1000 hearts - fundraising using social networking tools

I interviewed Nicky from Rape Crisis Cape Town about their ‘1000 Hearts campaign’

-Why did you decide on using social networks to fundraise?

At the end of 2008, Rape Crisis faced a huge financial crisis. Rape Crisis was finding that big companies would rather donate their money to animal or child welfare causes than to a cause like Rape Crisis, because rape is in no way cute, fluffy or pretty. Rape Crisis was also finding that there was good infrustructure within their NGO for big companies to make donations, but if individuals wanted to donate they couldn’t do so with ease.

Rape Crisis decided to take a big step and launched the 1000 Hearts campaign. For this campaign a target of 1000 individuals could donate R100 every month for a year. The individual could choose a heart from the campaign on the home page of Rape crisis’s website, name it and design what it would look like. The amount would then be deducted from the individuals credit card every month.

The 1000 Hearts campaign could then be promoted further through facebook and tweating by the indivdual.

The 1000 hearts campaign was promoted through a supper club where a volunteer chef catered for 6 ladies at the Rape Crisis kitchens. The media were also invited to this event to advertise the campaign even further.

As well as a tea party where 100 cupcakes were donated by Tina Bester, from Queen of Tarts. Each beautifully decorated cupcake cost R100 and various local celebrities were invited to attend the tea party and buy one.

With R100, airtime could be bought for a Rape Crisis volunteer to call a rape victim back. Or a taxi could be hired to take someone to safety.

Through word of mouth and social networking a relay was formed that could spread the 1000 Hearts campaign further and further.

-How was the response?

People love the 1000 Hearts campaign. It is innovative and provides the Rape Crisis homepage with a new energy. In general the feedback is positive. The concept of the campaign is fairly new and not a lot of people have done it which really adds to its edge.

Though the 1000 Hearts campaign has been running since August 2009, only about 30 hearts have been sold. The hearts have been selling very slowly. Social Networking tools are fairly new to NGO’s. Nicky has found that you need one person within the NGO who understands how social networking programs work in order to promote effectively through social networks.

Social Networking has been great for accessing international donors. It has also been great for publishing podcasts of women’s stories on the Rape Crisis website.

-Any challenges?

Nicky feels that the 1000 Hearts campaign did not work. She feels that the primary reason for this was that the internal staff at Rape Crisis did not know enough about how to use the social networks. Nicky feels though that the Feminist Tech Exchange this year has really provided her with these tools.

-Would you encourge other NGO’s to fundraise in this way?

Nicky says she would encourage this sort of fundraising due to how inexpensive social networking is through technologies like computers and cellphones, which most people already have, but she feels that this does not necessarily guarantee you a lot of funding.