The setup: Attract the most new donors through FB Causes and win $50K for your organization. 2nd and 3rd place: $25K, 4-13th place, $10K.
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/giving
Winners:
1) Love without borders foundation: 4564 donors
2) Tibetan freedom movement: 4522
3) fight poverty with Nourish International: 1816
This contest was brilliantly conceived. I got at least 10 requests from activists from across the board. From my buddy Nathan at Tibetan Freedom Movement (congrats on 2nd place!) to smaller orgs local to san francisco who were experimenting with facebook for the first time.
With the award money, the Tibetan movement raised over $125K in sum.
Why was it brilliant? A lot of it has to do with realizing the benefits of Causes on FB. Over the past year, there have been some limited successes, but most of the smaller groups were having trouble making any headway. The contest gave then a cause d'etre. The real winner here is Casuses & FB. They've brought 1000s of new donors into the mix - made them aware of the platform and proved that social fundraising can work. Of course, the 2nd contest of this type won't have the same juice. They've got to find a new angle - equally as exciting to galvanize the ground troops like this.
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