Non-Profits on Facebook and MySpace
Amid all the hoopla over social networks Facebook and MySpace, both major social networks have prominant sections for non-profit activity. Facebook's is called Causes and MySpace's is Impact. In this post we'll take a closer look at how Facebook and MySpace cater to non-profits. Incidentally, lest you think we're only focused on the big networks, in a follow-up post we'll look at the smaller non-profit enterprises on the Web. We got some great suggestions along those lines in the comments of our opening post in Non-Profits Week.
Facebook Causes lets users create online communities to advocate for various issues, charities and political candidates. A recent WSJ article noted that Causes was begun in May 2007, launched by a social-action start-up called Project Agape. WSJ also wrote that MySpace launched its Impact awards late last year, "honoring individuals and nonprofit groups that have successfully used the site to make a difference." MySpace members vote on the winners, who get $10,000. Also of course both Facebook and MySpace already host thousands of nonprofits' profiles.
Facebook Causes
Looking at Facebook's Causes first. Currently is has 4,000,000 users and counting, according to Allan Benamer of the excellent Non-Profit Tech Blog. As noted by several blogs when it launched in May, Facebook Causes has deep integration within Facebook's platform. Users can create a cause, recruit their friends, keep everybody updated on news and media related to the cause, and of course raise money. Project Agape processes the donations automatically via credit card, tallies the results, and reports the donation activity via a public "scorecard" in the cause.
Currently, the 5 most popular causes in Facebook (in terms of users) are:
1. Support Breast Cancer Research (1,444,427 members - $31,277 donated)
2. Stop Global Warming (627,293 members - $9,416 donated)
3. Save Darfur (473,996 members - $35,803 donated)
4. Animal Rights (546,781 members - $9,208 donated)
5. Stop Dog Fighting Now (281,291 members - $10,761 donated)
The Support Breast Cancer Research has gotten well over a million members, however its donations are relatively low - averaging just 2c per member. The group itself acknowledged this in a post at the end of August. For September, the group has set a goal to raise $10,000 - hopefully bringing them near $40,000. It really is a great cause, with all donations going towards scientific research into causes, preventions, and treatments for breast cancer (with 0% overhead according to the group).
The struggle to raise money by SBCR brings us to this week's Read/WriteWeb poll, which indicates that people usually don't donate online. We asked: How often do you donate to charities or non-profits online? So far 24% voted "rarely" and 45% "never". So nearly 70% of respondants rarely or never donate online. That perhaps explains why the Support Breast Cancer Research group has struggled so far - people just aren't inclined to donate online yet.
MySpace Impact
MySpace's Impact service is more like a portal for non-profits group activity, as it features news, videos and events.
Interestingly the Impact homepage appears to have been overtaken by Australian politicians, with the current campaign focus and accompanying facewall all about Australia politics (are US readers seeing this? I'm unsure if this is geo-targeted). There's also an advert for voter registration to the side, plus politicians seem to dominate the news in Impact too - Al Gore is the lead story.
Overall there's a bit too much focus on politics in MySpace Impact. Also it is unclear how ordinary users can contribute - as usual with MySpace, the design and navigation leaves much to be desired.
Conclusion
Facebook Causes seems to be doing more for charities at this point, although raising money via Facebook doesn't appear to be easy - with none of the top 5 Causes having raised more than $40k. Still early days though, because it only launched in May 2007. Currently MySpace Impact seems dominated by political causes - which are non-profit, but not likely to inspire those with a charitable bent to use MySpace.
In our next post, we'll look more closely at some of the smaller non-profits using the Web. Please keep the suggestions coming in the comments, because that's the best way for us to learn about the smaller activities.
Share2 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1603
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
so, it's definitely great that people show they care by joining Causes in facebook, but it really highlights:
1. that people tend to support charities to feel good about themselves, so if they get a chance to feel good without giving, they needn't give.
2. young people generally dont have much money to give - but love to volunteer their time - maybe it would be better for a facebook app to focus on surfacing volunteer opportunities and filling those slots.
3. back to conversion rate - non-profits could use a dose of lowermybills type laser focus on conversion science - with annoying ads - the whole deal - then they could raise big money on the web.
Right now the discussion about social networks for scouts (www.scout.org) rised up again. One of the possible solutions would be to use the facebook-plattform. There are other project aiming to build a social network by its own.
In each case for global organisations like scouts social networking is just great and has to be there some time soon...
But unfortunatelly the broad scouting-public doesnt seem to see this point yet. For example there is still no Baden Powell-MySpace-Page (http://www.pfadiblog.de/2006/11/09/baden-powell-auf-myspace/) ...
I am really looking forwart to reading more about NGOs :)
I think it's great that huge moguls such as these are trying to give back in some way. They're filthy rich, they might as well give some pocket change to those in need.
I wrote a quirky opinion piece on Facebook for nonprofits on NTEN's blog, which elaborates on some of the issues that nonprofits confront using FB for organizing and fundraising (IMHO the big issue is data siloing). http://nten.org/blog/2007/08/20/dear-facebook
Beth Kanter also has some great reporting on nonprofits struggling with FB: http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/facebook/index.html
There's a useful list of the most used facebook applications for nonprofits here :
http://theblong.com/wordpress/archives/418
Have you seen the new way Facebook is indicating the applications usefulness ? With a percentage of active users for each application (Causes has 5% for exemple), it becomes easier to see which app leverages at best the "social" component in the network...
Here are a few more nonprofit Facebook apps to add to the list - together with some thoughts on how the new Facebook 'user engagement' approach to measurement gives more insight into their relative effectiveness: http://www.fundraising.co.uk/blogs/bryanmiller/2007/09/11/changes-to-facebook-measurement-cast-new-light-on-fundraising-apps/
If you already made your annual contribution to a cause, you will join the cause to promote it to your friends.
I prefer to give to my local / national chapter which is not an available option on Facebook. That is why I will never make my donations through Facebook or another aggregate system. For me, Facebook Causes application is more a viral marketing tool than a way to accumulate donations.
Unfortunately Facebook, as global as it seems, won't allow non-US registered charities to publish their "Causes". Our work is in sustainable development in rural Kenya. I am Founder Trustee and based in the UK. We do have a Facebook presence http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2311563857