March 6, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
Last year, Causes decided to see how much it could raise for the University of California at San Francisco, which was seeking donations to build a children’s hospital. Causes held a competition and invited its members to form teams online, offering prizes such as dance lessons with the entertainer M.C. Hammer and hospital rooms named for teams that recruited the most donors.
Causes spent $20,000 for promotional and other costs for the UCSF Challenge for the Children and set a goal of raising $100,000. But in a short time, members blew past the goal, raising more than $1-million.
The winning team was formed by Zynga, a social-gaming company. It raised $817,375 from 162,544 donors by adding a new feature to its Farmville game. Players were asked to purchase “candy-cane seeds” and plant them on virtual farms, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the challenge. The candy-cane purchases were automatically posted on the donors’ Facebook newsfeeds, inspiring their friends on Facebook to make similar gifts.
