What non-profits can learn from the Obama campaign

I couldn't let the day end without commenting on the excellent, strategic mobilisation of social media tools as used by the Obama campaign.

Fundraising by politicians and political parties isn't something that would usually inspire or interest me, but what Obama's team achieved is so relevant to charities who may still be wondering whether there's anything in this social media thing, aside from a load of buzzwords - by which I mean, can it be used to generate income, and will they get a worthwhile return on investment for time and money directed towards this still somewhat unproven area?

Well, the Google Alerts I have for 'fundraising' have produced pages of listings for the Obama campaign to the point that it's virtually eclipsed any other fundraising news for the past year, so that was the first heads up. There was story after story about the online activity, in particular, that the campaign was deploying to engage with groups that had not previously voted, or had previously voted Republican, to create what they called a 'national coalition of voters' - a movement, if you will.

The campaign got Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook, on board, made a lot of noise using a dedicated Barack Obama channel on YouTube and even utilised the noisy and increasingly less niche platform, Twitter.  All of this helped to ensure that Obama was right at the cutting edge, being seen and heard in all the right places, and was considered relevant by younger voters (who played a huge part in providing the extra votes he needed to win the election).

It transpires that the Obama campaign raised over $600 million to fund the media activity that would create the swell of public opinion he needed to win.  The real suprise here is that this impressive total was achieved, in large part, by the campaign's effectiveness in engaging individuals and cultivating their support to generate millions of small donations (well, small by traditional political fundraising standards, anyway).  According to this article in the New York Times, the average donation was less than $100 - which equates to just over £63.

I read an interesting article from Marketing Direct on Brand Republic, which provides some insights into the approach the campaign took, some of which chime very much with my own views on how charities should use social media to cultivate support - essentially that engagement needs to come first, the ask, and the donation, later.

Specifically, the article refers to the experience of George Nimeh, joint MD of Iris, who registered on an Obama campaign website. Nimeh is quoted as saying, "The first emails I received were about engagement ... The emails asking for cash were the last step in a well thought-out eCRM process." Quite right too.

Marketing Direct points out that there are 'lessons for UK politicians' to be taken from the example of the Obama campaign.  I would say there are also powerful lessons for charities.

Social media are a great leveller, as Barack Obama and his team have proven.  You don't have to be a heavy-weight, establishment brand to get results using them.  Small, nimble charities are already proving that having a presence on social platforms gives them a voice, a credibility and opportunities to generate support that they could only have dreamt of without these tools.  In his victory speech, Obama was honest and humble enough to point out that he didn't start out as the front-runner - quite the contrary - and that he had only been able to achieve what he did with the help of millions of Americans, who supported him through word of mouth and donations.  Who's to say whether he would have been making quite the same rousing speech if it hadn't been for the role that social media had played in his campaign?