Wednesday, January 21, 2009.
For most in the United States, this was the day after the inauguration.
For Laura Fitton, this day was not only her birthday, but the final day of her month long campaign (@wellwishes) to prove whether this fundraising endeavor–the first to raise microdonations exclusively on twitter would reach it’s goal: $25,000 for Charity:Water.
Laura’s morning message carried with it the same heartfelt compassionate plea from her first letter to her followers launching @wellwishes:
“We’re saving children’s lives by bringing clean, safe drinking water to villages in need through Charity: Water.
…But just $2800 more by midnight tonight – Wednesday January 21 – earns a $5,000 match and serves 5 entire villages.
…1.1 billion people on earth – 1 in 6 – lack sufficient safe drinking water, and 5,000 children die every day as a result. I just can’t accept that in silence.”
Her humble, compassionate, friend to friend, follower to follower appeal worked.
More than $3,000 tips poured into tipjoy.com for the @wellwishes along with tweets and retweets reminding everyone to tip in til about 11:30 pm (e.s.t.) when Laura ustreamed her final pull for @wellwishes.
Widespread coverage of this campaign was signifcant during the holidays just one month ago:
Techcrunch encouraged “Tweet a last minute gift to Charity
Non Profit Social Media Strategist Beth Kanter wrote about this campaign as a bold experiment in microfunding
A blogger in the UK, Dan Thornton, wrote Making Charity Happen Via Twitter
Other posts flowed during the holidays including a few of mine.(see the list of related posts beneath the update on the campaign).
But for the past four weeks, the majority of the spread of awareness of @wellwishes has come from retweets and an occasional reminder post from Laura’s blog.
And in the coming days, analyses will show:
–how many hundreds of folks contributed tips through @tipjoy,
–how much they tipped
–how many twitter followers tweeted and retweeted the original message:
“p$2 @wellwishes for CharityWater to save lives. What can 2 do http://bit.ly/5Njr You can tweet to donate via @tipjoy too”
–what caused momentum to surge (especially from heartfelt pleas on @wellwishes in the past 48 hours).
But surely, @wellwishes will be seen as setting a precedent for the sheer volume of participants, amount raised and social media tool used.
And this is the thrilling part for me if I pause and ponder how significant an effort like this is and its impact on healing humanity.
Today 5 more villages will have clean water due to @wellwishes.
Tomorrow, who knows?
But one thing’s for certain, having proved what’s possible, it can only continue and continue to improve.
“With just $2 and a tweet” is how it all started less than two months ago and now, use of twitter is surely giving a whole new meaning to the phrases ‘be the change’ and ‘all it takes is one.’
And now, what are your thoughts as you read this and ponder the magnormity of the impact of this microdonating campaign?
If you didn’t know about the @wellwishes campaign for Charity:Water, and you’re interested in learning more of this global campaign for clean water, you’ll have an opportunity on February 12, 2009 to participate at a Twestival–a global ‘tweet up’–or gathering for Twitter friends and followers, in one of several major cities around the world.
If you don’t want to miss another microfundraising campaign, you can set up google alerts to tags like microdonating, twitter campaigns, tipjoy.com, or just keep listening on twitter and technorati.
If that last paragraph sounded like I was speaking Japanese, it’s okay. I’ve only been on twitter for about a year. Sign up at twitter.com and begin searching tag phrases you want to know who’s saying what about, like: microfundraising, microdonations, twitter campaigns, tipjoy, or the name of a cause you’re interested in like Charity:Water.
You can always do a google search for twitter tips and/ or leave a comment here.
More questions for you to ponder:
If you did know about this @wellwishes? How did you participate?
What are your thoughts on the use of social media for microfunding, microsharing?
How do you use social media tools currently?
Has this campaign changed the way you think about social media tools like twitter?
Thanks for continuing the conversation and for reading this post.
It’s truly an historic victory for social media and for twitter and my heart goes out to Laura for having her birthday wish come true, not to mention for all the villagers in the towns where the new wells will be built who’ll now have access to clean drinking water.
Keep the momentum going. Tweet about the upcoming twestivals and go to one and blog about it!
Til next post, much joy to you and be well–literally and figuratively especially today!! 🙂