Good Karma Calculator: How Much Has Been Raised for Charities on Facebook?

How much has been raised on Facebook? asked Connor of Connor's Fundraising Blog.  Great question, great blog too.  That's where I found the link to the Karma Calculator which asks you to fill out a set of questions and lets you know the real charitable you.   I'm Richard Branson.

Oh, an now to answer the question.  Connor, I don't know.  Maybe some of my readers do.  Here's what I do know. 

• There isn't a comprehensive study that looks at total dollar amounts raised from all fundraising apps on Facebook.  I've seen lots of posts about apps, but few on results.
• Allan Benamer had a bet with Causes founders last September but it required disclosure of total amounts raised on Causes.   Allan thought it might be something like .25 cents per user (over 3 million users), but Causes never disclosed their numbers.
• Wired Fundraiser report from Network for Good reports on the Long Tail of Facebook Causes from FrogLoop from July 2007 which shows less than impressive dollar amounts
• The recent America's Giving Challenge from the Case Foundation reported on the Causes numbers - there were a total of 32,885 donors giving a total of $571,686 with an average of $17.48 per donor.
• The winner of the FB Causes challenge raised $93,000 on causes with an extraordinary effort and investment of time.

Did I miss something?

Comments

[Jayne Cravens]

It takes "an extraordinary effort and investment of time" to be successful at raising "big" funds with FaceBook, and, according to the article, "it's as much the offline as the online work that gets the job done." I wonder why so few people who are promoting FaceBook, MySpace and other online social networking tools for "easy" fundraising are owning up to these two realities? (present company not included, ofcourse)

[Beth Kanter]

Jayne: I was surprised at how much time the FB America'sChallenge winner invested. I spent about 1-2 hours per weekday - I do have a day job, I just couldn't do this full-time. I did this at night in the evening after hours - and getting tired would prevent from spending all my free on the project. I did spent more time the last three days,but I also was delivering workshops - so I couldn't devote total full time to it. However, my last campaign was my 5th - and as you invest heavily in the beginning to build the community.

Thanks for your thoughts here.

[Michelle Murrain]

I was struck, in reading Frogloop's coverage of the winner, that they won not by finding and connecting, and working with folks already on Facebook, but rallying people who were already supporters to join Facebook, and give via Facebook Causes. Wow.

This is not harnessing the power of social networking. I think this should give us pause.

[Beth Kanter]

Michelle: I see your point totally. That's why I didn't pursue the FB Cause I had set up for the Sharing Foundation because it started to take a lot of time and I knew that many of existing donors were not on Facebook (older folks). I futzed around on Causes in the beginning of the challenge, but ditched it as the main entry point for the contest after a week. I choose, instead, to use the Global Giving Widget because a) less competition than Network for Good b) it gave me flexibility run an integrated campaign - so I could do the social media strategy -- and our key donors/volunteers who are not into social media at all - could do the offline, email fundraising, in-person, and phone asking.

I found that the Facebook still could be used effectively for spreading and energizing - although I did mainly from my individual profile, not via Causes. I tried to use Causes as a net - to get connected to new people, etc. But found it really time consuming.

I ran this campaign in my so called free time as a volunteer and I do have a day job - so I couldn't afford to be spending 8 hours a day on this. I disciplined myself to do this 1-2 hours per day - mostly on the couch at night while watching TV. The last few days I did have to spend more time - but again I was teaching a workshop at Legal Services that week - so couldn't be on non-stop.