Hi everyone,
After reading about charity:water in The Networked Nonprofit (pp. 135-137), and looking at the organization's website (http://www.charitywater.org/), I thought maybe we could start a fundraising campaign as a class. If we raise $5,000, a well that supplies clean drinking water to 250+ people can be built in a community in a developing country. Within 12-18 months of raising the money for a well, charity:water would supply photos of and the GPS coordinates for the well. While raising $5,000 might seem difficult, I think it is doable. If we each reach out to people we know with the use of social media, I'm confident that together we would be successful by the time the semester is over. Of course, starting a fundraising campaign for the class is not something that I alone can do. I would like to know your thoughts about whether or not you would like to participate. If there are enough of us who would like to start a campaign, I would be happy to create an account for us on the website so that we can start fundraising. Please either send me an e-mail (at kbronk1@binghamton.edu) or respond to this blog post to let me know if you are interested in participating. I will then keep in touch with you about the campaign.
Best,
Kate
I think that starting a class campaign is a terrific idea... why not test out what we are learning. I am not quite sure of the exact number of students we have in class, but even with just 15 students, if each raised about $334, we could build a well. Just on my facebook page alone I have over 400 friends. If each one of my friends donated $10 I would go above this goal. What do we have to lose and how many of us will fall under the category of "slactivism"?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that you are intereseted in starting a campaign, Rebecca. A few other students have told me that they are interested in helping out with a campaign, as well. Perhaps in class we can find out if anyone else is interested. After finishing The Networked Nonprofit, I think it will be harder than I had originally anticipated to turn "friends" (on social networking sites like Facebook) into funders. We will have to discuss the most personal way to reach out to people on social networking sites. If we can personalize our message somehow, people will probably be less likely to be annoyed with us for asking for donations on social networking sites like Facebook and more likely to donate. I also think that we will need to use a "multichannel strategy" (Kanter & Fine, 2010, p. 140) to meet our fundraising goal. If we were to only use social networking sites to raise money, I don't think that we would be successful in raising $5,000. I think we would need to fundraise in other ways, as well (possibly with bake sales, pasta dinners, etc.). We will need to discuss whether or not we think this will be feasible, based on the number of people who are interested in helping us to fundraise.
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