With UGA Miracle’s 24 hour Dance Marathon coming up this weekend, the only thing on my mind has been fundraising. I still have some work to do to meet my fundraising goals for the year, and to accomplish my goals, I turned to social media. My Facebook and Twitter feeds have been occupied by other UGA Miracle fundraisers, who, like myself, have more money to raise before the big event. I’ve been using these platforms to share the link to my personal fundraising page where family and friends can donate to my fundraising total online. Many student run philanthropies at the University of Georgia have turned to online fundraising platforms like Donor Drive (used by UGA Miracle) to help them maximize their fundraising footprint and to provide an easy and safe way for everyone to give to the cause.
Now, everyday fundraisers and people who give to philanthropies via online transaction have a way to measure their impact, almost like a Klout score measures social media impact. A new tool from the Australian peer-to-peer giving site Everydayhero is designed to measure not only the impact of your online donations, but also your social engagement with various causes.
Much like Marc Jacobs did last week in their Tweet Shop, Everydayhero’s Giving Footprint tool recognizes the importance of social media engagement and the direct impact it has on the causes that are being shared. That’s right, this tool shows how your volunteer work and your engagement with the cause on the social web adds to the cause’s success. Fundraising totals are just one measure of philanthropy. Data gathered from an individual’s social media fundraising efforts as well as their volunteer records incorporated with a fundraising total help tell the whole story of their passion and devotion to their favorite cause. This tool will provide users with encouragement and a sense of achievement as they see their holistic efforts recognized and quantified in relation to the overall success of the organizations they support.
For college students like me who devote time, passion, and social media newsfeed space to causes like UGA Miracle, Giving Footprint can illustrate the many ways in which our online campaigns for causes have made a measurable impact in the same way that a monetary donation can.