Does asking all your social media contacts for donations actually work?
Howard Lake | 10 February 2011 | Blogs
Just a quick thought for now in-between reserach for other articles… 
Since the start of this week, I’ve received nine separate asks for donations or sponsorship from different people doing all sorts of cool things for the causes they support. All of the asks have been via social media and all but one are from connections I have, but that Iwouldn’t call close. I checked a few individual’s tweetstreams and it appears that they sent quite a number of (the same) asks to their contact lists.
I have no problem with people asking for support, I just wonder how effective it is when we try to scale-up our social media contacts like this?
Advertisement
Sure, it’s cheaper than direct mail, administering sponsor forms or indeed blasting email campaigns but I think it misses one key asset that these other media all have; no opportuntiy to engage me with what the cause is all about. I can’t easily see (or hear) the stories of how these charities are making a difference to people.
So it’s tough for me to be compelled to give.
As it turned out, I’ve sponsored the one person I know and made a donation to one other charity whose work I know. But that’s because of prior knowledge, not the asks themselves.
All opporunties to ask are precious and perhaps someone can prove me wrong but I’m just not sure that this approach is going to pay dividends in the long run. Do you have any experience of this kind of fundraising? Did it / does it work for you? Pleae feel free to share.
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.