Fundraising: Building Social Context

Analysis

Despite the financial crisis there is still lots of money; some say that too much money is chasing too few good investments. The problem is that the money doesn't move normally, both because current business uncertainties make it hard or impossible to estimate investment risk confidently, and also because money is very unequally distributed today, so those who have it usually have so much that they don't need to use most of it. In this situation, fundraisers could benefit by offering opportunities for cultural investments (art, activism, scholarship, strategic science, service, and other). Why not have fun, do some good, get recognition, and perhaps make new friends, instead of chasing money when opportunities are questionable, especially if you already have more money than you could ever need?

Here we explore reproducing accounts for opening doors to new social relationships around giving. Just sending a check and getting a form letter back doesn't do much for donors. Fundraising receptions and other events are better, in that donors can meet each other; such events certainly have a place, but they can waste resources by costing too much to produce. Grants eat up lots of staff time. We need more options for less expensive ways to raise money.

Mass Sponsorships: Selling Donated Art

This is the same as artists selling their work (see the "Artists" tab on this site), except that the artist donates the art, the sponsorship payments, or a portion of those payments, to the fundraising organization.

Most art donations end up with the original art displayed at an auction or event, but then owned by one buyer if it sells. This can work if you have donors who can pay thousands of dollars, and a well-known artist whose work they will pay for. But even then, only a few people see the art after the sale.

In our proposal, sponsors anywhere in the world can buy prepaid downloads (or streamings) in bulk, using a bankcard, PayPal, or other means of online payment. Sponsors can send out their own message with their sponsorship if they wish (the artist and/or the organization raising money could review and approve these messages if they choose to do so, and rejection of a message will automatically return any unused money to the sponsor). End users will receive these copies free, and see the sponsor's message if any. Sponsors can direct which social networks get their prepaid accesses, if they want to, or leave the access open to anyone, or let the cause organization direct it.

This approach gives more chance for public engagement with the (digital) art, vs. selling a single original. There's always a small chance that the work will become a hit (since this is notoriously unpredictable), benefitting both the organization raising money and the artist. The sponsors can get recognition, advertising, or other benefit of getting their message to a content-targeted audience. And the song or other art being sold can itself tell a story in support of the cause, because it will be distributed widely if there is public interest, instead of residing only in a private collection.

Same, with All Copies Free

The cause organization that is raising money may choose to make all copies of the content free -- whether or not each "smart URL" currently has any sponsored copies. Anyone can still purchase sponsorships and get their message out, as in #1 above; the difference is that the end user will have free access in any case, regardless of sponsorship. In this case, instead of a song, the "art" might be an investigative article -- or simply a statement supporting the cause. The organization may want this material to get around, even at the cost of raising a little less money -- which could be the tradeoff, since end users would never need to find or encourage potential sponsors in order to get their own copies free.

In this case, the general complexion of public motivations would lean a bit more toward supporting the cause, and less toward commerce than #1 above.

In either #1 or #2, the campaign could let sponsors choose to donate to particular sub-funds of the overall campaign. Each donation will be recorded, so the proper use of the donated money will be auditable. This flexibility gives sponsors more control and expression on how their money is used. At the same time, the drawbacks of directed donations could be minimized, since the fundraising campaign can be designed with options for giving that are likely to put money where it is needed most. And to some extent, these options could be changed during a campaign, without ethical problems. For example, if one of the funds that sponsors could choose was coming up short, another fund option could be added, focusing on a special need area within the fund that was underperforming. Of course this change would only affect future donations, not those already given.

This great flexibility and rapid, detailed feedback (in the form of what works or does not work to bring in resources) will help to keep organizations in touch with their donors and other constituents -- in real time, and in detail.

Infrastructure for Online Engagement

Reproducing accounts will let organizations easily recycle fundraising games and other infrastructure that had proven successful in related campaigns. In this case, the purpose of the reproducing accounts is to spread infrastructure around, in a highly convenient and customized way.

For example, a campaign could display a virtual water fountain 24 hours a day; anyone who goes a particular Web address (a smart URL, for example) will see and hear the fountain, and these viewers will be able to communicate with each other -- no registration required. Anyone at any time can toss a "coin" (a contribution, by bankcard etc.) into the fountain, creating a splash and/or a musical announcement depending on the amount donated -- and their personal sponsor's message if any will display to others then at the fountain -- perhaps as skywriting, or with a musical theme on mouse-over, or in any other way artists can dream up. The message may also go onto a wall that will keep, say, the last 20 messages, with larger donations staying longer. Various interest and affinity groups may agree to gather at the fountain at certain times for a fundraising party for the cause they all support.

Other campaign formats could involve a tug-of-war competition between two (or more) teams -- where website graphics could use the position of the rope to represent the amount of money the team had brought in fairly recently. Of course the competition could be represented in all sorts of graphical formats. People should also be able to see immediate results as their own contribution goes in (perhaps in a special color), and see immediate results from the other contributions as well.

