queer ideas

When to choose choice

Choice is becoming a buzzword in fundraising. But just how important is it?

Over the last few years, organisations like Kiva, DonorsChoose and CRUK (with MyProjects) have done rather well by offering people a chance to decide how their donations are used. Kiva, which launched in 2005, has generated over $200 million for people working their way out of poverty. DonorsChoose, which is only two years older, has generated over $77 million for schools in need of teaching materials. And CRUK has over 400 individual fund raising pages and 23 project pages which have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds.

But is choice the key factor that lies behind this level of fundraising success?

There are a number of charities that have built websites around the offer of choice who haven't been quite so successful.

Take FORGE for instance. I wrote a piece about this charity back in 2008 on how they came unstuck when they focused on offering online donor choice as a means to raise funds.

See The Difference, who do some great social networking activity to promote their site, also seem to be struggling (see this post for more thoughts on their approach to fundraising). If you look at their most funded projects on their website, few have generated more than a thousand pounds.

And My Action For Children which generated a massive amount of hits from press advertising and celebrity tweets seems to have converted just a tiny percentage to donors. Sign-ups just one month later have dwindled to a trickle.

I believe the different levels of success seen by the two sets of examples is down to something other than choice.

Kiva is fundamentally different. It asks people to lend - not give. And though a supporting donation is suggested (to fund the work of the KIva organisation) this is discretionary. In effect, you are not giving to charity as you can get your money back. As we've seen in the UK with Lend With Care, this is an offer that people find different and attractive. Add feedback on the impact of your loan and fantastic celebrity and corporate support (most notably that offered by YouTube) and you have a financial success on your hands.

DonorsChoose has also benefitted from celebrity support. But at its heart it offers something very special – great feedback. Though they will accept any size of gift, DonorsChoose prompts donors to give $100 by promising them a feedback pack from the school they help. This pack contains a letter from a teacher along with drawings, thank you notes and photographs from the children who've benefitted from the donor's gift. DonorsChoose encourage schools to get really creative with these packs and see them as so important that if a school fails to provide them to donors they can be excluded from the site. The other stroke of genius of the DonorsChoose model is that they also offer a thank you pack to everyone who gives a closing gift. So if a project has just a few dollars needed to hit target, the donor who makes up the shortfall - even if it really is just ten or twenty dollars – gets a thank you pack as well.

Take a look at CRUK's MyProjects and you see two main types of donation – gifts in memory and gifts in response to personal fundraising pages. In this respect it is not that dissimilar to JustGiving. The most successful of the projects on MyProjects is the Santander staff fundraiser for mobile cancer awareness units. Santander staff have been encouraged to raise money for CRUK with the promise that if they hit a certain target they will be eligible for a trip to Brazil to help renovate a school. MyProjects has simply functioned as an online means for them to run personal fundraising activities (see what I mean about it being just like JustGiving?).

If choice was that important to donors, thousands of tiny niche charities would be doing much better. If someone wanted to offer support for disabled children in London for instance, all they need to do is type those words into Google and they'd be presented with a long list of organisations that would love a donation. And more to the point, they would probably all offer a more rewarding and personal experience of giving than can be had when you donate to the national charities you'd find bidding on those search terms through AdWords.

And here's another example of why I think that choice is only a small part of the route to better fundraising.

I started out my fundraising career at ActionAid (about twenty years ago) where I worked on a product called ProjectAid.

ActionAid raised most of its income through child sponsorship. Supporter feedback and research told us that people loved knowing how their money changed a child's life. It also told us that some people found sponsorship expensive and others found it 'emotionally unattractive'.

We took a few logical steps and the end result was ProjectAid. We'd ask the donor to sign up to a regular gift and every four months we'd send them details of projects in need of funding. They could choose the one they wanted to support and we'd then report back on how work was progressing. I still have the first recruitment piece we ever produced and, as you can see, It's not that far from the 'game changing' ideas of crowd funding that we see today. Just on paper rather than on-line.

We tested it with a variety of media, but it didn't do that well.

But what was particularly interesting was how donors responded to the offer of choice. Most ended up ticking the 'where the need is greatest' box on the donation form. The product eventually was used as a 'drop ask' for people who were interested in child sponsorship but found the price too high. It was superseded by another product that concentrated on providing good feedback, which in the long run was more effective.

