Real-time social fundraising

Beth Kanter has a detailed analysis of why her real-time fundraising experiment at Gnomedex worked. If you don't know, she raised $3,700 to send a young Cambodian woman to college, simply by tapping into her online social network. Read the whole post, because it's chock full of great insights about social media and fundraising. But here are some takeaways:

• Beth's passion for the cause played a major role in people's willingness to spread the word and donate money.
• It worked because Beth has spent 5 years building a network, and establishing trust, by offering valuable information online.
• She didn't make a big request. She asked only for $10 per person, and directed folks to PayPal to make the donation easily.

Beth's post on this is an example of why people trust her. It's a seminar on social networking in itself. You'll be glad you took the time to read it.

Technorati Tags: Beth Kanter, social networking, fundraising, blogging, Gnomedex