Opening keynote of the 2009 NewComm Forum which is organized by the Society of New Communications Research is kicked off by Charles Best the founder of DonorsChoose.org. Charles was inspired while a social studies teacher in the Bronx to create a place where people could donate to charity online and have the donations directed to classrooms projects in need. They have given us all gift cards for us to donate to a classroom or project in need. He initially invested $2,000 dollars to create the version 1x. Quickly the teachers began posting projects and donors were directing micro-donations to specific projects. Word spread among teachers in the Bronx and Charles became the equivilant of “Robin Hood”. Social Media provides a great platform for charity.
Charles shared some amazing “Citizen Philanthropy” stories. One great story was a partnership with Crate and Barrel to provide customers with gift cards to donate on behalf of CB to whatever classroom project of their choosing. Customer feedback was overwhelming and the purchase/loyalty results proved amazing. Crate and Barrel customers who donated actually spent 16% more and even customers that only opened the mailing with the gift card spent 5% more. Social Media ROI via charitable giving. Some, interesting stats from Charles about donorschoose.org - 74% of donors are new to charitable giving.
Great to see the web and social technologies enabling so much good in this world.
Blake Cahill
Visible Technologies
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