I've been involved in offering choice to donors in a number of different ways over the years and found similar results pretty much every time. Some people do value choice (particularly with causes such as cancer research and with high level gifts), but many others were more interested in hearing about need, impact and what they had done to make a difference. As one donor put it (and I paraphrase)...

"You're the experts on this. I just want to know that my money has helped".

In my experience, that's what charities should be focusing on. As I mentioned in a previous post, choice is only important if it is relevant. If it isn't, it can become a chore and actively turn donors off.

And if you are interested in finding out why, you should probably take a look at this study featured in Neuromarketing on choice fatigue.

If used appropriately, choice can probably enhance your offer, but, using the tried and tested (and tired) golfing analogy, it should be one of a number of clubs in your fundraising bag, rather than a single club that you rely on for the whole game.

Will you lend me £15 please?

Well to be honest, it's not for me.

It's for Ibu Nurhaeni, who runs a grocery business in Indonesia or Kodjo Agounde, an electrician in Togo.

Or it could be for any of the entrepreneurs that you'll find on Lendwithcare.org.

It's a site that Bluefrog has built for Care International and is in beta test before a launch next month.

It's like giving to charity. But it isn't. It's lending instead.

Rather than just sending a gift to a charity for their general work, Lendwithcare.org allows you to support an entrepreneur in a developing country who has a great idea for a business but needs a little help to get it off the ground or to it's next stage of development.

It's similar to Dragons Den, but you don't need to be a millionaire to get involved.

It works like this.

• You have a look through the entrepreneurs and find one with a business idea you like.
• You then choose how much you want to lend him or her.
• It doesn't matter if you can't lend the total amount they are asking for because other people just like you will make up the difference.
• The minimum amount you can lend is £15.
• Over the next few months you'll get feedback on how the business is progressing along with regular repayments on your original loan.
• When it's paid back you can simply return the money to your bank account or lend it to another entrepreneur. You'll find that your £15 can change someone life over and over again.

Now you might be thinking this sounds a little like Oikocredit, Grameen or Kiva. It is, in as far as it is built around the concept of micro-finance. But this product is built from a fundraising perspective and there are some interesting differences which you'll discover as time goes by.

But apart from helping Care International get Lendwithcare.org off the ground, the reason why I'd like you to lend £15 is so you can test the site out and let me know what you think. It's at beta stage and as someone experienced and interested in fundraising, I'd value your opinion on the site and it's usability.

And to show you how confident I am about the entrepreneurs, if anyone you lend to defaults on their loan, I'll personally guarantee to pay it back to you.

If you need any further information, this video explains all. Thanks for helping. I'll get back to the normal stuff tomorrow. Click here to get started.

Are your donors simply paying spectators?

There's a great video on Social Hallucinations produced by David Gauntlet from Making is Connecting.

David looks at everyday creativity and writes about seeing a cultural shift - from a sit back and be told one to a making and doing one.

So what's this got to do with fundraising?

Quite a lot.

Something that we repeatedly find people mention in our research at Bluefrog is a sense of disappointment with charities. They enter into a relationship with an organisation in the hope that they are going to be an active part of something good. What they receive is a stream of communications talking about what the charity is doing and requests for money.

Disillusioned and unengaged, they soon stop their support (This behaviour is often incorrectly described as lapsing).

But when people can actively do something more than sit back and give, they create cultural capital that benefits them as much as the charities they support.

An example of this is craftivism.

And an example of craftivism is Save the Children's Knit One, Save One campaign. This generated over half a million knitted hats for newborn babies in developing countries. It was also responsible for generating 50,000 messages that were delivered to Gordon Brown encouraging him to do more to help prevent deaths among children.

Save the Children isn't unique. When you think about it, there are a number of examples of this type of engagement already offered by charities.

Child sponsorship provides donors with an opportunity to write (and receive letters). Kiva enables people to help set-up new businesses (and see how they are performing). Care International offers supporters the chance to send advice and good wishes along with educational materials to school children in developing countries.

Organisations that fill the gap between giving cash and full-time volunteering are benefiting from the desire people have to create and connect. It doesn't matter if this is done on-line or off-line, but by giving people the chance to create change rather than simply be paying spectators, we offer them a welcome opportunity to add meaning to their world AND move it in the direction many of us would like.

