Peter Deitz, Micro-Philanthropy Consultant

When it comes to online fundraising, an obvious tip is to meet your current and potential donors where they are. Today, millions of prospective donors between the ages of 18 and 35 find themselves on Facebook.

In June 2007, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the release of FBML, a scripting language that assists developers in creating custom “applications” for the popular social network and its 40 million active users. Each application enhances the functionality of Facebook in one way or another. Some build bridges to external web sites. Others help friends on Facebook interact in new ways.

Within days of the announcement, developers at Change.org, ChipIn, and Firstgiving chartered their courses for Facebook. Their common goal: to create applications that would add unprecedented fundraising capabilities to the most ‘sticky’ web site in history. Facebook is considered ‘sticky’ because 50% of its users return to the site daily.

While the developers at Change.org, ChipIn, and Firstgiving built their applications, a little-known company with close ties to Facebook rocketed into the fundraising space. In June 2007, Project Agape secured over one million users for its feature-rich fundraising application called Causes.

By September, Change.org, ChipIn, and Firstgiving had joined Project Agape in the fundraising space on Facebook, along with at least eight other charity apps.

The four major fundraising applications—Causes, Change.org, ChipIn, and Fundraising—add a powerful civic layer to the often fleeting world that is Facebook.

To help tech-savvy nonprofits sort through the fundraising options, this brief guide includes:

• An introduction to Causes, Change.org, ChipIn and Fundraising
• Suggestions for leveraging several fundraising applications at the same time

An Introduction to Causes, Change.org, ChipIn, and Fundraising

Since Facebook’s fundraising applications are continuously updated, the following survey takes into account both current and anticipated features.

Of the four applications, Causes and Change.org offer the broadest range of constituent-building tools. Active users of Causes and Change.org can initiate a campaign, post related news articles and videos, invite friends to join, discuss the campaign, donate to affiliated nonprofits or politicians, as well as feature the campaign on their Facebook profile. As these actions are taken, a user’s personal news feed is updated in real-time. As a result, friends and family can keep tabs on the user’s civic participation.

Causes and Change.org differ significantly in one key respect. The activity spaces on Change.org are geared toward issues in general; organizations and politicians can be associated with any of the ‘Changes’ initiated by community members. By contrast, each new ‘Cause’ created through Project Agape’s application raises money for a single organization or politician.

The goal for an organization, therefore, is to have its Change.org profile associated with as many relevant ‘Changes’ as possible and to have its Causes profile selected as the unique beneficiary of as many ‘Causes’ as possible. A representative from the nonprofit can then log into either system to track where their profile appears and in what ways Facebook users are interacting with it.

Causes and Change.org are designed to help organizations build long-term relationships with engaged supporters. In a June webinar for NTEN, Randall Winston of Causes described the underlying mission of Project Agape as helping organizations achieve “network growth by design.”

Change.org’s Ben Rattray describes his company’s Facebook application as “a strong value proposition for organizations.” Rattray explained in a recent interview, “If you look at the most successful social movements, they have all had strong organizations behind them.” Change.org’s corresponding mandate is to help organizations sustain supporter engagement over time.

In both cases, “sustained supporter engagement”’ and “network growth by design” are goals that go far beyond donations in the bank. In this way, Causes and Change.org differ from Facebook’s two other major fundraising applications.

The ChipIn and Fundraising applications are focused on meeting specific fundraising goals. The absence of unwieldy community-building features combined with a transactional design serves as a reminder to users that a solicitation is occurring.

Recently, Firstgiving’s Fundraising application experienced higher participation rates than the Causes and Change.org applications. This performance advantage may have been the result of a more streamlined set of possible actions.

Thos Niles of Firstgiving describes the Fundraising application as “focused tightly around fundraising, not advocacy.” Niles explained that the straight-up emphasis on fundraising goals was a deliberate attempt to avoid situations where users do not donate because the number of possible actions has overwhelmed them.

The ChipIn application, in name and form, is equally geared toward meeting fundraising goals. Their ground-breaking widget looks almost identical in Facebook as it does elsewhere on the web. In fact, Jason Ricci of ChipIn points out that the Facebook application currently has more features and tracking capabilities than its non-Facebook predecessor. This will change in early October, with the launch of ChipIn, v4.

The new ChipIn will include a NetworkforGood payment gateway as well as a one-click “add to your Facebook profile” button. This development positions ChipIn as the go-to solution for nonprofits wishing to build viral fundraising campaigns that can flourish in Facebook without being limited to it.

Firstgiving and Change.org are not far behind ChipIn in this regard. Firstgiving pages come with a flash widget that can spread a fundraising campaign well beyond the initial fundraising page. Change.org will soon integrate ‘fundraising networks’ in their Facebook application. Facebook users who start a Change.org fundraising network in support of a unique organization on Facebook can subsequently spread the campaign beyond Facebook by using the Change.org widget.

The challenge for Project Agape at this point is to create tools that allow the activity on Causes to leap beyond Facebook.

Why Choose Just One? An Integrated Approach to Raising Money on Facebook

Nonprofits are learning—if slowly— that maintaining an authentic presence on social networks is hard work, but necessary. One way to ensure success is to experiment with what’s cool in the same way that your supporters are experimenting.

You can start by creating a profile on both Causes and Change.org.

Encourage your supporters to create or participate in Causes that benefit your organization. Then encourage them to spread these Causes to their friends and family.

At the same time (or a few weeks later), you can mention Change.org to your supporters. Encourage them to add your organization to the relevant Changes. If none exist, ask them to start a Change that relates to your organization’s work.

And what about ChipIn and Firstgiving?

ChipIn’s fundraising widget is a powerful tool you can put in the hands of your most dedicated supporters. Your organization should write a blog entry exclusively on how supporters can use ChipIn to raise money for your organization. It helps to tie these widget fundraising campaigns to specific outcomes and projects.

Before writing a post about ChipIn, however, you should wait for their integration with NetworkforGood’s payment gateway. As part of your blog entry, you can also mention ChipIn’s one click “Add to your Facebook profile” button (coming soon).

Firstgiving has nearly five years of experience in person-to-person fundraising. If Project Agape is the elephant within Facebook, then Firstgiving is the elephant everywhere else when it comes to person-to-person fundraising.

Large or small organization that are looking for a solution that incorporates person-to-person fundraising pages, Facebook integration with an emphasis on money raised, as well as access to a Flash widget may find that Firstgiving is their ideal platform.

Whether you choose to experiment with just one fundraising application, or all four, remember to let your supporters do the talking. Your organization is on Facebook to introduce supporters to the tools, not to evangelize the mission.

[Originally published by Peter Deitz at http://www.socialactions.com/raise-money-on-facebook]