Great Social Media Idea: Donation Challenge between Rivals

Live from Portland, it's Monday morning!!!  (Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it? But that's OK... I will soldier on somehow. )

I've decided to do a theme week on this blog. Hooray!!! And what's the subject? (Psycho violins)... FUNDRAISING USING SOCIAL MEDIA! Everyone's least favorite topic. Or, at least, my least favorite topic. But try as we might to keep the development officers at bay, it's inevitable that social media will continue becoming an increasingly important component to fundraising campaigns. And while I do definitely have some misgivings about using social media to raise money, I think it's important to highlight examples of it done right, since we're all going to have to be doing it sooner rather than later.

First up is a fun example of two schools working together to reach a participatory goal. Colorado College and University of Denver are currently having a competition to see which school can reach 1,500 alumni donors before November 7, when the two schools face each other in hockey. (They are major rivals.)

A microsite acts as the hub for this contest, but there is lots of social media integration - with special hashtags for each school, fun videos (I especially like this one from Colorado College), Facebook events and posts, etc. I'm assuming there is an email and print campaign working in conjunction with this too, but both schools have been very active in promoting it through social media.

The challenge was launched just a few weeks ago, and already it's tallied nearly 1,000 donors between the two schools, Of course, many of those donors would have made gifts anyway, but a competition like this against a rival school is a great way to stoke some competitive spirit among alumni an to inspire younger donors to take part.

It's a really fun idea to partner with a rival school for a campaign like this, and doing so makes it particularly well-suited to social media, where asking followers to take part in online competitions is par for the course. I also like how it connects with a sports event, which not only helps promote that event but encourages the athletics departments to take part in the promotion of the competition, something that is not always easy to do, athletics departments being the wonderful insular creatures that they are.

OK... that's it for now. Coming soon: crowdfunding and special days of giving!