That's the sort of approach that drives real engagement. It's an idea that I find really exciting. If you've got a few minutes to spare, you should really watch this video.

Do you suffer from fundraising myopia?

Kimberley of Kimberley's Comments put up a post last week that got me thinking. She recounts a story of traveling in India. Hot and thirsty, she stopped for a drink of pomegranate juice.

Fast forward to a freezing cold day in Canada and the thoughts of the sweltering August day come flooding back. Kimberley is soon to be found sitting at the kitchen table carefully extracting pomegranate seeds one by one. She carefully squeezes the seeds and re-creates the taste of last summer.

Her husband (who is a chef) thinks she's wasting her time and recommends she puts the fruit through a juicer. But the taste wasn't the same. The bitter skin made it undrinkable.

Patience, determination and detail beat speed and mechanisation to create a sweeter, more satisfying product.

Kimberley points out that applying the same values to our fundraising can make the experience of giving far more satisfying for our donors.

I have to agree with her. But there was something else I took from her story.

And it relates to one of the basics of successful marketing.

It comes from a paper called Marketing Myopia, published by Theodore Levitt back in the 1960s.

In it, he looks at industries that died because they failed to adapt in the face of new technology. The most famous example is the American railway system which declined, as Levitt argues, because they defined their business too narrowly – from the perspective of trains and not from their customer's perspective of efficient, fast and comfortable transport. Road and air vehicles ended up taking most of their business.

In Levitt's words, the rail bosses were product oriented instead of customer oriented.

The other analogy that explains this concept is related to drills. If a customer buys a 10mm drill bit, what he or she actually wants is a 10mm hole.

But that analysis isn't really deep enough. Most people want a hole so they can join wood or metal. So the drill bit manufacturer is actually in the business of sticking things together. Suddenly his competitors are no longer just drill bit manufacturers. They are also companies that make adhesives, welding equipment, staples, clamps and perhaps one day, laser guns.

When I read her blog, I saw that Kimberley's focus had been on getting the liquid into a glass. If she had looked at just drinking pomegranate juice, she might have tackled the problem of extracting it in a completely different way.

And it's the same when we look at fundraising. When someone gives to a charity, what are they actually doing? What are they 'buying'?

The web has spawned many new charities that are growing at a tremedous rate at a time when other established organisations are struggling. Non-profits like DonorsChoose, Kiva and Charity:Water are bringing donors much closer to the people they are helping. As a result, they are putting traditional charities to shame.

The people who set these charities up are not experienced fundraisers. But they seem to have an innate understanding of what donors want and have used the web to supply it. Their success has perhaps been down to the fact that they haven't looked at traditional charity models and copied them. They have looked at supplying what donors want – inspiration, self-affirming feedback and evidence of what has been achieved in a way that works.

The big traditional charities will have to increase their focus on donors needs if they are to continue to compete. But whilst they slowly move into a new way of working, the smaller charities like I CAN, Child's i and BullyingUK will lead the way and reap the rewards on engaging in work that really is donor oriented.

And if you are interested in the way I eat pomegranates, I've made a short video to show you how to do it. No juicers, knives or sophisticated fruit mashing equipment is required (thanks to Peter for the tip). 

Why does it always have to be un-earmarked?

Which of the following statements are true?

A. The earth is flat.
B. global warming isn't happening.
C. Lemmings commit mass suicide.
D. Wearing a warm coat will stop you catching flu.
E. Warts are caused by handling toads.
F. Appeals have to be for unrestricted funds.

Yep. You got it. It's a trick question. They are all wrong. 

But that doesn't mean there are some people and some organisations that accept them as unquestionable truths. You have The Flat Earth Society leading their own particular debate, Tim Ball on climate change, Walt Disney documentaries on suicidal lemmings and my grand-mother on the anti-viral properties of warm coats and the dermatological benefits of avoiding HPV laden toads.

And you have a large number of charities that will only do unrestricted appeals.

It's an attitude I've often questioned.

I appreciate that it's normally the statutory funders, trusts and high-value givers that get to dictate how their money is used. This leaves the normal donor as the primary source of much of the administrative and fundraising expenditure that underpins the juicy work that the "serious" funders get to make happen. This income is essential, as without it, much less money would be raised.

