In just 24 hours, an online fundraising campaign created by Community Foundation of the Ozarks demonstrated the power of Internet buzz.
The inaugural Give Ozarks campaign raised $1.02 million for around 150 of CFO’s nonprofit partner agencies, an impressive feat given the time span and experimental nature of the event. By the end, there were over 7,600 total donations.
CFO used its already established crowdfunding portal Cause Momentum to power a new website,
GiveOzarks.org, which combined myriad crowdfunding campaigns into one large event, where users could give to multiple causes. Throughout the May 5 fundraiser, the hyper-focused site kept users informed through real-time updates of donations. Louise Knauer, CFO’s senior vice president for communications and marketing, says the organization borrowed best practices from other community foundations in framing up the idea, which was five years in the making. The wait paid off.
When reporting on the day of the event, it was difficult to nail down a definitive dollar figure in an article I wrote for our Daily Update, given the total was rising by thousands a minute. By 11:50 a.m. that day, the fundraiser already had crossed the $560,000 mark, the figure we reported in our lunchtime e-newsletter.
While shadowing Mike Stevens, executive director of Moxie Cinema, for our upcoming Day in the Life coverage, he spoke about the campaign, which raised $21,466 for the art-house theater via 440 donations. The outpouring of support came as a surprise to Stevens, who was unsure if the fundraiser would work out. “I wouldn’t be surprised to raise that much money over a longer period of time, but I was intimidated by the 24-hour period,” Stevens said. “I was very heartened. Throughout the community, the giving that happened was pretty astonishing. Community Foundation of the Ozarks just did a bang-up job of getting the word out.”
Knauer tells me the organization’s board voted May 20 to renew the Give Ozarks campaign in 2016, on a date to be determined.
That’s extremely welcome news for nonprofits.
Reviewing the success of this year’s campaign, nonprofits that may have been intimidated by the 24-hour fundraising period likely will be more confident. And they can learn from others who took advantage of the unique opportunity.
The community foundation reported 675,000 unique hits and 32,000 unique visitors to the campaign’s website during the day of the event. Additionally, around 30 percent of donors indicated they were first timers, which speaks to some organizations’ concerns they would only receive funding from established givers. Grabbing new donors also was a goal of the event, Knauer says, and is telling of the changing nature of Springfield’s philanthropic community.
“The field of philanthropy, in general, is making a transition from our traditional donors, who we call the checkbook generation … to younger donors who may not even have checkbooks anymore,” she says.
Indeed, any industry can learn from the example set by CFO. A changing demographic and new generation of customers mean you have to meet them where they live.
The younger generation, as Knauer points out, already are comfortable using the Internet for shopping and paying bills. Why not charitable contributions?
On Facebook, users challenged friends to match their donations, which likely contributed to the number of first timers, and Twitter lit up with the #GiveOzarks hashtag.
Buzz was the name of the game that day. Many strive to tap into the viral nature of the Web, and CFO certainly accomplished it with Give Ozarks.
There’s something about watching a dollar figure tick up quickly that spurs the imagination. I’m not a stock investor, but I imagine it’s similar to the “high” you’d get from watching your investment gains on exchanges.
Questions flooded my mind. Where are all these dollars coming from? Who is pledging? Why am I not giving? Why am I not part of this?
Being part of something like this on a mass scale is arguably more satisfying than cutting a check, as you feel the immediate effects. Your own dollars go into the overall ticking total, and you become part of the sensation that very moment.
CFO was counting on the power of the Internet, and the experiment proved quite fruitful.
Springfield Business Journal Web Editor Geoff Pickle can be reached at gpickle@sbj.net.
