AGC Coversational Case Studies: Students for a Free Tibet: A mindful social media strategy for campaigns or contests
Allison Fine and I have been working on an evaluation of the second America’s Giving Challenge. As part of the process, we are facilitating “Conversational Case Studies” that explore some of the themes that have surfaced from surveys.
This post explores how a small nonprofit, Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), a contest winner in the first and second America’s Giving Challenges, is using social media effectively. SFT carefully vets contest participation to ensure it will be worth their time and energy as well as ensuring that the contest strategically aligns with their goals. They also understand how to avoid donor fatigue, the potential downside to online contests.
Friendraising and Fundraising on Social Networks
Melanie Raoul is a passionate millennial who knows what it means to put her life on the line for a cause. In 2007, she was one of six activists detained by the Chinese government after adding the words “Free Tibet 2008” to an Olympic banner and unfurling it on the Great Wall of China. She was freed several days later, but her personal act of protest was the official beginning of a one-year countdown of protests to the 2008 Olympics organized by her organization, Students for a Free Tibet.
It was the dramatic backdrop of this campaign that Melanie Raoul entered her organization in the first America’s Giving Challenge in 2007-2008. It was also their first experiment with Facebook Causes for fundraising, and they raised $89,914 from 3,672 donors and captured $25,000 in prize money.
Says Raoul, “The Olympics Campaign catalyzed our movement with an unstoppable sense of unity for a free Tibet. It empowered [us] to enter the first America’s Giving [Challenge] using a pull-all-the-stops campaign, which also helped us grow our network.”
Entering Contests Is A Strategic Decision
When the Case Foundation announced a second America’s Giving Challenge in 2009, Students for a Free Tibet carefully vetted the opportunity. Raoul says, “Online contests can take a lot out of your volunteers, members, and staff. We don’t enter every contest that comes along. We pick one per year.”
They determine whether the contest has value by asking:
- Do we have the bandwidth?
- Do we have enough members who will volunteer to reach out to their friends and family?
- Will our participation in the contest help us grow our network of people who we can educate and engage about political freedom in Tibet after the contest is over?
- How does the contest fit in our overall fundraising plan for the year?
A big concern for SFT was how the contest could fit into their annual fundraising calendar. The November timeline meant it was nestled in between two of their most intense fundraising campaigns. Says, Raoul, “We decided to run a smaller, shorter, and a more focused contest campaign with a goal of recruiting new people by engaging our most passionate volunteers.”
They also consider the long-term value. Says Raoul, “Our participation in the first Challenge helped us attract 50,000 new members both during and after the contest. Raoul notes that during the six months following the second America’s Giving Challenge, they added another 25,000 members to their Cause. Raoul says there has been an uptick of members using the Birthday Wish campaign bringing in almost $1,000 per month. She notes, “This activity happens without any additional effort from us.”
Avoiding Donor Fatigue
Students for a Free Tibet understood well that a successful social media campaign has a call to action to achieve its goals, but not so much frequency to create donor fatigue. Based on their experience with their member recruitment and online activism campaigns, SFT knew they could not ask supporters to donate every day during the month-long America’s Giving Challenge. She said, “While the contest rules permitted daily donations and there were opportunities for daily prizes, if we asked people everyday, their passion for our cause would evaporate.”
Raoul says they entered the contest painfully aware of the recession and the impact it might have on people’s giving - another reason why they limited the number of times they asked for donations. They also understood that every contact with their donors should not be an ask for money. Raoul says, “The long term benefits of adding new members to our cause are only worth if we are continually creating ways to engage these new members and bring them closer to our cause once the contest is over.”
Meet Members At Their Interest Level With Compelling Content
Students for a Free Tibet understands that not everyone who joins their Facebook Cause has the same level of interest or knowledge about their work. Raoul says, "People join our Cause on Facebook for many different reasons, and we have different levels of interest in our movement. This means we have different calls to action from simply sharing information, get them to take action online, participate in events offline, or simply educate them."
Compelling calls to action work better than begging for money. "We avoided a ‘give us money to win a contest’ message," says Raoul. Similar to Darius Goes West, gripping personal stories and creative approaches are must.
Conclusion
Raoul sums up their best practices:
At the end of the day, if you meet people where they are at – educate them, move them to take action, and cultivate them as donors, the more likely it is they’ll invest in your organization when you do ask for money.With the explosion of online contests available to nonprofits, how does your nonprofit vet opportunities to participate?
If an online contest has brought you new members and supporters, how do you continue to build your connection to them once the contest is over?
Resources:
- Eight Tips for A Successful Cause Campaign
- Can the Contest Craze Be Sustained?