All charities need unrestricted funds and if this needs to come from the average donor, then our fundraising strategies must take this into account. But the fact is, not many people are keen on donating too much for covering administration and fundraising costs.

Doble (PDF) found back in 1990 that donors were happy if at least 75% of their gift was applied directly to the cause (though they thought the norm for most charities was as low as 50%) and Glaser (PDF) in 1994 discovered that an "adequate amount" spent on actual work was the second most important factor in influencing the decision whether to support a charity.

In recent (2009) experiments Fong and Oberholzer-Gee (PDF) found that a significant number of donors were willing to pay "extra" to ensure their money was used in the way they preferred.

That's why I ask whether every appeal has to be restricted.

Recruitment can be pretty tough at the best of times. Currently we are seeing some charities struggle to get new donors and there are an increasing number of direct debits being cancelled.

One option to improve this situation is to recruit and re-activate lapsed donors with the guarantee that 100% of the gift will go to core work.

To me, this seems like a simple solution to a big problem. Recruitment income is tiny compared to the overall amount generated by a charity and by taking this approach, an organisation would:

• Stand out from other organisations.
• Recruit more donors and generate more funds.
• Give new (or re-activated) donors an enhanced sense of achievement.
• Have a great opportunity for feeding back, placing the donor at the centre of their work.
• Create a connection on which to move the donor to committed and de-restricted forms of giving.
• Demonstrate efficiency, accountability and effectiveness which I think are rather attractive values for any charity brand.
• Generate more un-earmarked money long term by improving their recruitment and retention rates. 

The downside is that finance staff would have to change the way they work and some big funders might not get 100% of all the great projects.

To me, that isn't such a big price to pay.

But I can hear the arguments against already – we can raise that money elsewhere, the systems will have to be changed, we don't have the resources, what if we raise too much?

Yep - it's easy to come up with the reasons why not. And it is certainly not something I'd suggest raising in a quick conversation with an FD between meetings. 

But if we view the problem of recruitment and disengagement strategically, we might find the finance operation can offer part of the solution.

It will take some hard work. But with organisations like KIva growing at a fantastic rate by offering choice over how money is allocated and what percentage is added to cover administrative costs, it might not be too long before charities have to start changing the way they work for reasons other than improving recruitment and tackling disengagement. 

Donors are already getting increasing amounts of choice in how they give to the causes they care about. And it's those charities that respond most effectively to the changing environment that are going to succeed.

Which brings me back to those lemmings. Anyone need a life belt?

I think Kiva needs some fundraisers

If you support Kiva, you'll probably know that kivafriends.org is a great resource. 

(If for some reason you haven't yet heard of Kiva, can I recommend that you visit their site – hopefully lending a few quid whilst you're at it – or check out this brief explanation before reading any further).

It's packed full of great information and gives access to the Kiva community. They are a fantastic bunch, particularly those that spend their time analysing the massive amount of data that the site generates.

I've recently joined them and I've been spending a fair amount of my own time looking at some of the most important indicators of how the recession is impacting on the organisations growth. I've concentrated on the period from December the 1st, 2007 right through to the 31st of January, 2009.

The first chart compares the number of new lenders (green) against the growth of the total Kiva lending population (blue). As you'll see, the green line isn't that dissimilar from what we might find in the more conventional fundraising world, with massive spurts of growth at Christmas.

I've highlighted what appears to have caused the mini-spikes throughout the year. Apart from the normal media driven peaks (primarily driven by TV), it's interesting to note (what looks like) the positive impact of blog action day and the American Express Members Project.

But it's those massive Christmas spikes that are most interesting. Kiva, it seems, is as popular as a source of Christmas gifts as the virtual gifts that many UK charities promote (and if you didn't know, the daddy of all virtual giving is heifer.org who has been fundraising with livestock gifts for decades  – which begs the question, why did it take us so long to catch on to the idea here in the UK?)

In December 2007, Kiva sold $2.2m in gift certificates, with over $250,000 worth purchased on Christmas Eve alone. At $25 each, that would mean a massive 88,000 were bought throughout the month.

If we compare this against last Christmas, we see that December 2008 wasn't so great. The peak is both shorter and slimmer.

Which brings us to the second chart.

