Social media is a great tool for sharing moments with your friends and loved ones and has catapulted international communication to a level never seen before. It has also raised the profile of many worthy causes such as Lou Gehrig’s Disease with the Ice Bucket Challenge which has seen the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association increase the size of its donations from $2.7m to $98.2m within just a year.
But where is the line between genuinely caring about a worthy cause and promoting yourself through social media? Did Michelle Keegan really wear make-up for her #nomakeupselfie? Is the #nomakeupselfie just trivializing breast cancer?
Some people argue that despite all the controversy surrounding online viral fundraising campaigns, the end goal of raising money is still achieved and organisations benefiting from the influx of donations such as ALSA and Cancer Research can go on to do a better job with the cash that they have raised.
However, one of the main worries for non-profit organisations is that interest in these causes is just a flash in the pan and donations will start to falter once again. Post-#nomakeupselfie and #ALSicebucketchallenge, charities are still fighting to survive another day.
So what can we do? Take action. Do something about it. It’s easy to set up a ShareAGift page and invite friends to donate. Take a look at the stories and testimonials from past fundraisers that have proven to be huge successes from Jamey and Willow to name just a few. Here at ShareAGift, we believe that no cause is too small. You can easily collect funds online and share your worthy cause.
Its very true that raising fund is getting tough these days. Not because that people are not willing to donate, but because the number of NGOs has increased a lot. People find tough to find the right charity organization to donate. But social media and online viral fundraising campaigns is playing a good role in raising fund indeed. Its really very effective, it create brand value, increase popularity etc.