I’ve written about the impact of Facebook on everything from chocolate manufacturers to banks, and now it seems that charities are benefiting too. Earlier this week I received a invitation from my cousin, via Facebook, to sponsor her for the Great North Run. This struck me as an excellent use of social networking, so I decided to investigate the sponsorship site she used, www.justgiving.com, a little further.
If you’re doing a sponsored event Just Giving enables you to collect sponsorship money through its site. The obvious benefit is that you can collect sponsorship money online, giving you a much wider reach than simply passing a photocopied form around the office. The site has been successful and it vies with the National Trust (and, more recently, the Find Madeleine Fund) for the number one spot in our Community category.

It seems that I’m not the first person to receive a sponsorship request via a social network: last Wednesday Facebook ranked second in terms sending traffic to Just Giving. As the graph below illustrates, email is still a more popular way of requesting sponsorship, but social networks are catching up fast.

However, Just Giving is the exception rather than the rule in the charity sector. Less than 4% of upstream traffic to the Community category came from Net Communities and Chat category last month. We’re currently looking into the ways that charities can benefit from Web 2.0 and my colleage Anton Grutzmacher is speaking on the topic at an Institute of Fundraising event later this week. If you’re at the conference please come along to the presentation, but if not, keep checking the blog and I’ll post some of the findings next week.
Finally, my cousin is running to collect money for Help the Aged – a noble cause if ever there was one. If you’re feeling generous, you can donate here.