This shows the amount lent on a daily basis (green) against the overall total (blue). I've highlighted the massive spike in August which is down to a change in the way Kiva refunds loans which allows money to be re-lent at a faster rate). What's important is that loan value was up in December. In fact, Kiva had a record month. This is because most Kiva members never withdraw their money. Something that gives Kiva a great deal of economic resilience. 

But overall, As Kiva CEO, Matt Flannery states on Kiva Chronicles, new money was down 25% since October. Re-lending has taken over as the majority of lending, which this chart taken from the Kiva Chronicles blog demonstrates very well (blue represents new cash, whilst green is total lending).

What this is down to, I'm not sure. It could be the impact of the recession; it might just be that the PR machine that picked Kiva up has moved on to something else; it might be that Kiva has reached a plateau with their current recruitment model.

Whatever the reason, Kiva's growth since they set up has been fantastic. Their web based offering has attracted a number of the main Silicon Valley players who have helped Kiva recruit thousands of new members – Paypal, YouTube, Google, Yahoo, Intel, Facebook, Linkedin, Microsoft, Myspace, Videojug and others all appear as Kiva supporters. YouTube alone has donated 120 million free banner placements, and at one point was driving 15% of all traffic towards Kiva.

In any case, I don't think Kiva needs to be unduly worried. Their growth is still being high-pressure pumped by an incredible amount of free publicity and corporate support. As a result they have a fantastic base of members – almost 420,000 at the last count (with 5,735 new lenders in the last week alone).

But currently – and this is the crux of the issue – it seems that too few of these members give again. Matt Flannery reported in March of last year that 40% of all money repaid was sitting in the Kiva bank account as unused Kiva credit. Kiva's response has been to introduce an unused credit policy where long-term dormant money is treated as a donation to Kiva.

To my mind, this response might need a little extra something added to it. At Bluefrog, we have a simple formula:

lack of engagement = fragile relationship = lapsed donors

And it would appear that a large number of people have been excited by Kiva, lent some money and then simply got on with their lives. 

That's why I chose the title for this post. Fundraisers may not be web-entrepreneurs, but they know a thing or two about getting people to keep giving to great causes and it seems that a brilliant fundraiser may have some of the skills that Kiva needs in the next stage of its growth. 

But until the call comes, I've added a couple more entrepreneurs to my personal portfolio. If you are interested, you can check it out here and then maybe start lending yourself.

The lure of celebrity

After sharing a few thoughts on the impact celebrities can have on appeals on Conor's fundraising blog, I've spent some time thinking about the recently announced NCVO celebrity-laden campaign aimed at encouraging people to donate £2 a month (or possibly volunteer a few hours). You can see Adam Rothwell's (Intelligent Giving) views here and Tania Mason's (Professional Fundraising) views here.

The campaign is likely to revolve around the question, "What do you believe in?" and aims to promote giving via a focus on generic causes.

Louis High, the NCVO's head of communications and campaigns, said it would feature celebrities making statements such as "I believe that all children should grow up free of fear. What do you believe in?" or "I believe in equality for disabled people. What do you believe in?"

Anything that is going to encourage people to give money to charities gets my support, so good luck Louis, more power to you. It seems the Giving Scotland campaign was pretty effective – albeit under very different circumstances –  so this is worth a go.

However, I do have a few concerns...

The £2 (or £3) a month message has been used very heavily on TV, on packs and in inserts for years. 

The thinking behind the approach is that it reduces one of the main barriers to giving – the I can't afford it reflex. As a result, it generates a fairly good response. With careful handling, it's not too difficult to encourage donors to upgrade and give a little more each month.

But, as fundraisers, we know that the good intention that our appeals create, lasts for a flash before being lost in the general hurly burley of people's daily lives. The faster and easier we make it for someone to respond, the better our response rate will be. From pre-paid envelopes in packs, to telephone numbers and text response on TV ads, easy is essential.

Because the fact is, people get distracted very quickly, and though they often mean to give, we need to make it simple for them to do so. It's pretty much the main reason we run reminder appeals – it's sad but people tend to forget about us.

It's likely that a generic £2 a month campaign will act as a prompt to remind people about their good intentions and uplift response rates for charities that already use the £2 a month method – which will bias the effect of the campaign towards the bigger fundraising operations – smaller charities should get ready for this campaign by preparing some work with a £2 a month prompt – but what success we'll see really depends on which celebrities get involved.

