For a lot of my life I have been heavily involved as a volunteer with various charities. In all these organisations I have been involved in fundraising as fundraising is one of the key things that any charity does. Because of this I am always interested in ways that charities raise funds and how they engage with their supporters.
Another passion of mine is social media so when I see organisations using social media in a creative way to raise funds and awareness it always grabs my attention. One great campaign earlier this year was from Cancer Research UK with their “No Makeup Selfie” where females posted photos of themselves without makeup to their facebook, instagram and twitter accounts, at the same time making a donation to the charity. This really captured the imagination, was empowering to those that took park, became a trend and raised a truck load of cash.
The campaign recently that has caught my attention is the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.” This involves people being brave enough to either tip a bucket of ice over their own head or have it done to them by someone else whilst it is being filmed. The video is then uploaded to social media with the person who does the challenge then challenging 3 other people to do the challenge and most importantly donating money to the ALS charity.
You can draw a lot of similarities between this craze and the “NeckNominate” craze which was headline news earlier this year, both involved posting a video of yourself performing a challenge on social media whilst challenging others to do their own. The “NeckNominate” craze however endangered people’s lives as they tried to pull the most outrageous stunt whilst downing a pint of alcohol. Although the ice bucket challenge is slightly risky the worst you’re likely to get from it is a cold.
I think it’s great when charities see what works on social media like selfies and “NeckNominate” then putting their own spin on it to create positive campaigns that engage people and raise valuable funds.