Two Innovative Approaches to Nonprofit Fundraising

Having worked in the nonprofit fundraising sector for many years, it’s always interesting to learn of the many different ways charities and their supporters find to raise money and increase awareness for their cause. The explosion of online platforms, social media and mobile devices has truly changed, in fact revolutionized, the fundraising landscape. In my ongoing search for the next new nonprofit fundraising concept, I recently came across two innovative approaches that have been launched – one involves celebrities and the other involves swearing.

Mozilla Firefox Challenge for Nonprofit Fundraising

The popular internet browser company Mozilla Firefox has extended a challenge to celebrities to see who one can raise the most money for their selected charity/cause. Mozilla Firefox has donated $5,000 to each initial participating campaign to start and the campaign that raises the most money wins and will be awarded with $25,000 for their represented charity.

Initially there were only 12 celebrities on the list, including (represented charity in brackets): Jason Bateman (City Year); David Blaine (Charity: Water); Sophia Bush (F Cancer); Zooey Deschanel (The Innocence Project); Will Ferrell (Cancer for College); Jonah Hill (Nothing But Nets); Edward Norton (The Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust); Sean Penn (The J/P Haitian Relief Organization); Seth Rogan (The Alzheimer’s Association); Paul Rudd (The Rolling Dog Farm); Barbara Streisand (Cedar-Sinai Women’s Heart Center); and Christy Turlington Burns (Every Mother Counts). The list has grown and other celebrities have joined the challenge, including Charlie Sheen, American Idol’s David Cook and Survivor: Africa winner Ethan Zohn.

Celebrities and their supporters create giving pages on the crowd sourcing site Crowdrise  and each celebrity provides donors an incentive based on a minimum dollar amount that is donated. To date the front runners seem to be Jonah Hill ($45K+), Sophia Bush ($43K+) and Edward Norton ($40K+)

The program launched on December 13th and runs until tomorrow January 11th at midnight, so it’s not too late to support your favorite celebrity or your favorite charity or cause. To participate or to learn more, visit the Mozilla Firefox Challenge website.

Charity Swear Box

Much like the an old fashioned swear jar which is next to extinct now a days, the Charity Swear Box capitalizes on the use of swear words or foul language to raise money for charity. Created by James Dow and Jay Gelardi, this is an incredibly innovative way to take an old concept and modernize into today’s online world.

Designed as an online swear box, the participant can register and enter their Twitter handle and the platform searches for swear words cross-referenced against their extensive Swear Dictionary which contains 292 swear words or variation of swear words on Twitter.

The initial donation amount is set at $1 per word and this can be adjusted to your own donation amount preference and can be directed to the charity of choice that is participating. Culprit’s (aka donors) data including tweets, donation amounts and leader board positions can be displayed if they chose to do so and the actual donation is also optional. Although, in the spirit of participation and contributing to the greater good of a charity, signing up has led to over $40,900 dollars raised for charities like 50/50, F^@# Cancer, Beat Bullying and Instrument Lenders Canada.

Although, I agree with their slogan “I swear to do my bit” I must confess I came out clean – check out how you can do your bit.

These innovative approaches to nonprofit fundraising not only raise much needed cash in these challenging times but also raise awareness of these very worthy causes which can have lasting value to the charity.
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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.