- Online Contests: What do your donors think?
Guest blogger Beth Kanter is a trainer, coach, and consultant to nonprofits in the area of effective technology use.
Thoughts on contests
My gut feeling is that most small to mid-sized nonprofits feel that they don't have the capacity or the number "likers" to even come close to winning one of these big nation-wide contests. Even more so now that there are more of these contests out there. I do like the strategy that you addressed in your case study about choosing one to focus on that one, of which I think donors would be appreciative!
These contests already give an advantage to certain causes: Case in point, where I work, a State Association (Maryland Nonprofits) has a cause that is not as "sexy" as clean water or save the whales, so contests that are attract a broad variety of nonprofit causes like Case, or Pepsi would be of little interest to my organization, because most of our followers are at nonprofits themselves. (Try telling a foundation or corporation that they are supporting the whole nonprofit sector through a State Association; they give the look of "what's the nonprofit sector?")
I recently did a quick training on social media (thanks for posting all your PPTs to Slideshare! I borrowed many concepts form your presentations, credited you, and promoted you BIG time!), and did note to them that these contests right now are nothing more than popularity contests. How do we know if the winner is an EFFECTIVE organization? We know very little of their management from the programmatic information that is presented on these contests. Do we bring in organizations like Guidestar into the process? Or do we allow organizations that have earned the Standards for Excellence seal or the Better Business Bureau seal, or some other recognition to participate in the contest?
Again, keep up the great work! I value your work, insights and posts!
- Craig Weinrich 21 May 10, 8:40Tactics
I read your Darius Goes West initial case assessment, and loved how you included Darius' video appeals. Seeing those really helped me to understand why their supporters connected with the cause - Darius himself+cause+humor.
In this case study, I was blown away by the fact the the SFT's involvement in the Giving Challenge generated 25K new Cause members, and 50K new members. That growth is incredible. So, what I wonder is: what tactics did they use that really bring in new fans? How did the word spread and how did they encourage that? What is it about their messaging that is so compelling? If they didn't ask for money each time, can you offer us some of their personal storytelling messages, or other outreach messages? These are potentially replicable actions that other causes can also use.
- Debra Askanase 20 May 10, 15:14When the contest isn't the value
Hey Beth - thanks for starting another interesting conversation!
Like Dave, I think it would be interesting to hear about the other competitions they decided not to do.
NetSquared's Challenges are very different in that they aren't based on organizations' programs or services or overall mission but focus on new tools/mashups/approaches from individuals, organizations and so on...but, we do spend time working on making participation something worthwhile for participants. One consistent response we've received from Challenge participants is that the Challenge itself wasn't the most valuable reason to participate: instead,the value is in finding other people working on similar Projects, using the experience to build and prepare for other applications (like direct grant requests etc.), and getting direct feedback and comments about their ideas. We have also developed long-term support for Projects like helping teams create their pitch, network with possible funders, and find collaborators to help take their Projects to the next step.
We can obviously do a better job of talking about all the other value that comes with participation, but I'm curious about other competitions and ones like AGC and others that are directly related just to an organization instead of an idea, how those competitions nurture participants in and outside of the competition itself.
- Amy Sample Ward 19 May 10, 5:08Contests
As far as online contests go, I always turn to my colleague David Spark, who's conducted a number of these. See the link to his "20 Expert Tips on Running a Contest Powered by Social Media" on Socialbrite here:
http://www.socialbrite.org/sharing-center/reports/
- JD Lasica 19 May 10, 5:05(August 2009)
Investing Social Capital Effectively...
At Epic Change, we're consistently evaluating opportunities. While they're not documented, our primary considerations are the following, in no particular order:
1) Are the sponsors & competition model in alignment with our personal & organizational values?
2) Can we win?
3) If we don't win, what do we gain?
4) What is the impact on our community? Is it meaningful, fun & engaging or utterly button-pushing, dehumanizing?
5) Do we want to encourage our community to use the tools required to participate in the competition?
6) Can our community of impact participate? Is it inclusive?
7) Do we have other competing priorities? Is the time right?
8) Does it abuse our community's trust or divert their attention?
9) Does the reward warrant the effort & attention?
10) Does it feel right? or icky?
As for David's question, for one or more of these reasons, we sat out on Chase Community Giving, have yet to enter Pepsi Refresh and have also opted out of several of the Ashoka Changemakers competitions, even when they've been relevant to our cause. We also didn't enter the second year of America's Giving Challenge as it was scheduled so close to TweetsGiving. We've opted out of several nonprofit video competitions that require us to drive online votes.
