From Facebook “Like” to living on rice and beans

This is a guest post by our friend Howard Freeman. Howard Freeman is Founder and Principal of Zoey Creative Development, a charitable giving consultancy in NYC serving both organizations and also individual philanthropists.  He can be reached at howard@zoeycreativedevelopment.com.

The Upper West Side of Manhattan is not the best neighborhood to shop for cheap groceries if you only have $7.50 to cover five days. But then again, why would you try?

In May 2011, I joined thousands of others in the “Live Below the Line” Campaign organized by the Global Poverty Project (GPP).  The “line” is $1.50, below which 1.4 billion people live.  Sometimes an entire family lives on this amount for all needs; I was to do this alone and use only for food—my wife and kids would continue as normal. But for those doing LBL, we were being reminded for five days of the desperate need of those living in extreme poverty. So were our supporters. And the idea was to transform each of us to do something more. Beyond this one week.

Let me outline how GPP was able to accomplish this goal in me, as a micro-fundraiser for them.

Sometime in 2010, I had attended a large reception and presentation where about 200 people heard GPP Founder Hugh Evans tell his story and call us to take a simple action.  Would we “Like” their Facebook page? Or write a letter to a politician? Or make a donation? And would we do it that night? I recall taking the path of least resistance: I went home and “liked” the GPP Facebook page, delegating it to the electronic attic of Fan pages alongside the TV show “House,” my favorite dead authors, and “Brother Jimmys” restaurant. In other words, I clicked “Like” on Facebook, got a laboratory-like boost of Altruistic Endorphins shooting through my body, and then I went away.

But GPP used that “Like” skillfully.

Many “Likes” on cultural items both great and small later, I got a Facebook event invitation with a link to a video, seen here.  I was impressed by the quality of the video, and it didn’t hurt to have one of the X-Men pitching me.  (In fact, I bet you clicked over just now, if you didn’t already.) I received another and probably a third, asking me to consider the LBL event.  At one point, I just thought, “What the hey.  Sure.”  So I signed up to do it.

In the week before the LBL fast, I was supposed to raise money.  (The food I bought is for another post.)  Now, I had raised money as a professional for 16 years prior, but always on behalf of an organization, never to sponsor me personally.  So, it was a bit intimidating.  Yet, once I jumped, I didn’t look back.

To kick off my fundraising effort:

• I created a LBL Campaign Facebook banner.
• I became the first donor.  (Can’t ask others to do what you haven’t done yourself.)
• And then, I did something I had never done before and never since: I sent an appeal email to everyone on my email list.  Everyone. Putting them in the bcc: line. And I said so in the first line of my note. Something like, “I know getting a note where your name is bcc:ed is kind of impersonal, but this is going to everyone in my contact list.  I have never done this before, but I need everyone’s help. I need your help…” and it went from there.

At the end of two days of fundraising, our team was #1 out of more than 3,000 U.S. teams, and we completed the campaign in that position. I had some eighty donors who gave gifts ranging between $10 and $250. The site listed the top ten fundraisers, and I was determined to finish first!  My son’s karate teacher calls this, “friendly competition.”

So, what other online actions helped?

• I made YouTube videos and circulated them to supporters and potential donors.
• LBL/GPP staff constantly encouraged me.  They even express mailed me a Crumpler shoulder bag as a present on Day Two or Three of the campaign. (Offline reality perks like this really made a difference.)
• I sent daily emails to supporters during the fast itself through the LBL email system, which made it easy to send to all or send to those who had donated since a certain date. I made sure to thank them multiple times and tell them what I had bought with the money. I kept it all lighthearted, so they’d keep reading.  I told them occasionally about the work of GPP and encouraged them to click over to the GPP website to learn more. By the end of the campaigns, one of my supporters said he was moved to take his whole family through the experience!
• I asked supporters to share the campaign with their friends.
• I used and perhaps overused Facebook and Twitter, and I promoted myself as the #1 fundraising team in order to get more donations.  (I received only a handful from people who weren’t my friends, but I was pulling out all the stops and didn’t mind if this was considered a bit aggressive.)  Frankly, I was willing to look like an idiot to get more money for the cause.
• I was into it 100%. Online and offline.

Here’s what I learned.

• A short campaign is sustainable for volunteer micro-fundraisers.
• An upbeat nonprofit staff who encouraged everyone made a big difference.  They responded to my messages promptly, even before I had raised much money at all.  They were into it 100%.
• As a volunteer, you can appeal to your entire mailing list for something you really believe in and want to do…but it’s like castling in chess.  You can do it once per game.  (Define “game” however you wish.)
• Online fundraising campaigns can be—and should be—lots of fun because of the nature of the tools at our disposal.
• Facebook and Twitter got lit up, and the ever-present hashtag of #LBLUSA kept us on social media all week.
• The more time I spent on it, the more my heart got into it.  And I was transformed in my own perspective.