Just as small business is so critical to the health of the global economy, so NGOs and non-profits are too. Able to fill in other gaping holes in the global system of peace and justice, their health is often seen as an indicator of a society’s health.
Then as the global economy squeezes one and all, NGOs become more desperate to find funding and resources. Many turn to the internet in the hope of a simple fix, but there too, complexity abounds.
All that aside, the internet and today’s social technologies are essential means to connect, update, inform and call to action, communities of people.
Strangely, as the world globalizes, communities become more important and essential to individuals and to social health. And this is where today’s mobile technologies and social media are naturally adopted and become essential to our lives.
Fundraising online
So how to go about fundraising online? As for business, getting people to hand over money either for charity or for a product requires a number of elements that need to exist “between” the two parties: trust and understanding being two givens. But just because they are conceptual givens doesn’t mean they exist in reality. And like fruit, or vegetables, they do have a life. Information gets old. Trust can be tarnished either because of perception or experiences of one party since the last interaction. In other words, ongoing efforts have to be made to keep the relationships vital, meaningful and valuable.
Just having the software that can process donations is far from sufficient in the larger work of fundraising.
So if you do need money to fund your services, dovetailing those efforts with the naturally necessary work of communicating, informing and serving your constituents and stakeholders is a given. And the nitty gritties of mobile marketing and social networking is the necessary knowledge de jour!
So jump on board and take a ride into social media marketing in the FULL meaning of that phrase. Or perhaps you could call it social advocacy and fundraising, or relationship building. Whatever, just do it now!