We've won Ideablob, and received a small award for our successful participation in the first year of the America's Giving Challenge. As we've grown, I must admit that I've found it much more compelling to build our own platforms to ensure they radically align with our values and support our mission & organizational objectives. This doesn't mean we wouldn't enter another competition, but it does mean we evaluate opportunities more carefully. We've created our own venues to cultivate community action, and engage carefully selected sponsors in ways that truly benefit our efforts.
Our goal with each campaign/competition/event is to pull people more deeply into our mission. Between these events, we share content, highlight successes & give people the opportunity to engage meaningfully in the change their investment & action is creating. In addition, as an organization that relies predominantly on volunteers, each campaign/competition/event is an opportunity for us to identify community members to involve more deeply in similar future efforts.
I view campaigns & competitions like these as opportunities to rally our entire community & pull in new members. In the spaces between these high-visibility vehicles, we have the opportunity to move our most active community members more deeply into our work and engage them by inviting their heartful participation in planning the "next big thing."
- Stacey Monk 18 May 10, 20:42Contest fatigue?
I'm so glad you've addressed the rather superficial issue of whether there is nonprofit contest fatigue and instead made clear contests are a strategic choice for a nonprofit based on criteria like their following, their bandwidth and their overall fundraising strategy. Fantastic points. I'd also add that if it's a corporate contest, they should pay attention to their fit to the corporation's brand. For example, childhood obesity activists - should they compete for a grant from a soft drink company?
- katya andresen 18 May 10, 20:24Donor Fatigue
This is so interesting. As an onlooker I never knew this much went into the planning for entering contests.
I have donor fatigue, and I didn't know what the word was, I'm tired of all my social media experiences being cause related. It's exhausting, and no one stands out that way.
- Jessica Gottlieb 18 May 10, 14:51Red Cross Vetting Process
Dave - we sat out the USA Today contest because the outcome wasn't in line with our goals.
In general we still have a pretty ad hoc / go with the gut method of vetting these opportunities.
I'm working on drafting a strategy but will reiterate that I'd like to see the social web used as a means for all the parties involved (corps, npos, donors, recipients, etc) to work together towards societal goals rather than tearing each other apart in popularity contests. (I know - I dream big and utopian-like).
In the meantime, we ask at least all of the following questions when presented with an opportunity:
1. Who is the sponsor of the contest?
subquestions include:
is the sponsor reputable?
have they been successful in this space before?
do they get social media?
do we have an existing relationship?
2. Is the outcome of the contest in line with our goals?
subquestions include:
will winning this contest be budget reducing?
will winning have a positive impact on our mission?
will the contest provide a meaningful opportunity for stakeholder empowerment?
does it fit with our overall fundraising plan?
3. What are the opportunities?
o What’s in it for our social supporters?
o What’s in it for the corporation?
o What’s in it for us?
o What’s in it for our field units?
o Will participating expand our supporter base?
4. What are the costs?
o will this contest require considerable human capital from employees and volunteers?
o will this contest require monetary capital in promotional expenses to win?
o will this contest require us to cash in on some of our social capital within our networks (donor fatigue)?
5. What if we don't win?
6. Will the opportunities outweigh the costs?
7. Will we be able to follow up with participants?
- Wendy Harman 18 May 10, 14:37Another question...
Another question to consider in the online contest world. So many contests are run by large for-profit corporations. Do you want your organization to be part of what is essentially a giant marketing scheme? What do you give up for that? What do you gain?
Excellent piece. Thanks.
- Anna McDonnell 18 May 10, 10:59I'm beginning to see more nonprofits sit out contests ..
Here's a post from a nonprofit sharing their reasons why they aren't participating:
http://blog.rollingdogranch.org/rolling_dog_ranch_animal_/2010/05/the-gr...
Shelter Challenge Update
The latest round of the Shelter Challenge begins on Monday, May 17th. We are going to sit this one out because of our current transition between Montana and New Hampshire locations. At the start of the contest we will still be in Montana, but when it ends we will be in New Hampshire, so what state we should be competing in isn't really clear. Also, I think having three of these contests in a single year is overdoing it, frankly, and my sense is that people are getting burned out from the constant daily voting 10 months out of the year. That's just too much. So we're going to stand down on this next round of the contest and then come back and compete again in the third and final round at the end of the year. Obviously, we can't prevent people from voting for the ranch, but I wanted to let you know why we won't be actively promoting it this time.
- Beth Kanter 18 May 10, 10:06Great case study on when to
Great case study on when to join vs not join. Can you give us an example of a contest they DIDN'T participate in? Maybe change the names the protect the guilty? I would want to see what they read and decided to not participate in?
- David J. Neff 18 May 10, 9:47Post new comment