June 18, 2009 Admin

Happy to hand the megaphone today to Guest Agitator Janice Christensen, for her thoughts on the powerful mobilizing — and through that, fundraising — role of Twitter.

Janice is the former Director of Campaigns of Amnesty International USA, a board member of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) and a principal in DonorTrends.

Here’s Janice:

Not Just for Revolutions Anymore

"Having watched with interest the recent debate and discussion on the value and usefulness of Twitter by Agitator readers, I find events of the past two days in Iran as proof enough to silence doubters. Organizers and activists have known for years what communication means to the success of any strategy.

For the past two days in Iran, opposition organizers have used Twitter to deliver rapid information about strategy, tactics and police whereabouts to thousands of protestors and supporters. So much so that the White House asked Twitter not to take down their site for maintenance Tuesday night.

Twittervision allowed users to follow San Francisco protestors during the Olympic torch relay in April last year. Protestors were outwitting police with Twitter, text and online mapping tools moving their supporters quickly and efficiently to the ever-changing torch route.

And even in the world’s most closed society, the Burmese government was unable to shut down communication to the outside world when monks engaged in the largest protest in Burma for over two decades in 2008.

In a recent Agitator survey 34% of Agitator readers stated that Twitter would only have marginal use for donors and activists. I wonder if that number would change if fundraisers could envision using these tools to literally show donors the movement behind the organization in action – as it is happening?

In my experience, there is often a disconnect between the ‘program’ and ‘fundraising’ departments. Even if a donor is not inclined to march in the streets, there must be great value to offering them the ability to follow along and watch while it happens.

If over 1,000,000 people Twitter to find out what Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres are having for lunch, why not give donors the ability to follow your organization’s workers in the field, protestors on the street or advocates lobbying on the Hill?"

Thanks for that, Janice … especially for drawing the connection between using this medium to truly bring supporters inside an organization and the potential fundraising reward from that more intimate engagement.

Here from the TED conference and here from New Zealand are two other commentaries on the potency of Twitter.

Tom