In recent months, we have seen an upsurge in online social media contests promising tens of thousands of dollars to organizations that get the most votes or donations, such as Pepsi Refresh, America’s Giving Challenge and eBay’s Humanity Calls. While “grappling” maybe too strong a word, we have been grappling with whether these contests are worth staff time and effort, especially given a questionable return.
As an organization with a decent base of supporters—roughly 16,000—the Ella Baker Center decided to experiment with the Humanity Calls Tournament to see if these online contests fit our niche and resonate with our thousands of supporters on Facebook, Twitter and in our database.
Exactly one week from today, the tournament will end on June 21, 2010 with the top 30 nonprofits receiving the most votes splitting a pot of $50,000+ (proportional to the number of votes received). As of today, we’re holding steady at 19th place with 291 votes, $240 in direct donations and minimal effort consisting of Facebook and Twitter status updates and a “vote” button on our homepage. (For some perspective, the organization in 1st place has 1,912 votes and $1,520 in donations.)
In the next six days, we’ll be putting in a little more effort (i.e., this blog) to see how much we can close the gap between 19th place and 1st place and invite you to participate in our experiment by telling us what you think about these contests (please comment on this blog post)… and by placing your vote today.
Did I mention that if you donate $10 to the tournament you get 10 extra votes, too?
(As for commentary on the amount of dollars these contests dangle as “winnings” in front of nonprofits, we’ll have to save that discussion for another day.)
Jessica De Jesus is the Director of Development at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. She is the proud mother of Kumba who was recently Oakland Local’s Pet of the Week.
