthday - happy to get DonorsChoose into the mix :
Or there’s DonorsChoose, an organization that lets cash-strapped public school teachers petition for donations to help their classrooms purchase everything from new textbooks to soccer balls and which has also launched a personal donation campaign function. Rachel Sklar, an editor at Mediaite and digital philanthropy advocate, used DonorsChoose for a campaign for her birthday earlier this month and let potential donors select among a handful of different classroom projects.
“It importantly creates norms,” Sklar, who is in the planning phases of building a social giving start-up called Charitini, said of personal donation campaigns. “It creates social norms within your peer group so that giving becomes something that people are naturally inclined to do.”
..and why it’s fine if not every giver becomes a philanthropy convert:
But can there be a downside to putting the individual and his or her social network, rather than the charity itself, as the primary reason for donating to a cause? Does this result in disconnected donors who will soon tire of throwing $25 toward a birthday or marathon campaign every few weeks?
“I’m entirely untroubled with that,” Sklar said of the possible issue. “It’s a gateway drug, because it lowers the barrier to entry for anything. That means people who might not otherwise get a taste get a taste, and the people who might get hooked get hooked.”
Bobby Chang, the CEO of HEAL Together, a consulting firm that works to help nonprofits raise money more effectively through social media and other means, concurs.
“My personal philosophy on this whole thing is if you can actually introduce someone to something new, then there’s a possibility that this person will start to think about how they will actually choose the things that they’re passionate about and try to drive toward that,” Chang told CNET. “It may not at the beginning seem that this will drive a new person to a particular cause, but it will drive that person to think a little bit about what matters to them and maybe get them driving toward their own cause.”
