Help My Dog Heal!: The Anatomy of A Social Media Fundraiser

The density of the social web has created incredible opportunities for people to identify and leverage the assets their friends and contacts offer them. Yet as we're seeing with the controversy around the Chase Community Giving contest, the norms of what is and isn't appropriate, and best practices around what works and what doesn't are still being worked out. Right now, I'm running my very own social media fundraiser at HelpIsisHeal.org to help my dog Isis get ACL surgery. Will I be able to put into practice what I've learned observing and dissecting others?

First, the background. When I decided to leave the Center for Global Engagement I had founded at Northwestern, I knew that I was going all in on the web startup scene. It was San Francisco, industry mixers, and constant product redesigns. That, of course, and a startup dog.

Enter Isis, a deaf American Bulldog/Pit Bull mix who had been kicking around in foster homes for 2+ years. My girlfriend Emily and I started fostering her to support the group who had rescued her from euthanasia, Rocket Dog Rescue. After a couple weeks, we decided we couldn't give her up and adopted her formally.

It was all going great, until a few weeks ago when we started to notice Isis was limping. A trip to the vet later, we learned that she had torn the doggie equivalent of the ACL, requiring a $3000+ surgery to enable her to walk and run normally again.

Quickly marshalling our resources, we designed and launched HelpIsisHeal.org, a site for soliciting and tracking donations. We've only just started, but the way we've thought about this may shed led on social media fundraising campaigns more broadly:

1. Help Frequently Without Expectation of Return: In the nonprofit sector, it can be sometimes overwhelming to have all of your friends fundraising all the time. Of course none of us have unlimited resources (yet) and can't respond to every request for donations, votes, or something else, but the more helpful each of us can be in general, the more we build up general social capital that can be cashed in when we need it. We're hoping that the time we've spent over the last few years helping friends' organizations flows back in part to help our doggie.

2. Build Your Distribution Channels in Advance: This is perhaps the biggest thing that might be different about this list. The readers of this blog are generous people, who I imagine help their friends as much as they can, for example. But one of the things I've learned blogging for the last year on Change.org is that you have to work dilligently to cultivate and build distribution channels through which you can spread a message. Twitter and Facebook just give you the tools, they don't give you the audience. And just because you have friends and followers doesn't mean you have their attention. There is no substitute for the hard working of providing high value links and content in small nuggets over time to build your distribution channels so that, when you need them, they are there waiting.

3. Set Clear Goals: This is sort of like fundraiser 101, but it bears repeating. There have to be clear goals for people to get really excited about helping. It looks to us like the $3,500 number we're trying to raise is the cheapest we can get the surgery and follow up examinations, so that's what we're shooting for.

4. Create a Mechanism for Updates: If people are giving, chances are good that they have or want some sort of basic relationship - either with you or the cause. At minimum, giving people the opportunity to see how the progress of the campaign. Twitter, Posterous, and Tumblr all provide super fast, easy platforms to share those newsie nuggets.

5. Thank Publicly: The folks who give are going out of their way to help you. Lavishing them with praise in a very public fashion (and in the process helping with their own #2) seems only appropriate. We are blasting big Twitter thank yous whenever someone donates - which is not only (hopefully) nice for them, but also is another entry into the stream which can point someone to your campaign.

6. (Bonus) Anthropomorphize Your Dog on Twitter: As it turns out, Tweeting as a dog is as if not more fun than tweeting as a person. Even before her blown ACL, Isis had been tweeting from @isisthedog. One of her favorites: "I am SO BORED. WHERE IS EVERYONE? Screw it, I'm going to eat a blanket." The point, of course, is to have fun. Social media is all about being interesting.

I'll keep everyone posted about how the campaign goes. Please check out Isis' site here: HelpIsisHeal.org