Linda Jones is a name known to many in the blogging world because of all the projects she's involved in. But one type of project is very close to her heart. Here she writes about blogging for charity and shares her tips so you can too.
As the tragedy of earthquake and tsunami unfurls in Japan, parent bloggers are harnessing the power of social media to help those devastated.
Rebecca at Two Become Four rounded up ways that the community have rallied round: How can we help Japan?
Over on the BMB forum, members are swapping ideas and updates about how best to help and monitoring the situation.
I’ve been helping freelance journalist and blogger Keris Stainton whose Authors for Japan auction has some amazing ‘money can’t buy’ items from some of the UK’s top fiction talent. We are working around the clock to encourage bids, raise awareness and get things moving. Bids close on Sunday and donations go to the Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal.
Last year high profile charity social media missions such as Blogadesh and Pampers with Unicef reached an audience of millions, proving massively worthwhile for the expert PR teams behind them. At the last count Authors for Japan was getting more than 25,000 hits a day.
Yet for every coordinated major campaign bringing bloggers together for a humanitarian cause, there are also plenty of other bloggers working at a more grass roots level to help local or smaller charities close to their heart.
They may ask for sponsorship in a sporting event through their blog, launch a JustGiving page for a family-related charity or join forces with other bloggers to pack more of a punch.
At Have a Lovely Time, we raised more than £1,000 for Naccpo, the National Association of Childhood Cancer Patient Organisations, by asking bloggers to donate when we supplied them with freebie tickets for reviews of family attractions or Christmas pantomimes.
Now we have teamed up with Cathy from NurtureStore to help a hospice through a sunflower challenge. We’re asking people to grow a sunflower for the chance to win some great prizes and support the hospice with a donation at the same time.
I’m actually drumming up support for this initiative as part of my work, as I help with marketing and publicity material – so it’s very heartening and interesting to see how blogging can make a difference.
My first foray into social media for a charity cause was putting together a book of new comedy writing through Twitter – in a month. It was a steep learning curve. I look back and wonder what the hell I was thinking but am pleased that we achieved something. Our aim was to raise £500 and we managed that – but boy it was a lot of work. Did I mention we did it in a month?
Two years later, I’m now also working with Play England and Robinsons Fruit Shoot at www.readyforten.com as they seek nominations from parents for playgrounds that need some TLC to be done up with a £15,000 renovation bursary. I’m joined in my quest by Patsy Kensit – which is a welcome bonus!
I thought it might be helpful as someone who has been involved in these grass root initiatives to write about some pointers based on hard-learned lessons for anyone considering a similar venture. Here are 10 – I hope they may be useful:
1. Make your initiative fun – Quirky and different will get people’s attention. It sounds obvious, but really, play devil’s advocate with yourself – why would people be interested in your idea? Is it fun? If not, start again!
2. Ask yourself, What’s in it for supporters? The aspect that I have had the most feedback so far about with our sunflower challenge is the prizes, which people have said they love. It has taken hard work to pull them off but we are chuffed. I’ve also seen a lot of bad feeling expressed online about charity campaigns which people perceive as some sort of treat for the people taking part, are people really going to want to sponsor you or donate if your ‘challenge’ basically looks like a “jolly”?
3. Enthuse others – Get people excited about your campaign, provide resources such as an ebook or a blog badge to help people spread the word
4. That said, manage your expectations – When you dive in to a charity project, it can be tempting to think that everyone will love your idea. They won’t. And even if they do, it can take a while.
5. Set a realistic target if you are raising money and welcome every penny – times are tough
6. Team up – Find like-minded bloggers who can increase your chances of success
7. Brace yourself for negativity – I encountered trolls and pretty nasty messages when I did the comedy book. Some of the criticism of Comic Relief and where the money is spent, really stung. To be accused of fraud by a disgruntled charity worker stung even more. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that everyone will agree with what you are doing and be prepared to tackle opposition. People will question your motives, your methods, anything really and thanks to Twitter, facebook and blog comments, they can do this more publicly than ever.
8. Celebrity backing can be marvellous but don’t overdo the asking – and choose your celeb wisely. Again, manage your expectations, so what if someone tweets a link to your blog? You may get plenty of new traffic for the blink of an eye (10,000 in an hour from Mr Fry) but how many of those new visitors will actually put their hands in their pockets? Hopefully the answer is plenty, but who knows?
9. Promote your initiative offline too – Discuss publicity opportunities with your chosen charity, spread the word through your email signature, posters, leaflets, press releases and more.
10. Keep saying thank you. Show people how much you appreciate the time, trouble (and potential expense) they have gone to and however much they have been able to spare. It's a personal bugbear through my experience of working with charities that anyone's contribution is ever overlooked.
-- Linda Jones
Photo: Detail of Charity by Sir Joesph Boehm, photographed Mira66, via Flickr
