In his 2000 book, The Tipping Point, author Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the power of people he called “connectors”. Social engagers, these individuals tend to have a large network of contacts from a range of social, professional, economic and cultural circles. Essential to society and the business world, these people are highly valued for their habit of making introductions and bringing people together.

I was reminded of these connectors recently when researching new online fundraising methods, namely microphilanthropy and peer to peer fundraising. While subtle differences may exist between the two, both rely on connectors to help them succeed. By persuading a network of contacts to join a charitable cause, a connector can ultimately help nonprofits reap tremendous rewards. And with the Internet’s increasing potential to garner philanthropic dollars, it would behoove organizations to pay closer attention to their connectors.

Preaching the message

Tom Williams, CEO of GiveMeaning, an online site that hosts fundraising pages on behalf of charities, nonprofits, and grassroots projects, refers to these promoters as organization evangelists. Every organization, he claims, boasts a number of these untapped resources. “They are people who are typically extraverted in nature, have large social networks of business contacts, family and friends, and have no qualms about preaching the message to their social network.” The only thing they lack, says Williams, is a platform to efficiently go about their preaching.

Enter microphilanthropy. Adhering to the “dollar store” notion of small revenues and high transactions, the premise is as follows: individuals create an online fundraising page for their cause, event or campaign. They then e-mail their network of contacts asking them for support, inspiring an endless stream of donor dollars. The underlying theory is based on the fact that even $20 can add up when compounded by a hundred. Or a thousand. Or more.

Alienated no more

Williams tapped into a significant reality when establishing GiveMeaning in 2004. He knew there were many people out there who didn’t identify themselves as donors, either because they didn’t feel their small donation made a difference, or because the traditional fundraising process had alienated them. But with GiveMeaning, says Williams, “we weren’t just carving up the existing pie, we were actually growing the pie exponentially.”

And boy did that pie grow. So far, GiveMeaning has provided free online fundraising pages to more than 1,200 different initiatives around the world. And while not surprised by the positive reaction of smaller donors to the microphilanthropy philosophy, Williams is finding fans throughout the sector. After all, the company’s focus on outcome and impact is powerful. “People can’t make a distinction between two organizations by looking at their websites, but they can absolutely tell you what they want to see done with their money.” Moreover, transparency, a return on generosity, and being able to measure the impact of a donation are popular criteria for everyone these days.

Making a difference

Beverley Pomeroy would agree. Having launched her own microphilanthropy site, PincGiving, this past September, she says charities enjoy the benefits of heightened transparency her company offers. “Money goes in and out of the merchant account and there are no problems accepting money online.” Requiring less resources than traditional campaigns, and providing even the most cash-strapped donor the satisfaction of contributing to a cause, are some other invaluable advantages of online fundraising. “You can’t attend every single event, but if you can give a $20 donation or even more, at least you’re getting a sense of accomplishment,” says Pomeroy.

This social entrepreneur saw a need for e-commerce fundraising while working as an event planner for charities. She witnessed organizations unable to put on successful brick and mortar events because of restricted resources. Plus, they continuously asked the same people for money and the same companies for sponsorship.

Pinc’s alternative fundraising model accommodates four types of clients: community campaigns, undervalued NGOs and charities, organizations or corporations implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR), and individuals. With a comprehensive list of charities from around the world – currently numbered at over 600,000 and expected to grow to 10 million – individuals pay a simple transactional fee, create a pledge page, add a link to their cause of choice and e-mail their contacts with donation requests. As an added bonus, PincGiving is the only multi-currency online donation portal around. “Charities nowadays have to be able to transcend borders,” she says.

From my peer to yours

According to Philip King, organizations also need to transcend their traditional ways of thinking about fundraising. President and CEO of Artez Interactive, a company that creates technology platforms for online fundraising, King focuses much of his efforts on peer to peer campaigns, with typical clients running events or campaigns and looking to diversify revenue channels. Premised on the idea that gifts are best facilitated by someone you know, successful peer campaigns involve a shift in perspective. As King explains, “Rather than wake up one morning as a fundraiser and say, ‘how can I find a bunch of donors’, we’re turning it slightly sideways, saying, ‘don’t look for donors, look for fundraisers.’”

King compares these fundraisers to “sneezers”, a term used during the SARS crisis to denote people who were better than others at spreading the disease. But regardless of nomenclature, so long as they’re found, your leverage will increase dramatically. “If we can give the tool to 100 people, there may only be five sneezers but they will find 50 more people. Those five will do incredible things.”

They shoot online, they score

It seems Toronto’s Baycrest Foundation has a few sneezers of its own. With a mission of enriching the quality of life of the elderly by supporting programs and services at its Baycrest Centre, the foundation engaged Artez for one simple goal. “We wanted to augment our current fundraising efforts and make it easy for people to give,” states foundation president Mark Gryfe. Take their annual Pro-Am Hockey Tournament, for example. With each participating team given the job of raising money, a peer to peer fundraising campaign was implemented.

The first year saw 24 teams raise $800,000. The second year had 40 teams raising $2 million and, so far this year, 60 teams are already on board, looking to raising more than $3 million. And with fundraisers working overtime, Baycrest received donations from almost every Canadian province, 29 American states, and seven countries outside North America. And, for an event that didn’t exist three years ago, an impressive $10,000 was received in online donations, the majority of which were from first-time donors.

Gryfe uses a well-known truth to explain the strength of these fundraising campaigns: “It’s not so much about people giving to organizations as it is people giving to people,” he says. The tools provide an opportunity for people to reach out to their networks who many not necessarily have an affinity to the organization. “Suddenly they have a reason to give, to support an individual who’s doing something for an organization,” he says.

Remember me?

This, of course, underlies a challenge of online fundraising programs: donor loyalty. People who donate to peer programs are effectively giving because of who is asking. But their actual contact with the organization they are supporting is quite limited. Even Williams says donors can’t necessarily distinguish between the variety of organizations whose events they support. Nevertheless, causes are getting funded, people are making a difference and microphilanthropy is catching on fast. But if an organization wants long-term loyalty, more effort is necessary.

“Unless an organization has a strategy in place to convert those people to supporters of the organization…you have to treat it like one-time money, as opposed to ongoing,” says Gryfe. It comes down to stewardship. Online campaigns are not silver bullets, agrees King. They may help you reach the champions of your cause, but you have to think about how to segment and steward on your own. Moreover, not all organizations are equally suited to peer campaigns. If an organization or campaign is too small, the cost to fundraise is too high and frustration is the inevitable result. “It comes down to your cost per dollar raised being appropriately sized,” says King.

That said, with the right fit and a plan of stewardship in place, an organization can reap immense rewards bringing their campaign online. “There are reduced costs, greater outreach, a greater source of funds and it gets you out to markets you would never otherwise get to,” concludes Gryfe. And that’s certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She can be reached at: esbirnbaum@gmail.com.

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