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Twitter for Charities and Non-Profits: 3 Case Studies + Tips

by  Brian Carter


Over the last 6 months I've seen some pretty cool results for charities and non-profits using Twitter.

Non-Profit Success Stories with Twitter

tweetsgiving

Tweetsgiving.org – Epic Change + Kbuzz

This was a very clever, well planned, successful viral fundraiser.  The goal was to raise $10,000 to build a classroom for children in Tanzania.

Tactics:

  • Asked twitterers to tweet their gratitude along with website address and 
  • The hashtag #tweetsgiving
  • Enlisted influential twitterers (via direct messaging) as seed evangelists
  • Chip-in for donations

Results:

  • People tweeted 3,000 gratitude messages
  • They gained 1,337 twitter followers
  • Tweetsgiving was a top trending term on Twitter for 48 hours
  • Tweetsgiving.org received 15,830 page views from 7563 visitors in 101 countries
  • More than 100 press and blog mentions, and here's one more ;-)

 

hrguy1

One Day For Human Rights – Anca Foster

This campaign was focused on the Dec 10, 2008 Human Rights Day, and modeled after Blog Action Day. The goal was to get signatures for a petition to get the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into people's passports.

Tactics:

  • Twitter avatar mod/logo
  • Tweets
  • Badges for blogs
  • Got commitments to blog about it on the actual day

Results:

 

12for12k.org – Danny Brown

This is a fairly new, ongoing year-long effort for 12 different charities.  Each month, a new charity.

Tactics are fluid, but they include:

  • Avatar mod, tweeting, badges
  • Chip-in for donations
  • Raffle contests

And they just did a tweet-a-thon… March 19 2009 to Raise $12,000 for the Share Our Strength charity.

Results:

  • Website traffic: 3,117 unique visitors with 6,239 page hits
  • Twitter: 100+ pages of search results for the #12for12k hashtag
  • Twitter: 300 users of the #12for12k hashtag between 11.00am and 1.00pm EST
  • Twitter: Topping numerous Twitter trend sites (above March Madness hashtag)
  • Donors: 459 contributors, raising a total of $14,847.69
  • Amount: Target of $12,000 was raised in just 6 hours. On average, more than $1,000 was being donated per hour.

Real World Results

  • Connect 546,840 families to programs that provide free meals to their children during the summer.
  • Provide 14,112 preschool children with a nutritious lunch.
  • Give 352,800 schoolchildren a glass of milk
  • Feed 420 children three meals a day for a month

Um wow.

So What Works For Charities and Non Profits on Twitter? Tips for Getting Action and Participation

  • Widgets and logos for people's blogs
  • Logo that's avatar-sized for Twitter pic modification
  • Hashtags
  • Reason for people to constantly tweet about it
  • Chip In widget
  • Get commitments to blog or tweet

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4 astute comments

Thanks so much for all you did to help make TweetsGiving successful. I am so grateful. Let me know @StaceyMonk if you'd like to help create an even bigger celebration of gratitude for 2009 ;)

Reply
Stacey Monk  #

This is a nice little collection of causes and results, Brian, and it's good to be able to see what's worked for other events as well. As Stacey said above me, thanks for your support with 12for12k – you, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. :)

Reply
Danny Brown  #

Oops, PS – We received an update total from Stop The Silence after corporate sponsors sent donations, just short of $6,000 in total. We will be revisiting older charities through the year to try help towards our overall goal of $12,000 per charity. :)

Reply
Danny Brown  #

I studied this intently before kicking off out Mom It Forward fundraiser this week. I had all the plans in place and recognized, after reading your post, that I hadn't planned on a few things. Thank you for your articulate assessment of these successful events. I feel fortunate to be working with 12 for 12K and Danny Brown on this venture.

Thanks again for the great tips and threads of success as well as for coming on and sharing your insight on #gno Tuesday night. You truly are one of the girls, Brian… and we love you for it! :)

Reply
Jyl (Mom It Forward)  #

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