Marnie Webb will lead this conversation about what tools are out there to help you, the individual blogger, raise funds and galvanize action around the issues you are most passionate about. Catherine Connors, who has been at the helm of the BlogHers Act Canada initiative since its inception will discuss how they created their monthly challenges, and how they keep momentum going. Donna Callejon will highlight the flexible features of Global Giving, the online fundraising service working with BlogHer on our BlogHers Act Mother’s Day initiative and leading social media consultant to non-profits, Beth Kanter, will talk about what has worked for her on her personal sites and for the organizations she has worked with.

Featuring: Marnie Webb, Catherine Connors, Donna Callejon and Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter: I work with non-profits and help them utilize social media. I’ve been blogging for six or seven years.
Catherine Connors: I’m a founder of Mothers of Eternal Justice and a former professor.
Donna Callejon: I’m with Global Giving, which is essentially an eBay style site for philanthropy.
Marnie Webb: I’m with Net Squared to help causes move forward. This session is about tools and how to use them. It’s broken into three areas: personal, collective and organizations. Why are you here?
Audience Member: Social media is forcing corporate giants to learn something to learn about non-profit best practices.
AM: I’m here to learn what these non-profits need.
AM: I’m helping NGO’s develop social media strategy.
BK: How did I raise $200k for Cambodian orphans using my blog? I took to my blog and raised enough money to travel to the country and co-sponsor their conference. Most of the time, money goes to “The Sharing Foundation.” Most recently, I raised $93,000 for them. $50,000 of that came from a competition which opened on December 13, 2007. Here’s the deal: You raise money for a cause and the most successful wins the long competition. So here’s what I did. I posted and asked my readers what to do. They could have stolen my ideas, since they’re non-profits looking for tools. But they didn’t.
Strategy: Make It Personal – show pictures, shares stories. And why you want to help. And share the tools used to raise money.
The ladder of engagement: Tell a story. How were people helping?
Reciprocity – I blogged about other causes to grow my network. And to help people connect.
Strategy: Fun – what’s more fun than a birthday party. My birthday was coming up: I asked my Facebook users to not send me gifts, but to donate. And they did.
Funny video on YouTube got forwarded around. I twittered. I poked people on Facebook. I did a photo contest on Flicker to “adjust” my photos and the winner got $50. 125 people donated to my cause.
Halfway through the contest, I had T-shirts made connecting people to the cause. I had people offline asking for donations.
With 24 hours to go we’re in 1st place. But then dropped to 5th.
I told all my people that we couldn’t lose. They were twittering me that they wouldn’t let me lose and started contacting everyone they know. One doctor in India contacted 3,000 other doctors to donate. And we won.
CC: Blogging is such an exciting thing…how are you taking advantage of this to pursue goals and make changes in the world? Bloggers have very passionate communities. Last year after BlogHer and after meeting Gloria Steinem where she talked about writing a post about what you’re passionate about. It garnered 120 other posts about why people are passionate.
So we asked, “Why don’t we make this Canadian focused?” We talked about making it specific or broad. Decided to be broad on the environment. Our bloggers act initiative. Each month was a particular issue surrounding the environment. We asked bloggers to tell us what their passions were like eating locally, plastics and bottles, teaching our kids about the environment. We didn’t get too active, but rather drove traffic to organizations’ sites that did have action steps.
We prompted bloggers to blog about something which they are passionate about. It’s not the specific cause, but rather that they’re getting involved. Why not take the opportunity to share you passions and do something small to change the world?
DC: We launched this BlogHers Act campaign and have raised $6,300. Don’t try to be Beth Kantor. Twitter is number one referrer of driving traffic to this campaign. Three out of the top five givers were food blogs. People who like to eat, like to give.
AM: How did you get that data?
DC: We use a tool called Omniture. Google analytics is free and does the same thing. We’ll put resources on Wiki page. The philanthropic giving in US is $300 billion a year. 82 percent is from individuals. 33 percent comes from faith based organizations. No good data regarding online, but might be one percent. Only 44 million given through social media. So there’s tremendous opportunity. We intend to focus on developing country giving, which is a small sliver of all US giving.
People are almost 100 times as likely to give is someone they know asks them. And a prize increases this even more.
How do you increase a sense of urgency? Beth had the competition. That’s what you need. People give for three reasons – end of year tax reasons, a disaster or because someone they know asks.
Those that are engaged are the ones who really care. There’s a registry on Global Giving. It’s just like a Crate and Barrel registry or a marriage registry. You can drive people to a place where they could find out about what you care about.
Other tools – Global Giving acts as a respected source for individuals to put their causes and have GG send the money directly to the cause.
Other tools – First Giving helps you build a quick site about the cause you’re raising money…but you have to be a 501c3. And they have a widget available.
Other tools – eBay Giving Works. You can either buy or sell and have a percentage go to a cause.
AM: Can you pick any non-profit?
DC: No, but you can pick from a list.
AM: How can people know that they’re supporting you.
MW: Mission Fish is the organization that verifies real non-profits. They reject fake ones.
AM: Are there defined best practices?
MW: There are some helpful links we’ll add to the Wiki.
AM: Do you think social media can overcome donor fatigue?
MW: Next question?
CC: This gives us a chance to reach new people. And my readers have their own followings.
MW: It’s more targeted, which helps.
DC: It’s all about op-in or they will get pissed off. There’s a reason why you get direct mail and direct email – it works. Do you want to be that type of fundraiser?
MW: The handouts and other info is available at www.ext337.pbwiki.com.

Live Blogged by Christine’s wonderful hubby, Ray!