Giving ‘Face’ Time to Charity

A new online tool allows Facebook users to bring attention to — and seek donations for — nonprofit groups

Charities are scrambling to figure out how to take advantage of a recent development at Facebook,

the popular social-networking site: In May, the company decided to let outsiders develop new online tools, some of which could help nonprofit groups reach the site’s more than 58 million users by engaging them in advocacy efforts or online giving.

Among the new tools is one that allows advocacy groups to circulate online petitions. Another enables a Facebook user to send a virtual gift, an icon representing a plant or some other present, to a friend to indicate that a small donation has been made in the friend’s name. But the most successful tool so far, called Causes, lets people create their own charitable projects or campaigns.

Developed by Project Agape, a company in Berkeley, Calif., Causes allows a Facebook user to create a charitable project to support an existing nonprofit organization, recruit people who identify themselves as “friends” of the project, share related information with the group, and seek donations. The organization must have charity status in the United States or Canada.

Joe Green, co-founder of Agape, says since Causes was first offered in May, more than 45,000 projects have been started and nearly a million dollars have been raised.

Despite the impressive totals, no charity has raised that much money through Causes so far. But nonprofit officials say that, more important, charities are attracting some new supporters — especially people under 30 — who could eventually become loyal advocates and donors. And in other cases, the new Facebook tools are encouraging people to visit a charity’s Web site, where they do make gifts.

Experts say, however, that charities should not make the mistake of thinking that the only reason to be active on Facebook is to raise money. “The idea on Facebook is to engage, particularly young people, in meaningful ways,” says Allison Fine, author of Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age. “I would think about how I could start a conversation about whatever my cause is. It is all about the conversation. What is it I’m doing that would interest young people? Why is this cause important?”

Ms. Fine recently wrote a paper for the Case Foundation, a Washington grant maker started by the founder of America Online, about how 15-to-25-year-olds are using social-networking sites to press for societal changes. The causes they are interested in are often traditional, including breast cancer, AIDS, and international relief, Ms. Fine says. What is different is how they see their responsibility in light of those interests, she says. “They think a better world comes from befriending people and talking about causes,” using the same online tools they employ for entertainment and socializing, she says.

Testing an Approach

Among the organizations that have received the most benefit from Facebook is the Humane Society of the United States. The charity agreed to be a “test Cause” when the Facebook tool went live.

Carrie Lewis, the organization’s Internet-marketing manager, helped get the effort started by creating five projects related to the society’s work. For instance, she created a fund-raising project to help the group combat problems associated with puppy mills.

And Ms. Lewis has been joined by other Humane Society supporters who have created their own online projects to benefit the charity. They include people who want to promote advocacy work on its behalf, engage in discussions, and raise money to help the society push for an end to dog fighting, abolish bullfighting, and accomplish its other goals. Ms. Lewis says 44 such projects are generating donations for the organization, and those online efforts have raised $26,600 so far.

“The surprising thing is that it is our supporters out there doing the work on their own,” she says, adding that she spends about 20 hours a week online monitoring online conversations about her organization and offering electronic content, photos, video clips, and other assistance to people who support the organization on Facebook and MySpace, another social-networking site.

Jonathon Colman, associate director of digital marketing at the Nature Conservancy, is active personally on Facebook, and his charity also had started an online group on the site. But he didn’t realize someone had started a project for the organization until he stumbled on it online one day.

Mr. Colman now helps the woman who started the project, which seeks to raise money for the Nature Conservancy by serving as an administrator, providing content and posting responses to other supporters who join the project.

While the effort has only raised about $200 so far, it has attracted more than 2,100 new people who are sympathetic to the conservancy’s mission.

Mr. Colman isn’t disappointed by the shortage of donations through Causes; he is more interested in getting those new supporters to visit the organization’s own site. To that end, the Causes page accepts donations but also urges people to go to the Nature Conservancy’s Web site.

“We are still focused on bringing people to our Web site so we can get a better idea of who they are and get them more fully engaged,” Mr. Colman says.

The Nature Conservancy, he says, can offer more information on its own Web site, along with ways for people to sign up for e-mail newsletters and fund-raising appeals.

Stand, a Washington antigenocide group started by college students, is another group using Facebook to attract visitors to its own Web site. The group conducts most of its communications with its college chapters nationwide over Facebook, and it has created a Causes page to recruit new supporters. But when it comes to donations, the group prefers to direct supporters to its own Web site.

“We can only put so many videos and resources on Facebook,” says John Bagwell, a staff member who organizes the student volunteers. He says supporters find content that is “more substantial and less gimmicky” on the Stand site.

During the group’s annual one-day fund drive in December, the majority of donors to the organization’s site came from Facebook, Mr. Bagwell says. The Stand site, he says, had 3,000 unique visitors that day, up from its daily average of 500. Between $20,000 in online contributions to the Stand Web site and money contributed to the chapters’ local campus campaigns, the event raised more than $140,000, mostly from gifts in the $3 to $10 range.

Whether they are actively using Causes and other Facebook applications or not, charities appear to be realizing some benefit from them, however small. And like the Nature Conservancy, many groups are surprised to learn they have attracted new young supporters through Facebook.

The Appalachia Service Project, a Johnson City, Tenn., charity that serves low-income families, only realized someone was working on its behalf when checks totaling $231 arrived from donors who had made small gifts through Causes. Appalachia Service doesn’t plan to take a more active role in Facebook efforts right now, but Sheryl Hartley, the charity’s special-project coordinator, says the charity is pleased to have won some new support with no effort. “It is really powerful from a branding perspective that people are out there talking about us,” she says. “It is uncontrolled, but any publicity is good publicity.”