A bunch of nonprofits just said thank you to my Twitter followers. I didn't want to just keep that to myself. So I'm blogging about it, and I made a short video, below. (With help from my always-patient fiancee.)
Let me explain.
In 2011 I did something as an experiment. Frankly, some of my friends thought I was throwing my money away: I asked people on Twitter to suggest nonprofits I should give money to.
My followers responded with tweets giving shout-outs to worthwhile causes. That alone made the whole thing worthwhile. Giving people a chance to praise their favorite causes with such public support and enthusiasm made me feel really good.
I made donations to those causes in the names of the Twitter followers who suggested the causes. I tweeted about the donations, my followers tweeted about the donations, and the nonprofits tweeted about the donations.
The donations were not lavish -- 10 and 20 bucks apiece. (I'm not Bill Gates when it comes to wealth or philanthropy.) But the causes got a lot of mentions on Twitter.
It was a very positive thing. My followers felt good, I felt good, and the nonprofits felt good.
I also benefited. The campaign helped me grow my Twitter following from 4,000 to 75,000. (More on how I grew my following, here.)
I do try to do interesting things on Twitter, and to help good causes. I'm @jeffelder on Twitter, if you'd like to see more.
The campaign drew a lot of attention. See how other organizations replicated the campaign, here.
I do try to do interesting things on Twitter, and to help good causes. I'm @jeffelder on Twitter, if you'd like to see more.
The campaign drew a lot of attention. See how other organizations replicated the campaign, here.
Because it's tax season, I just got thank-you letters from the nonprofits. It's great to see their gratitude, and that the donations made a difference. I didn't want to just keep that to myself. I wanted to pass along the thank you's from the nonprofits, in this video:
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