Case Study 1

$4,000 + A SUITCASE CAMPAIGN



WHO: Beth Kanter, a professional blogger, trainer and consultant to nonprofits and individuals in effective use of social media. She is well-versed in new web tools(blogging, tagging, wikis, photo sharing, video blogging, screencasting, social networking sites, and virtual worlds, etc), and uses her knowledge effectively to support non-profit movements.


WHAT: Fund-raised $4000 and set up a Suitcase Campaign to support the Cambodian Bloggers Summit, where she was invited to be the keynote speaker.

WHEN: 30-31 Aug, 2007 Cambodian Bloggers Summit (Her efforts to raise funds started way before that though…)

WHERE: Phnom Penh, Cambodia/ United States (where Beth stays)

Her personal project

Beth’s personal objectives for her involvement in the Cambodian Blogger Summit went beyond what was expected of a keynote speaker. Her objectives were:

• A train the trainers workshop with the Cambodian blogging
  team to share resource information, answer questions, and exchange
  ideas for teaching young people how to use social media in a developing
  country like Cambodia
• Keynote welcome
• A conference workshop on blogging techniques and video blogging techniques
• Bring over 3 video blogging kits (inexpensive camera, a book, batteries, and SD cards) that will be used as "prizes" to encourage new bloggers
• Learn about and document how the blogging team is doing outreach and encouraging new bloggers and share on my blog
• Identify and interview 3-5 amazing Cambodian BlogHers and post on BlogHer site
• Bring a suitcase of donated technology and nonprofit t-shirts for participants (they have no budget for scwhag)
• Document the learnings from this personal fundraising campaign

(http://beth.typepad.com/cambodia4kidsorg/)


In order to fulfill all that, she aimed to raise US$4,000 to support her initiatives.
How was Social Media involved?

1. ChipIn.com
ChipIn is a web-based service that simplifies the process of collecting money from groups of people. It is a personal fundraising widget that will enable online public to give to your cause through Paypal.
They partnered Beth’s campaign by matching donations of $1 up to $2,000. In return, she would write up a case study of her experience using ChipIn, and leverage on her online popularity to gain publicity for ChipIn.

2. Blogging
Beth urged readers and friends to blog about her campaign and repost the fundraising badge on their blogs to gain awareness.

3. Suitcase Campaign
Beth asked the Summit team what she could bring that was “useful, not heavy and can be packed into a suitcase”. Due to the lack of funds, they needed schwag (Promotional items or products which refer to articles of merchandise that are used in marketing and communication programs. They are usually imprinted with a company’s name, logo or slogan, and given away at trade shows and conferences).
In line with the Web2.0 focus, she was gathering tech t-shirts (with a Web2.0 theme/logo), and actively rallied Web2.0 and non profit technology NGOs to contribute some tshirts for the 200 Cambodian bloggers. She appealed through her blogsite and various websites. Donors included Scrapblog, Valley Schwag, and online readers!

4. Twitter
Twitter was largely and successfully used to get the message out, and also to encourage people to generously donate. An excerpt from Beth’s recollection of her campaign, “I've been using Twitter and I started posting tweets about the campaign and everytime I did, I got some contributions. The last leg of the campaign was raised primarily on Twitter. The final dollars from the campaign from someone seeing my twitter and it is quite an amazing story and finale to this campaign”.


Did it work?
In the end, Beth raised more than enough ($4015) to get herself to Cambodia, buy all the resources needed to support the burgeoning digital movement in Cambodia and had enough “schwag” for everyone!

(Some trivia: Beth has two adopted Cambodian kids.)