Twitter User @jonti brings the Sharing Foundation America's Giving Challenge to $15K with the help of @nancywhite!

Thank you Jonti and Nancy White!

At the end of the day, while taking a little Twitter break and checking on the progress of the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge, I noticed that we were 3 $10 donations shy of $15,000 total raised.  So, I twetted it.  Amy Ward (her blog), Constantin Basturea (his blog) and Alex de Carvelho, (his blog) all retwittered.   [Retwitter means copying over someone's tweet message to your network. It is a form of unleashing the networked effect.)

Next, the Queen of Spain does a retwitter.  This next thing I see is that  Nancy White moves us up another $10. And then .. Jonti brings the total to $15,000!

Thank you!

This is a small example of the networked effect.  What's strange is that I just got connected with Jonti on Facebook today, so I had a chance to get to know who she was.  And, I have no idea if she donated because she was following the tweets or not.  Maybe she will leave a comment.

In between refreshing the page that shows the totals (It is very addicting), I scanned my twitter network and found this tweet from Laughing Squid about a blog post.   Laughing Squid was a donor to the Cambodian Bloggers campaign I ran over the summer, although indirectly via Citizen Agency.  A Laughing Squid T-Shirt is now being worn by a proud Cambodian Blogger!

Laughing Squid pointed to an article by ProBlogger called the 9 Benefits of Using Twitter for Bloggers.  I need to write a post about the benefits of using Twitter for fundraising.

Some musings that might lead to some clarity in 9 days:

• The Global Giving back end makes it impossible to access information about who has donated, so it is hard to report back out and to thank everyone.   That's a problem, both in the short-term and long-term. It makes it hard to get the information I need to map out the flow of donations and connections.  (Nancy White also shared this awesome link of social network analysis tools and this would be an excellent little project to learn how these work)

• There is a cross-network thing happening -- I have connections to people through twitter, I participate in the twitter community and try to be a good community member.  But I also connect with some of the same people through other online communities (and offline).  It isn't the same people on every network, but there is crossover.

• I've had "influential" twitter community members help (I'm grateful) and I am curious to map out the impact of "influence of the asker" versus the connection to the cause.  I'm not clear on my thinking about this at all .. still muddled.   We say that social fundraising is really person to person fundraising and what matters is the person who asks, not so much the cause.   So, if someone is very influential how to play into ability to fundraise through a network.  How universal does a cause have to be to unleash a networked effect?  Do you measure influential by the capacity to pass along to people who pass it along?

• Another factor too is the whole social capital and reciprocity.

And with 9 more days left to this challenge, Global Giving is offering additional incentives to heat up the competition - over the next five days, the organizations that get the most donations in a single 24 hour period will receive an additional $250, plus the largest donation will be matched.   So, if you haven't contributed yet, this would be an excellent time to donate $10!

• Donate $10 or more to the Sharing Foundation through Global Giving Fundraiser set up by Blogger Michele Martin of the Bamboo project!
• If we are four of the top causes to get the most unique donors, we'll win $50,000 for the Sharing Foundation as part of America's Giving Challenge. With $10  you can help improve the lives of over 1,500 children in one of the world's poorest countries.

Comments

[Jonti]

Awesome! Tweets have made a difference. I knew of the fundraising campaign and intended to contribute. But seeing the goal so close (only 3 more donations for a milestone) motivated me toward action at that moment. I am continually amazed at the power of social media to make small incremental changes felt on sometimes unexpected scales. Beth, thank you for all you do! Anonymous would have been fine for me, but I do believe your circle of influence had as much to do with the donation as the cause. There are SO many good causes, finding something that matters to me (Breast Cancer for pea's sake) or a cause important to someone I trust through a social network is nearly as powerful.

[Reza]

Dear Friend,
A group of researchers at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, are investigating effects of Weblogs on “Social Capital”. Therefore, they have designed an online survey. By participating in this survey you will help researches in “Management Information Systems” and “Sociology”. You must be at least 18 years old to participate in this survey. It will take 5 to 12 minutes of your time.
Your participation is greatly appreciated. You will find the survey at the following link. http://faculty.unlv.edu/rtorkzadeh/survey >http://faculty.unlv.edu/rtorkzadeh/survey
This group has already done another study on Weblogs effects on “Social Interactions” and “Trust”. To obtain a copy of the previous study brief report of findings you can email Reza Vaezi at [email protected].

[ShapingYouth]

Awesome Beth, congrats! You truly DO need to start capturing some of this incredible social media data for researchers...it's sorely needed out there. Been in conferences all week (SexTech/digital S.F. and kids/wellness/health state summit at Champions of Change) and the difference is night and day in the digital technology sphere vs. mainstream institutional best practices. When things calm down, I definitely would love to interview you about this...ttys, Amy