Twestival ends after five years
Howard Lake | 31 January 2014 | News
The organisers of Twestival, the series of fundraising events in cities around the world organised primarily via Twitter, have decided to call time to the initiative.
Founder Amanda Rose blogged that 2013 was the final year of Twestival. She said:
“Every good party has to eventually wind down. After much contemplation, it finally feels like the right time to give the Twestival brand a rest.”
Since 2009 Twestival, a volunteer effort, has raised $1.84 million for 312 nonprofits with events in over 250 cities.
From an original London event, the organisers adopted a number of different approaches, focusing on global and local campaigns. In 2013 they adopted another different model. Instead of a single day of action around the world, local Twestival organisers could select their own date. Some cities held their fifth successive Twestival last year, including including Kuala Lumpur; Barcelona; Phoenix, Arizona; and Victoria, British Columbia. Others, like Nairobi and Dakar, hosted their first Twestivals.
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Twestival’s beginning
Twestival began with an idea in September 2008 to develop an event in London for local Twitter users and expand it worldwide. Significantly, the founders were not charity staff. They spotted the community value of Twitter and realised that it could be applied for social good.
Indeed, Twitter is now so widely used by charities and good causes, and by the people that support them, to raise funds and awareness, that it is worth remembering that Twestival was such a novel idea just five years ago.
Of course, the technology was just part of it. Twestival only succeeded because of the hard work of thousands of volunteers. Rose thanked them in her blog post, saying:
“I am immensely proud of the passion that everyone has poured into Twestival and grateful for their eagerness to share this fun and rewarding dream… As much as Twestival made the most of a new tool called Twitter, it was the passionate volunteers who created the events where those 140-character messages actually transformed into real-world connections that made lasting impacts in cities all around the world.”
After Twestival
Rose realises that plenty of people will want to continue running Twestival-like events. She advised:
“we are happy to give you encouragement and some resources to make it happen — all we ask is that you find a different name for your event to avoid confusion.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.