Experience Matters

Fundraising 2.0

Today marks the end of Movember, a moustache-growing fundraiser our offices participate in.  For a month, guys like myself shave clean and grow a moustache while raising funds (and awareness) for prostate cancer.

Though for a very good cause, I knew the economic downturn was going to make collecting donations rather difficult.  The economy is making people think twice about their money, and the novelty of doing Movember a year ago wears a little thin.  So how do you improve your reach and the possibility of collecting donations over the course of the month?

Constant updates.  Entertain your friends, family and colleagues with progress on your efforts.  I’ve created a blog to show progress each day and provide detailed information about the fundraising effort.  Not only is it a simple site to set up (and free), I’ve also found a plugin to make my blog formatted for the iPhone for those who want to track my ’stache from their mobile.

Go social. Instead of walking door-to-door or calling up friends, there are much easier methods to get the word out.  Update your MySpace photo.  Post the direct donation link on Facebook.  Create a response video to the official fundraising video on YouTube.  Update your LinkedIn status.  Tweet away with Twitter.  Spread the word on multiple networks with an AddThis button.  If your social network is active, other users will catch all of your notices in their feeds.

Focus on the micro-interaction. The Salvation Army now accepts online donations.  Political campaigns like President-elect Obama’s are using mobile applications and social media feeds to raise money.  Gone are the days of hoping to sign people up on paper or depending on ringing bells outside of stores.  Small donations are now easier to make than ever.

The key is that all of these methods are free or accessible to anyone.  Most likely, you already have a few of these networks set up.  So far, we’ve raised over $3,000 this year and donations are still being accepted until December 9th.

Thank you to all of those who have already donated!