In 24 hours, over $1 million was raised to build a homeless shelter in San Diego, according to an introductory video on Stay Classy’s website, an online social fundraising tool. During times where nonprofits are struggling to harness the effectiveness of social media, there might be a thing or two to learn from Stay Classy.
Why is online social fundraising important?
Stay Classy is working to make the most of utilizing the existing connections of donors to raise money instead of relying on large donations. If you read, Kyrsten’s post from yesterday, you can see this is the direction philanthropy is headed. Couple economic uncertainty with information overload on the various nonprofits in operation, focusing on gathering lots of small donations instead of relying on very few large ones, a) relieves the donor from large financial obligations and b) invites the donor to spread the word and get involved.
What is Stay Classy?
Organizations can create profiles, keep track of online donations, share information and interact with donors, delegate fundraising efforts and better understand their target audience. Some examples include: Habitat for Humanity, Invisible Children, Make a Wish Foundation, American Red Cross, but also includes less well-known organizations. Donors can browse categories by causes such as animal rights, environment, poverty, human rights, etc. and then organize fundraisers and advocate for the organization online, all in one centralized location.
Oscars of Philanthropy
Stay Classy also hosts the Classy Awards to nonprofit leaders affecting their communities. This is actually how I found out about Stay Classy. I received an email from Restore NYC (which I will expand on in another blog post) asking me to vote for its founder Faith Huckel in the Young Nonprofit Leader of the Year category. The winner’s organization receives $10,000. AOL said its like the Oscars for philanthropy.
Why it matters to us
Connecting nonprofits to potential donors is part of what we are doing. But our heart really is to communicate the stories of those they have affected in order to spur others to action. The goal is someone will watch one of our videos and donate their time, money and resources to make more stories possible. And who knows? Maybe they’ll want to organize a fundraiser via Stay Classy and create more inspiration that will lead to more action.
What have you found to be the best way to connect nonprofits with potential donors?
—-
Read Mashable’s article on Stay Classy
Read Full Post »