Allison Fine, social change blogger and author of “Momentum: Igniting social change in the connected age”, recently wrote a post criticizing Mashable’s Summer of Social Good (full disclosure: SM4SC is a partner in the SoSG) for its claim to be “the first large scale online charitable campaign to raise funds strictly online through the power of Social Media and the Internet.” She cites America’s Giving Challenge, a 50-day campaign sponsored by the Case Foundation that raised $1.7M from 80,000 donations, as one such campaign.
What Allison, and a few of her commenters, seem to have missed is the part about using only social media and the internet.
For America’s Giving Challenge, Parade magazine made a huge push for its readership, both on- and offline, to donate, resulting in 48,711 donations totaling over $1.2M. With its 33 million-unit circulation, Parade has the kind of direct marketing reach that nearly any social campaign would be happy to have access to. Without such a push, America’s Giving Challenge would have looked considerably different. (I look forward to a full review of the campaign that Allison and Beth Kanter have written that the Case Foundation is releasing next month).
Mashable has no such offline help.
What the Summer of Social Good has going for it the nearly 1.9 million visitors that go to Mashable.com each month; its network of followers and fans on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere online; and the networks of its partners and of the beneficiary charities – Oxfam Internation, the World Wildlife Foundation, the Humane Society of the United States, and Livestrong: the Lance Armstrong foundation.
What I really question, though, is why there even needs to be an argument over who did what first.
Sure, Mashable borrowed from America’s Giving Challenge, and they could have heeded a few things from that earlier effort, but in the end, shouldn’t we simply celebrate groups – whether blogs or magazines or groups of friends – who work to motivate their networks to give of themselves?
