My thoughts on online fund raising
Recently, Suzie Cheel the author of the blog Abundance Highway had a fund raising event on the online social network Twitter. A fund raising event on Twitter is called a Tweetathon. The idea was to raise 4000 dollars so that Suzie can travel to Vancouver to attend a certification program on the Law of Attraction. The Tweetathon was conducted on May 28. Suzie’s twitter friends from all over the world relayed Suzie’s message at 7PM local time, including myself. The Tweetathon did not attract the required amount for Suzie. I do not want to call it a failure, because for Suzie this was more of an experiment. It was her first try at it. Because Suzie had the motivation and willpower to try this, we have all learned something new and useful from her exercise.
In this post I express my own personal views and opinions on what better could have been done to make the Tweetathon more successful. I am writing this post to get all of us thinking about future fund raising projects on the Internet. I am using Suzie’s Tweetathon as a example to illustarate my points. So please don’t get me wrong. I have great respect for Suzie and her friends who came up with this excellent idea.
Do not rush
To reach our goals and objectives we have to move forward in a steady phase. I think whole Tweetathon exercise was rushed too quickly.
Deliver a crisp message
The concept of the Tweetathon and Team World project (a group established by Suzie and her friends to help out the needy) was not delivered clearly. Even Suzie acknowledged this point (check her subsequent post).
Avoid confusion
The team tried to sell two ideas, Suzie’s Vancouver trip and the Team World projects both at the same time, but failed to relate how they fit together.
Quantify the benefits
I think the team could have created a strong argument for helping Suzie by connecting her trip to the Team World projects. For example, “For Every 10 dollars donated to the fund, Suzie will contribute 1$ to the Team World project”. The team did point out that any excess funds will go to the Team world China Library project. But this is not effective because the first donors will feel that their contribution is not going for a needy cause.
Give some background information
The team could have given some background on how Suzie has empowered others in the past. They also could have pointed out what kind of activities will Suzie do to empower others upon completion of the certification program. Not everyone on Twitter knows Suzie, so this is very important. I also believe that the team should have given some background information on what is the Law of Attraction. The Michael Losier video was geared towards convincing people to attend the certification program. Therefore it was not the best video to present the Law of Attraction.
Clarify privacy concerns
I wonder how many potential donors had concern regarding their privacy using the chip-in system. Clarify any possible privacy concerns so that the donors feel at ease when contributing to your fund.
But wait, there is more than a week for Suzie’s deadline. So things can change. Good Luck Suzie.
The fund raising over the Internet that inspired me most was Karyn Bosnak story. After reading her story, I’ve at least raised few dollars from the Internet to support two families from Indonesia for their medical expenses and one college student for her tuitions. You can find some of the posting by searching for the words Lukas (with k and not c) and Gratia in my blog. To me, fund raising is too time consuming and sometimes it could be very stressful too. I still received the requests from time to time to help funding some medicala needs from Indonesia, but I didn’t respond and would like to take a break, unless there is a sure way to collect the donations the way Karyn did. I would love to hear if there is a better way than what I’ve done in the past.