Five Social Media Fundraising Predictions for 2008

Paolo Ferrara, the Italian blogger from FundraisingNow, asked me to write-up five predictions for fundraising in 2008.

Below is my response:

5) By the end of 2008, internet users will carry to each social network a single set of friends – perhaps divided into subsets for work, personal, and family. When individuals find a cool nonprofit’s donate now page or an intriguing person-to-person fundraising campaign, they will be able to share it immediately with their set of friends regardless of those friends’ preferred social network.

4) The mainstreaming of fundraising widgets and fundraising applications will result in more individuals choosing to raise money for a nonprofit or independent project.

3) The success of the Case Foundation’s Giving Challenges and Kevin Bacon’s matching grants will encourage more foundations and philanthropists to invest in social media. Foundations and philanthropists will realize that social media – and the user-generated social change campaigns that social media gives rise to – are powerful tools for realizing their long-term missions. There is nothing quite like drawing on the resources and passions of real people to get something done.

2) Fundraising consultants will find new ways to collaborate and offer services to nonprofits. This trend will result in something called open-source consulting, in which the knowledge-base that consultants draw on to advice clients will be stored in the public domain and made freely available to other consultants. Tools will emerge that facilitate this knowledge-sharing. As consultants start to use social media tools to combine and refine their collective knowledge-base, they’ll find that nonprofits and foundations learn more and that demand for their services grows.

1) Nonprofits and foundations using social media for fundraising will find a crowded market-place for attention and donations. The coming year will see a boon in the number of do-it-yourself independent social change projects. Organizations will have to compete (or collaborate – see ZaZengo) with these projects to reach new supporters. Since the fundraiser and project implementer of an independent project is one and the same, DIY social change projects will get priority from friends and family who want to support their loved ones.