We recently bragged about how the NTEN 501 Tech Club in Austin helped get social media users involved in the Capital Area Food Bank food drive. Now, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, they've teamed up with other tech-savvy do-gooders to deploy a 5-day online donation campaign.

Using widgets and friend-to-friend appeals through social networks, they hope to raise $5,000 in 5 days. (Thanks to @SusanReynolds for the heads-up!).

Flickr: Si1veryEarlier this summer, our 501 Tech Club friends in Austin, TX helped organize a Tweet-up blood drive with the Austin Social Media Club with great success: new folks made their way to donate blood after hearing about it through Twitter.

They're at it again this month -- September is Hunger Action Month -- helping to organize education and donation opportunities for the Austin community in the first ever Ham-Up Tweet-up.

NTEN Member David Neff, from the American Cancer Society in Austin, Texas produced this video to document a recent Tweet Up Blood Drive he helped organize through his local 501 Tech Club and Social Media Club.

I came across a blog post today that made me smile (and not just because of thejustgiving.com great vocabulary used across the Pond). It's a simple and straight-forward example of how easy it is for someone to use free, fast, online tools to raise money for his or her favorite cause. Here's an excerpt:

"I've just had a rather intense week of trying to use social media to raise funds and by and large succeeding. Inevitably this story involves blogging and tweeting and people I don't know very well being incredibly generous...."

David Harte, Digital Central project manager at Birmingham City University and contributor to the Birmingham Post's Business Blog, decided to try a spur-of-the-moment fundraising campaign one week before he ran in the London Marathon. He didn't have to raise money for a charity, but he decided he wanted to try to help his favorite, St. Mary's Hospice. His goal was £495, and he ended up raising over £300 (and he's still raising money for his cause online).

Your guide to resources that will help you put technology to work for your cause.

Get the Most Out of Your Online Campaign

> While more Americans are learning about this year's electioneering from their daily newspaper than the Internet, social media tools have gained traction. Wired recently took a look at one campaign's use of new technologies in "The Tech of Obamamania". You can get the NPTech slant on the election from Care2's Election Blog.

> Of course, most nonprofits aren't trying to win an election, but many of the fundraising and organizational principals remain the same. And while there's been a lot of buzz about the death of social networking -- be sure the check out Slate's "The Facebook Philanthropos" -- Beth Kanter assures us that the reports are overblown. We just need to think more strategically about how we're using all the new toys.

> In that spirit, you may want to take a look at the online campaigning overview on CNN -- yes, CNN! (Sometimes, sound bites are helpful.) -- before checking out two posts on the Wild Apricot blog: "7 Tips to Make Your Charity Badge a Success" and "Online Fundraising 101". Network for Good's study on "The Wired Fundraiser" is also an excellent resource. 

Organize Volunteers Online

> Having trouble keeping your supporters' version of your message in line? Beth's got you covered: "My Organization's Fundraiser Was Abducted by Aliens!"

> And while you could just start your own social networking site, with your own rules, wouldn't be easier just to get the recording of Peter Deitz's excellent webinar, "Sharing the Message: How to Work Effectively with Your Organization's Wired Fundraisers". (Might this be a good use of NTEN's new webinar MultiPasses? Yes, it might.)

> Wait, what's that you say? You have to organize real, live people? Oh, boy. Fortunately, NTEN Members enjoy a discount on Mission Research's GiftWorks, which has a Volunteer Management component. The World Cares Center offers trainings for working with volunteers in disaster situations. And Coyote Communications has a good section on volunteer management, including an overview of available software options.

> If you just want to volunteer yourself, you've got a lot of options, like Network for Good, VolunteerMatch, and the unfortunately named Nabuur.com. 

Rock YouTube

> So, you want to rock YouTube harder than the dueling 1984 parody ads created by rogue supporters of the Clinton and Obama campaigns? First, get your organization signed up for YouTube's nonprofit program. Then, follow Holly Ross's advice and check out Project for Awesome.

> This guy's got an oh-so-meta series on gaining YouTube subscribers. You can also dress up your video using one of the many tools available or by following some tongue-in-cheek advice from across the pond. Just take care: as NPR reports, somebody may put the "anti" in "social media" by critiquing your video.

Justin Perkins, Heather Holdridge, & James O’Malley, Care2

It's happening.

A few small nonprofits with distributed networks of volunteers are swamping social networks and raising thousands of dollars for orphans in China and other worthy causes. Obama, Edwards and Ron Paul have seen droves of new donors come out of the woodwork with surprising speed.

Though the tried and true one-to-many broadcast model is still working, plenty of examples confirm the notion that loose distributed networks with very little centralized oversight or control can rally together around a common goal in support of an organization -- both nonprofits and political candidates.

bigmouthmediaI've heard a lot of buzz today about the apparent bursting of the social media bubble for campaign purposes.

Just as I was forming my own thoughts around this, coming up with the example of Barack Obama's grassroots online fundraising success, I came across this article in Slate, which also points to the Obama campaign as an example of success.

The article refers to the recent Case Foundation fundraising contests (which we've blogged about here), skeptically asserting:

"The amounts involved show that Case understands these endeavors are more social experiment than nonprofit sweepstakes. Sure, prizes of $50,000 matter for the winning organizations, as do the overall dollars raised... But the denominations of the donations remain small, and it's not clear that one-off contests will lead to more. Any fund-raising professional knows that most nonprofit organizations secure the bulk of their money from a relatively small number of large contributions, either from wealthy individuals or institutional sources. Those gifts demand personal cultivation, and an online nudge doesn't usually do it."

But what about Barack Obama's stunning fundraising model of reaching out to many online donors online, asking them to contribute small amounts?