Reproducing accounts will help by organizing this software infrastructure for easy re-use, in flexible and powerful ways. Some companies that offer the accounts will specialize in fundraising; then some of the options at every account's control center will include such functions as accounting for what is taxable vs. tax free, and may include various kinds and styles of virtual fountains, tug-of-war displays, photos showing the progress along a virtual or real bikeathon route, and other real-time graphical reporting options that the account owner (who is setting up the fundraising campaign) can select. The same account will also be able to keep donations from different teams separate (or allow the fundraiser to set up separate accounts for these, and tie them in with the account that displays the graphics). Each individual fundraiser could have a separate public account that shows the same fountain, etc. -- so that each fundraiser's success can be recorded. The fundraiser will only need to get the smart URL to a potential donor, who can then participate fully; they do not necessarily need a personal visit, so they could be on different continents.

And of course the accounts will be able to accept many different forms of payment, from donors in various countries. Different payment methods (and permissions to use them or not, including limits as necessary) will be inherited from parent to descendant accounts, like other services.

The Competitive "Fundathon"

A particularly interesting possibility might be called a competitive fundathon. The "fundathon" part is like a bikeathon, etc., without the diversions like buying a bicycle, repair and other costs, and the entire administrative overhead needed for a long mass bicycle trip. Instead, the focus will be to raise as much money as possible -- and teamwork, networking, and social activity will still be central, as they are in bikeathon-type events.

The "competitive" part, which is optional, could have two or more teams competing to raise money for the same cause, or for different or even for opposite causes. Winning strategies could include mobilizing major donors ahead of time, or effective media outreach, or viral spread.

This kind of campaign might benefit greatly by some game design. For example, multiple rounds or other deadlines and sub-goals are important, because they give individual fundraisers on the teams more opportunities to approach donors. Another benefit of the game is the chance to talk to potential donors without bringing up the dead children or other horrible facts that everyone knows is the whole reason for many campaigns. Instead of the grim pictures, fundraisers should also have the opportunity to approach donors in a light vein, as in "help me win a sporting contest" by donating the amount of money likely to let our team score now, in the current round.

Premium Emails

In the Spam Control section we show how anyone will be able to set any price they want to receive an email at a special address. Any email that does not carry a code (a RepliCount) with enough money in it will not be delivered, but will bounce back to the sender with an explanation.

The same email system could support fundraising as well. For example, an artist displaying work in a gallery or coffeehouse, or on a poster, online, or elsewhere could provide one of these addresses, where anyone with an account at one of the premium email services (or who has a RepliCount that support premium email) could send an email casually, on a lark. This donor might have set a default amount such as $1, and be able to override it to send another amount instead, such as $5. Don't worry that a mistake with the decimal point, etc., might transfer a huge amount; the donor should either use an account with only limited money in it, for all these emails, or set a system default for a maximum amount to pay by email. Then any attempted email donation that exceeded the limit would bounce and not be delivered. Of course the email could also include a message for the artist.

The artist might also include a small digital badge to represent the donation. People could collect these from artists they liked, and use them to personalize a desktop, blog, home page, etc., expressing their own interest in the work, and referring other people to it. Getting the badge provides another incentive for donations. The badge should not need security, since it has no money value, and most people would not show off fake badges (copies) that said they had donated to the artist when they had not.

Note how much easier it is to just send an email (verbal message optional) compared to most other methods of contributing -- such as purchasing a painting, finding an online address for donations and then using a shopping cart to contribute there, or even using a cash tip jar, which is easy for the donor but could cause security problems for the venue. Also, a message intended for delivery with the donation might or might not get through, while the email must be received for the money transfer to occur.

This system could also raise money for organizations and causes. For example, a political activist may need money for a legal defense fund. As with the artist, anybody could send a small donation immediately, often from their mobile phone -- instead of thinking about finding out later how to send a donation, and probably never doing it.

One might ask, "What does this have to do with accounts that reproduce?" Why couldn't any codes that could be cashed in for money be emailed instead, as a donation? In theory, any such code could be used. But security would likely be a serious issue; the codes might need to be encrypted to prevent theft in transit. Another practical problem would be the cost building all the infrastructure needed, just for this one application -- especially if email correspondents can get their codes from different organizations that can accept each other's codes.

Reproducing accounts can work better, because they can give users so much control over so many features. For example, new accounts could be generated each time for one-time use. Or they could have too little money in them to be worth stealing. Or they could only pay a handful of payees (a handful of RepliCounts), and never, ever pay anybody else. Or they could make it impossible to ever get cash out of the account. If necessary, the owner could evade such restrictions by killing the account, automatically transferring all remaining money to a secret destination, which could even be beyond the control of the owner. A thief with owner's access could also kill the account, sending the money to the same place.

RepliCounts (or other reproducing accounts) ultimately will still need to develop the same infrastructure -- including different organizations that can accept each other's codes (pay each other's accounts) after getting the money electronically from the organization that issued the account. However, this infrastructure will work not only for sending premium emails, but also for all the other uses described on this site, and many more besides. The infrastructure will be much more affordable when it can serve so many different purposes, not just one.

Overview

In these fundraising examples overall, the main role of RepliCounts is to spread infrastructure around. A campaign that succeeded once can have its whole infrastructure easily reproduced (assuming the owner allows that), then fairly easily customized for a new campaign, perhaps for a different cause.

Page updated 2009-09-30