Most of my experience in using celebrity endorsement in appeals has been in standard DM, where it can have a profound effect. I was involved in developing a pack for one charity that featured an endorsement from a celebrity that had first hand experience of the organisation's work. This person was a national treasure; trusted and loved by millions. The appeal was a fantastic success which I put down to our brilliant creative work. But a few years later the celebrity decided to concentrate their support on another organisation and was to have their endorsement removed from the pack. Luckily we tested their absence and the results showed that this celebrity was responsible for over half the responses to the appeal (which helped the charity persuade the celeb not to withdraw completely).

I've also been involved in testing endorsements from celebrities against those of donors able to talk with authority about the work of the charity. And in these cases, the donors always won. If I remember correctly the best endorsement was from a rural doctor (from Devon, if you're interested). 

I should also point out that I've seen some appeals dependent on celebrity endorsement absolutely bomb. Just because someone is famous doesn't mean we'll listen or be influenced by them. But how do we know who might be best to include in this campaign?

The NCVO could use the Davie-Brown Index, which offers marketers a systematic approach to quantifying the effect a celebrity might have on an advertising campaign. The index consists of a 1.5 million member consumer research panel that scores celebrities on eight criteria: appeal, notice, trendsetting, influence, trust, endorsement, aspiration and awareness. Getting access to the index isn't cheap, but New York Magazine had a chance to assess a group of New York based celebrities back in 2006. They found Michael J. Fox had the highest overall appeal with a trust rating of 75.9, which compared to Paris Hilton's 36.7. 

And if they wanted to find out what causes Michael (or Paris) is interested in, they could check out www.looktothestars.org which details the charity work of 1,642 celebrities (and counting). They would find that apart from his own foundation that is looking to develop a cure for Parkinson's, he is also supporting causes involved with HIV/AIDS. youth, children, disaster relief, health, homelessness and women.

And then we come to the message. The small amount of information currently available on the NCVO campaign doesn't really excite me. How many of us really want children to grow up in a world of fear or discrimination?  It's a bit of a no brainer and we know that's not always the best way to motivate donors. But Professional Fundraising reports that this was tested regionally over Christmas, so the rollout campaign should be based on a solid foundation. I'll look forward to seeing the final execution.

There's a similar-ish campaign backed by Intel that has recently been launched in the US – The Small Things Challenge  (Similar because it's taking a celebrity based approach and placing emphasis on small gifts. Not similar because income raised is being distributed to just two charities – Kiva and Save the Children).  Intel is pledging to give 5 cents for everyone who visits www.smallthingschallenge.com and clicks a magic button. It's not a new idea, but it's driving people to a place where they can be signed up by the participating charities or get involved in the auction where they can bid for things like laptops and guitars signed by various celebs. This is half the battle. Maybe the NCVO might be considering some similar means to drive traffic to a central site where people can flag up interest so charities  can contact them.

I'll look forward to finding out what exactly the NCVO have in store for us. We are sailing in uncharted waters and though all the evidence is pointing to individual giving staying strong, a little nudge in the right direction shouldn't do us any harm and will hopefully do us some good. I'm sure all charities will be given a heads up on the final theme and dates so they can factor this into their own fundraising campaigns. But won't that mean everyone is out there asking at the same time? Cripes, that'll be overkill. Think of the giving fatigue!

You just can't win can you?

Good luck mates.

Build it where they already are

There are some interesting statistics available from Robin Goad on Hitwise regarding a recent RSPCA viral campaign.

Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield, released a new episode of his cartoon series on YouTube on December the 8th. But rather than being about Simon's cat, it was about his sister's dog and created for the RSPCA to highlight the problems of pet obesity.  

As you might imagine, there was a direct link to the charity's Give Animals a Voice website that helped generate a massive peak in visits over the next few days with up to 16.5% of traffic being generated by YouTube.

There's an interesting aspect worth pointing out in the importance of traffic generated from Hotmail (Microsoft Live Mail), which accounted for approximately 25% of traffic on two days. It's also fascinating to see, as Robin points out, that traffic went back the other way - for the week ending the 13th of December the top rated site after Give Animals a Voice was YouTube.

