Coming to the 3rd sector as a marketer I am ever so happy to see commercial entities reaching our to charities with ideas and actual solutions helping their work. It is exactly the help we are talking about here - Hope140, the new portal run by the leaders of Twitter, featuring three good case studies of using Twitter for the cause (remember Twestival? well, Charity Water is one of those three;)). The idea is to create a central hub for discussions, exchange of ideas and case studies on how Twitter can be used by charities for their work. Let's not be altruistic - it is at the end of the day great move to promote the tool itself. However what is also does, it shifts our attention from the tool itself to its usability thus leading to something pretty new to the sector - openness about the great work done!
It also allows anyone to go to the site and support current cause simply by clicking the 'tweet' button! Isn't it just the best show case of how new tool can directly drive donations and support aid?
I would love to hear what you think, as I might be a bit blindfolded due to my daily job;)
I like it and I do not think you’re blindfolded at all. Just an optimistic
Joking! Well, I agree with you.
It gives us a good reason to keep using it.
As you mention in your post, Sylwia, it is marketing for the tool itself as well as many CSR activities of corporations however thanks to that a lot of good is done and help goes to those who need it, to me - that is what matters in the end.
Hanna Clarys wrote a post regarding this topic: http://development.thinkaboutit.eu/index.php/think3/post/are_donors_altruistic_the_colour_of_aid/
I guess it’s a good thing that it’s been used to support charity. But I don’t really know - never used Twitter in my life
On the other hand, you say that “It also allows anyone to go to the site and support current cause simply by clicking the ‘tweet’ button”.
But I think that with many of those initiatives involving new technologies, the fact that NOT everyone has the opportunity to use them is often forgotten. Not everyone on this earth can use Twitter the way we do here.
Hanna, I do agree that not everyone can use those technologies, apologies for assumption. I should have said - everyone on Twitter. Yes. However it is a bit like looking at options as opposed to restrictions. If we do not have Twitter fundraising we do miss out on a large amount of users, for whom a tweet is not a huge effort - that is the only point I was trying to make here;)
(and in the end by sending a tweet, or even subscribing to twitter to send a tweet we can achieve actual, instant financial results, as opposed to thoretical discussions - like on THINK3 and similar platforms, which is useful in situations requiring immediate support)