Archive for the 'Liz B.' category

My experience with CrowdFunding – the way it was meant to be.

May 08 2012 Published by under Liz B.

Preface: I love philanthropy and supporting causes and this is not my first time GIVING! However, this is my first time falling for the “crowdfunding” trick.

And in general I’ve always been wary of Kickstarter and Indie Go Go because of the fees associated with their services and a little skepticism behind who and what causes can put a project up on the site.

Working for Building Tomorrow we see crowdfunding happen every day. Every on-campus event our chapters host has some sort of crowd funding. Millennials love giving this way. They know that their $1 donation will be paired with hundreds of other $1 donations that will in turn make an impact.

This on-campus crowd funding works on one level. The chapter raises funds and each donor feels significant when they give.

Kickstarter and the likes however, work on another level. They show you exactly who else is giving and therefore how your $1 or $10 donation has already been paired up with a $100 and a $250 donation to make that $1000 goal actually attainable.

My best friend from high school is writing the lyrics for a musical that’s showing off Broadway in New York. Her team used Kickstarter to raise $1000 to help cover the costs of putting the show together, rehearsing and all that entails. Check out her project here!

A little more background, I’m not a glamorous giver or even an impulse giver. All of my donations are monthly direct deposits – I know living on the edge. But I gave to my friend’s project. One of my few impulse donations of the year.

 

Here is why:

1. Accountability.

Despite not always loving Kickstarter and other crowd funding tools they DO do a good job of creating accountability and demonstrating the need. After the project was funded we received an email from my friend outlining the budget for the project and where money would be spent.

2. Guaranteed impact.

My fear usually in donating to a friend’s cause or project is that the impact won’t matter. It won’t be significant enough or the project overall won’t receive enough funding to “make it.” With Kickstarter, I saw very clearly that they would reach their goal. They already had larger supporters – $250 or $500. I knew that my donation would be part of the total impact. Something that I’m usually not fooled by but in seeing how many other “Backers” were already on board. It actually did make me feel more confident that my donation would be impactful.

3. It was my friend.

Might be obvious but this is a HUGE reason that millennials give and that crowdfunding can work. I had every confidence in her and I could actually see her personality in the project – in the description, the picture, her name was on it, everything. It was excited to join with her in this project because she owned it. I gave not only because I cared about the project but I cared about her and could see her in the project.

Bottom Line: Crowdfunding is the future. There is no question about it. Millennial donors are leading the way in this. They give knowing that their gift will be made significant by the many others giving. They give knowing that the funds will be used for a specific project. And they give because of personal reasons – they listen to their peers and will give $1, $10, $25 to a cause that their friend has taken up as their own.

One response so far

Is Texting Dying?

Feb 29 2012 Published by under Liz B.

writer’s note: I was dying last week – with the flu/some bug and therefore this might be the shortest blogpost ever. But I had to pick this topic because I am really curious what others think.

by Liz B.

Recently, I’ve been noticing that texting does not always provide a quicker response than email. I’ve also probably sent more unanswered texts then unanswered emails (to people I know). This may be indicative of the difference between personal and work relationships and the necessity to respond but I think it also indicates the slow death of the text message and here is why.

You can’t talk to a wall

When you send a text on your phone there is no indication as to whether or not that person is near their phone, has time to respond, or even that their phone is on and working. I live hundreds of miles from my closest friends and usually when I send them a text message, I don’t expect an immediate response. It’s more of a – just thinking about you and here’s this funny thing that I saw on TV. And I know that when they get around to it, they might respond. I also know that they might not respond. I almost feel like texting is turning into the snail mail of our age. Sure, I sent a friendly note but when you send a greeting card to a friend you don’t really expect a letter in response, do you? Text messages for me are more like “just sending this your way for whenever you get a chance to read it and we can have a conversation over a couple of day’s span, responding when we each have time.”

Which brings me to my second point…

There are more instant, responsive ways of communicating.

