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Are funders taking over social network fundraising? 5

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 12 May 2009

 American super-retailer Target has taken to Facebook to help it allocate $3m to charity by the end of this month.

It’s launched a two-week campaign to have Facebook users vote for ten different charities they want the corporation to support. The charities get a split of the $3m according to what percentage of people vote for them. Alongside that it’s trying to get voters to partner with local organisations as volunteers.

I’m not even going to bother being cynical about retailing megaliths embarking quirky publicity-savvy ways to engage in philanthropy. I’m not. We’re beyond that now aren’t we?

The point really is that Target got more than 16,000 people voting on its Facebook page a day and a half after it opened the wall post poll.

This comes not long after Hugh Jackman provoked Twitter fervour - and not a small amount of publicity for his new film which I won’t name – when he threw A$100,000 up for grabs on his Twitter page. Websites like Kiva and GlobalGiving all centre on playing god with a pot of money that you’ve already decided to philanthropically dispense with, picking and choosing who you shall honour with your donation.

What has captured the public imagination on social networks recently, apart from the prolific charity: water, are organisations or individuals giving money away – not those asking for it.

Giving away a load of money is a positive message and quirk and positivity, at this stage, is what social networks respond to best. The most successful Facebook campaigns to date have been things like reintroducing discontinued lines of 1980s-era chocolate, not the alleviation of poverty in Africa. 

This is not an inevitable or infinite situation. But with the power and publicity moving ever more into the hands of  funders, how are charities going to respond?

Does online belong to the donors?

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Who's Who: Celina Ribeiro