October 1, 2009

Caffeine Boosts Charity’s Social Network

Social networking, in part, helped Catholic Relief Services (CRS), in Baltimore, Md., gain $200,000 from a contest sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee.

The company sponsored a contest to view proposals on climate change. CRS staff put the word out on CRS’ Facebook Fan page where people who responded could examine the proposal and respond to Green Mountain.

“The day we contacted our social network, we shot to the top with a public response, which was what the company wanted,” said Laura Durington, online community manager for the CRS. “This was complicated because people had to register, create a user name, and read the proposals.”

CRS maintains a Facebook Fan page where posts appear about content from five regional informational offices about success stories, or from the CRS’ blog along with reposts.

After around a year and half, CRS’ followers have grown to 5,000. “We’ve seen a steady growth,” she said. “And every responder who joins the fan page probably sends it to others they are active with in their parish.”

Durington hasn’t formalized a way of merging those people with the donor database, although she sees a “smaller incremental growth of awareness building.”

CRS conducts a study each year checking the awareness level. The last reading jumped from 11 to 22 percent in one year. “While we don’t know how much can be attributed to the social networking, analytically, we know that we’ll get a response from the Facebook Fan page,” she said.

Social networking attracts people. CRS posts a Five by Friday note on Mondays that asks friends to put a note on the page by contacting other friends. “Our numbers once shot up with 224 new people by the end of the week,” she said.

They might not be the most engaged population right now, according to Durington. “They may be donors of smaller gifts of $25 and $10, and it’s still a small number of the total donors,” she said.

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This article is from NPT Instant Fundraising, a publication of The NonProfit Times.

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