Last week, when I got sick. I had a 20+ email conversation with one of my colleagues. I was emailing from my phone and she was on her computer. This was more instant and responsive than text messaging because she responded to my email. I knew she was on her email and that if I replied she would be available. For texting – sure if someone responds you know they are available but I can almost guarantee a response from my other millennials if I email during the day and its just a quick question. I can also guarantee that if I gchat a friend who is “available” that they will at least respond with – sorry heading into a meeting if they can’t talk. Texting lacks multiple response outlets and the ability to tell follower texters if you are available. You can email from anywhere but you can only text message from your phone.

and finally….

Millennials are on their computers 20 times more than on their cellphones.

Think about this - if you left your cell phone at home – how many people would you really need to email or contact to let them know you won’t be responding to their texts that day. Now think about what if your email disappeared for the day and you stopped tweeting and you weren’t on g-chat or Facebook chat or ichat – yes I still use ichat. How many people might notice? This actually happened to me last week because I was out ill and therefore asleep with my phone but not my computer. I finally got a text from my best friend who g chats me occasionally asking if I was alive because she hadn’t seen me on in three days. For millennials whose jobs revolve around their computer, texting is becoming OLD and SLOW and non-adjustable.

final writer’s note – I totally concede that it might simply be that texting isn’t dying and I just don’t have friends that text me. Feel free to let me know that texting is alive and well. Also I am curious to see if something like iMessage might provide a revamp of the text message system.

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To learn more from or connect with Liz, follow her on Twitter (where she might respond quicker than a text) – @LizBraden33.
You can also follow the entire Millennial Chat team here.
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What do you think?
Is texting alive and well? Or is it dying?
Comment below, join the discussion on Facebook, or tweet us!

4 responses so far

Do you feel the need to put your brand on every social media site?

Jan 24 2012 Published by under Liz B. 

by Liz B.

Based on last week’s chat, I’ve been thinking more and more about why I have this need to make sure Building Tomorrow, the organization I work for, is on every single social media site, when really with a three person staff we’re lucky to maintain consistency on Twitter and Facebook. And I think I’ve found the answer to my nagging question. We continue to create new accounts, research the latest site, and ask our friends to ‘follow’ ‘join our circle’ or ‘pin’ us because we still haven’t received the response from our audience that we want.

Our audience is almost completely millennial therefore I think it might be safe to say that social media for companies, brands, and nonprofits isn’t quite perfect yet. Here are a few things I’m still looking for from social media sites in the what I like to call “friend/brand” interaction.

Just dropping a note 

Here’s my dream scenario. “1. Friend of Building Tomorrow sees a grant or a cool article or a neat-o picture of Uganda or students wearing a BT shirt. 2. Friend then sends it to the brand via social media where others can see it. 3. Brand casually says “awesome” “thanks” “cool” right back. 4. Other people can see this interaction but the ‘friend’ and ‘brand’ don’t have to be formal.”

The truth is that this could happen on Facebook but I feel like unless a “friend” personally knows the staff and people behind the brand they might feel a little awkward encroaching on a brand’s Facebook page. There’s a sense that the page is meant for posts from the brand not necessarily about the brand. It would be almost like creating a page where it’s simply all the things that people say about the brand – but again somehow without being formal and stuffy but still filtered and relevant.

A solution might be in Pinterest here. Although I haven’t explored yet. It would be cool if a friend could pin something and then tag a brand in it so that the pin shows up on that brand’s radar too. And so that when a friend of the friend looks at the pin they could find a link directly to the brand’s page.

Conversation, Discussion, Real Answers 

Here.. I don’t have a dream scenario. My dream is simply to get responses, reactions, and comments from our audience. The reason I have this consistent itch to put our brand on other social media outlets is I think that maybe there more people would respond to us, maybe they would prefer that outlet to talk about x, y, and z in relation to our brand.

The main hindrance with social media outlets today is the lack of a space where people can talk about the brand and the brand can be involved but doesn’t have to moderate or be too present so that people will be honest.

A solution may be in Tumblr. If we could find a way to encourage multiple friends of the brand to post on the page themselves and use it sort of as a public blogging forum but about the brand and their reactions, concerns, questions, and favorites within the brand and what they do.

