🗝️ Welcome to Keynotes: Mastering Marketing for Nonprofits! 🚀
Hello Reader!
Welcome charity champs! Key your lovable raccoon raconteur here with a special edition of Keynotes focused on one particularly amazing human who raised $1m and became an overnight success (3+ years in the making).
Today, we’re covering the problem of virality and how to respond when a board member asks you to ‘go viral’, featuring a fundraising tool aimed to take your next fundraising event to the next level, and highlighting Russ Cook aka Hardest Geezer on his world record-breaking 16,000km run.
📬 Summary
This week, we’re diving into:
🕵️♂️ One Problem – Make it go viral!
🚀 One Tool – Givestar
🌟 One Story – Record-breaking running in Africa
🔍 One Problem – How do I politely tell a board member we can’t ‘just go viral’?
How many times has a board member asked you to make a viral post/campaign? If you answered never, you are one of the few lucky ones! We’ve heard this story many times over the years and found a few tactful ways to respond. If you want to see a full breakdown of an ‘overnight’ fundraising success, scroll down to check out our highlight to see the work that goes into a $1m fundraising campaign.Key’s notes on the ‘make it viral’ debate:
- Work with the board member
- Educate on campaign strategy
- Collaborate with them
- Strategize how to bring the idea to life
- Bring things back to your orgs mission
- Leverage data and analytics
First, treat the approach with enthusiasm because an engaged board member is largely a good thing! Someone coming to you with ideas is better than sitting amongst the tumbleweed on your own. I should know, I spend half my days sleeping amongst the weeds in your neighbour’s shed.
When it comes to responding, we find education and collaboration is best. Show the board member everything you do that goes into a regular campaign and how much time and money is often invested in a ‘simple’ project. Once the board member understands that you’re not just posting memes and twiddling your thumbs, they often begin to see the big picture.
After that, you can begin to strategize and evaluate their idea for feasibility. Propose a strategy workshop where you can pull in more team members and work through the idea strategically to make it a success. Talk about how this campaign falls into your long-term mission and vision, and try to tie things back into your goals for the year.
Lastly back up any of your opinions with data where possible. Hard numbers go a long way so if you can find a benchmark or report with stats, all the better!
This week we’re highlighting a tool that aims to combine the power of social media with fundraising to create a community-based fundraising approach. Givestar likes to ‘connect good intent to positive action and make it a joy’. Now that’s an easy mission to get behind.
The platform, similar to Just Giving or GoFundMe, has a couple of features that aim to make it stand out from the crowd.
Boost Donate – This nifty feature lets you take donations through your phone without the need for any additional hardware, making it a win for any in-person fundraising events
Split Donate – Break up your fundraising and share the spoils with up to four charities simultaneously. The Split Donate feature is currently being used by our highlight of the month on his mission to raise one million pounds for The Running Charity and Sandblast.
In terms of fees, Givestar sits on par with the other big players and comes in cheaper than some other social integrations.
Overall, if you need a platform for your next fun run, or gallery fundraiser, or want to climb Kilimanjaro while carrying a fridge, Givestar could be for you!
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🏅 One Highlight
This week’s highlight is almost unbelievable.
Can you imagine running a marathon every day for almost an entire year?! What about doing it through the Sahara desert? Through sandstorms, across 16 countries, after being robbed at gunpoint, and getting lost in the jungle? Russ Cook aka Hardest Geezer has done just that. This overnight success (three years in the making) has shown the immense power of the human body and managed to raise over $1m in the process.
He’s been vlogging the entire experience on his YouTube and Instagram channels racking up tens of millions of views along the way. Alongside the money, his charities have seen a massive boost in awareness thanks to his record-breaking running efforts. This fundraiser drives home the immense amount of work that goes into a successful fundraising campaign. over 80% of Russ’s donations came in the last two weeks of the challenge. This means he was running a marathon a day for 340 days before ‘going viral’
Quick-fire stats from the run:
- 352 days of running
- 386 marathons completed
- 4,000-kilometre detour
- 16,294km total distance covered
- 19.1 million steps made
- $1,105,139 raised (£882,548 so far)
This mission would not have been possible without half a dozen people in his support team, sponsors like Huel, Perfect Ted, and HOKA. Doctors, embassy employees, and random members of the public helped make this challenge succeed. So when people say it takes a village, sometimes that is literal!
So the next time your board member asks for a post to go viral, let them know to get their running shoes on and strap in for a year of work!
🌎 Good News From Around The Web
Child see clearly for the first time in his life thanks to these glasses
Police academy dog drops out but becomes a hero during an earthquake in Taiwan
Lonely mom found the perfect stand-in grandma after an online search
This animal shelter is empty for the first time in 50 years!
And that’s a wrap! I hope this week’s edition of Keynotes sparked your fundraising enthusiasm and gave you some ideas for handling the board next time you are asked to make a viral video.
If you need me, I’ll be copying Russ Cook by running a marathon through the backyards of your neighbourhood, eating bugs and grubs along the way.
See you next week, my nonprofit pals.
Trash panda salutes.
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Key
Your friendly neighbourhood raccoon
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