

Photo by Krystyl

We've been hearing a lot about larger scale fundraising efforts on Twitter and cause fatigue and how it will become more and more difficult for charities to distinguish their social giving campaigns amid the noise.

One strategy might be cultivating relationships with freelance fundraisers and activists. These smaller scale efforts represent some of the more creative fundraising campaigns undertaken on Twitter. Typically launched by an social media savvy individual, who cares deeply about a charity or Cause, and these campaigns use platforms like Twitter in an unique way to raise money for that charity from their network.

Take for example, Drew Olanoff, who I had the pleasure of meeting at Gnomedex last summer. Two weeks ago, Drew announced his Twitter fundraising campaign to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a charity that "grants wishes for children with life threatening medical conditions."

He brought together his three passions:

I’m known to get tattoos

I’m known to care about charity

I’m known to dig Twitter

He offered to put a permanent tattoo of the Twitter user's name on his arm, to the highest bidder. His cause says a lot about who he is and who is friends are! Following the best practices of person-to-person fundraising and that is to talk about why the charity is important to you, he shares his reason, "kids deserve awesomeness".

He put the word out on Twitter and his network started a bidding war. Louis Gray writes about how he bid several hundred dollars for the honor. In the end, Melanie Mitchell was the lucky winner, bidding $2,112 to have her Twitter name on Drew's arm. Louis Gray has an interview with her.

Great work Drew!



Photo by Steve Garfield

When I heard about this story, I was curious about Drew's tatoos. I searched flickr and found the above photo taken by video blogger Steve Garfield. Steve's been a huge supporter of the Sharing Foundation. Just over the weekend, he won a contest on Twitter and donated his prize money to the Sharing Foundation. Thank you Steve!

What creative fundraising efforts have you seen taking place on Twitter or elsewhere on the social web?