I've already Blogged about FORGE's "buld it and hope they'll come" website strategy (which didn't work). The RSPCA have taken a different approach. They are being successful because they are tapping into a community that already exists. Simon's Cat's YouTube channel has over 60,000 subscribers  and some of the cartoons have had over 7.8 million views. This audience is going to contain a fair number of cat (and dog) lovers who could benefit from a reminder about pet health, but will probably also be good prospects for a gift too. 

This approach of "build it where they already are" seems blindingly obvious. The days of put up a banner and hope they'll click are over. You might get picked up by the YouTube massive if, like Kiva, you get a great partnership deal, but now our goal must be to focus on going to our audience where they are in a way that works for them and adds real value to our brand.

MarketingSherpa has found that a large number of marketeers are already planning on taking this route. Their September 2008 survey of 382 marketing professionals found that 48% were planning on increasing their marketing budget for social networking sites compared to 43% who were planning on reducing their spend on online display advertising.

It's also interesting to note that a third of those surveyed were planning to reduce their spend on products like Google's Adwords and Yahoo's Search Marketing.

When it comes down to it, people are more likely to engage with us when they feel comfortable. If that means we need to go to their homes on the web, then that's where we should be. Just like we used to go to their real homes (and as we still do, for that matter) with the always reliable direct mail pack.

Even if you build it, they might not come

If your head has been turned by the success of Kiva and you are thinking about how your charity might set up a similar direct giving product you need to know about FORGE.

FORGE was set up by Kjerstin Erickson, a Stanford University student, who spent a summer working at a refugee camp in Botswana. At the age of just 20, she decided to do something about the problems she had seen first hand and set up her own charity – FORGE.

The idea behind FORGE was simple – recruit and train US college based volunteers to work in partnership with refugees living in camps in Zambia and Botswana.

Over the last 5 years, FORGE has implemented more than 60 community development projects, it has a full-time staff of over 150 and has worked with communities of over 70,000 refugees.

Their fundraising model was simple. Each US student that wished to participate had to raise a minimum of $5,000 for the project. Over 50% of FORGE’s running costs were covered in this simple way.

However, FORGE changed the way it worked. Rather than use students, the charity placed the control of designing and implementing the projects directly in the hands of the refugees.

FORGE had great results on the ground and it was predicted that the funding gap could be filled through grants from trusts and other institutions. This, for various reasons, didn’t happen and FORGE was left with a big financial hole to fill.

Kjerstin’s response was to adopt the social networking fundraising model of organisations like Kiva and donorschoose. Their models were carefully studied and forgenow.org was created. It offered the opportunity to give a small gift – that would be added to donations from other individuals – to fund whole projects. Each of which was illustrated with great stories on the forgenow site

Just check the similarities out between Kiva and FORGE’s online mission graphics, to see just how closely FORGE had been looking at the KIVA model (note: FORGE will be changing their graphic so it may soon be disappearing from their site).

It didn’t work. They had a couple of mentions on CNN (Thanks Sundeep) but didn't get the same media coverage as the organisations they based their strategy on. 

As of November the 8^th (which was nearly six months after launch date) there were 25 projects available for funding. Sara Hall from New Philanthropy Advisors undertook a review and found that:

• 8 projects hadn’t received a penny
• 17 projects were funded or partially funded through gifts that were predominantly from FORGE staff
• 23 of the total 34 contributions listed were from FORGE or its three current paid staff members.
• 11 were from outside contributors.

With a $100,000 shortfall, Kjerstin decided to blog about the problem she faced. She was totally honest and open about her situation and it was picked up by Tactical Philanthropy blogger, Sean Stannard-Stockton.

Sean put her in touch with Curtis Chang, CEO of Consulting Within Reach who has been blogging on his thoughts and findings as he tries to get FORGE back onto an even keel with some very interesting references to Star Wars and Flash Gordon.

It’s not often that you can get so much free advice on implementing a brand new funding model. And if you want to find out exactly what has happened, I’d suggest a visit to Tactical Philanthropy and Social edge. Watching the drama unfold is not unlike watching an online soap opera. 

I don't think I'll be spoiling anything by saying that by the 12th of December, FORGE had already covered 55% of its shortfall and, as of today, got at least one new funder onboard.