Be Comfortable

Comfortable

We want you to be THIS comfortable. (flickr photo by David~O)

Finally, my biggest reason for continuing to put our brand on other social media sites is that we still haven’t found the perfect balance needed for comfortable conversation and posting. We certainly post on Facebook and respond to those few who comment or post other thoughts on our page and we definitely retweet any praise or comments about us on Twitter. But as our brand gets more and more attention on Facebook and Twitter I fear that it will become more and more formal simply because of the size of the following. And maybe I’m old school in this fact, but I would not be comfortable posting on a 1 million followed brand Facebook page. I’ve tried to send some tweets to big names on Twitter but the problem here is that they get too many and about too many topics. Even if they respond to each one there’s no single conversation that many are participating in.

I don’t have a solution or dream of solution for this. I know that most people will say the brand just has to act casual and be normal and show personality, however I kind of cringe when I see a brand tweet or Facebook “What’s your most embarrassing moment” or “Its so cold here. What’s the weather like where you are?” They may be showing their personality but its not relevant, people won’t be talking about their brand in response, and its just plain cheesy and kind of creepy.

So for now, I will continue to explore every nook and cranny that is social media until I find the perfect forum for our audience to Just Drop a Note, Converse, and Be extremely Comfortable in chatting with and about Building Tomorrow.

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To learn more from or connect with Liz, follow her on Twitter — @LizBraden33
You can also follow the rest of The Millennial Chat Team here.
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What are your biggest anxieties with promoting your brand online?
What advice would you give to Liz?
Comment below, join the discussion on Facebook, or tweet us!

Comments are off for this post

Why Millennials are the Perfect Donor

Dec 30 2011 Published by under Liz B. 

by Liz B.

In my humble opinion, Millennials bring together all of the aspects of a perfect donor. At Building Tomorrow and in general in my watching of the fundraising world, I have seen Millennials do some amazing things by  giving their time, talents, and resources to others and to causes they believe in. Below are the three reasons that Millennials are the perfect donor. 

1. Dollar by Dollar

First Millennials give dollar by dollar.

Even though millennials are often those who eat Easy Mac every single night, they also understand the power of every dollar they give. At Building Tomorrow we work with college-based chapters asking them to raise funds for the construction of primary schools in Uganda. A BT Academy costs $60,000 to build and you’d be hard pressed to find a college student who can write a $60k check. However we’ve seen throughout the years, college students taking that number and saying “Okay… now if every student at my school gave just $2 or $10 or $1.81 then we could build a school.”

Millennials are perfect donors because they will give what they can give, even if that’s simply the change in their pockets and they understand the impact that $1 can have.

2. Friends, friends, friends 

Second, Millennials are perfect donors because they have friends – I know shocking statement.

Millennials have that inborn itch to share with their friends what they care about, what they’re doing this weekend, what they’re reading online and how they feel about it. They want their friends to know about the cause they care about.

However, unlike other generations, a Millennial’s friend won’t just throw in $10 if asked in a form email or letter. Instead they skip the politics of giving just to be nice and actually require a reason.

Millennials utilize sharing functions on many nonprofit or fundraising sites (i.e. One Day’s Wages, DonorsChoose, Building Tomorrow) to tell their friends about causes. However the technology alone is not enough. Millennials and their friends care more about the WHY. For Millennials these functions only work if they make it about sharing stories. That’s what pulls in their friends: the personal message of why their friend cares about this cause – not just a retweet or post on Facebook.

3. They care… a whole freakin lot.

Finally, and this is pretty clear in the first two but worth saying a billion more times, Millennials CARE about their causes. Example A – Millennial Chat team member Megan Emme’s  post about what she wants most this holiday season. Megan could have picked any of the millions of causes out there. Instead she thought about what she cared about most, researched the causes, and then shared information about them to teach others about the cause.

Millennials will give to the causes they care about, the ones they’ve researched and found to be trustworthy. They care where nonprofits spend their money and whether or not they are getting the most bang out of their buck.

Since Millennials are the perfect donors, we have only exciting things to look forward to in the years to come. As this generation grows so will their ability to change the world – literally – by giving dollar by dollar, bringing in a community of friends, and taking the care to learn and teach others about their causes.

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To learn more from or connect with Liz, follow her on Twtitter – @lizbraden33
You can also follow the rest of The Millennial Chat Team here.
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Do you think millennials are the PERFECT donors?
What can we do better?
Comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

7 responses so far