Causes put out a press release yesterday that I’m putting out in its entirety. It’s nearly 2 AM out here in Brooklyn. More analysis will follow tomorrow — I promise:
BERKELEY, Calif. — May 29, 2008 — One year after launching an application on the Facebook and, subsequently, MySpace platforms, Causes celebrates the milestone of registering 12 million consumers who are now supporting more than 80,000 non-profit causes worldwide. The Causes audience, to date, has raised $2.5 million in charitable donations, benefiting 19,445 501( c ) (3) charitable organizations.
Causes on Facebook, and subsequently MySpace, debuted 12 months ago with the opening of the Facebook development platform. Since its inception, Causes has created a new paradigm for online activism, spurring millions of Internet users to pledge online support for causes, make charitable donations, and to take action in the real world.
“We are thrilled that Causes is starting to gain hold and reach a critical mass of socially and politically aware people around the world,” said Sean Parker, CEO and co-founder of Causes. “Causes on Facebook and MySpace has become a gateway for people seeking to take action in support of causes and issues they care about, as well as raise funds to sustain positive change. We could not be more pleased with our first year results.”
One-Year Momentum and Results
Currently, Causes directs online activism into ten categories of support. Of the tens of thousands of non-profit causes supported through the application, the community engagement statistics reflect the following rank by cause category:
Charity Category Number of Causes
1. Human Services 16,203
2. Health 13,156
3. Public Advocacy 9,339
4. International 9,274
5. Arts & Culture 6,559
6. Animals 5,838
7. Political Campaigns 5,652
8. Education 5,589
9. Environment 5,286
10. Religion 3,834“Causes has helped create a new generation of UNICEF supporters,” said Caryl Stern, President and CEO , U.S. Fund for UNICEF. “Through virtual gifts and other social currency models, Causes is helping to activate first-time donors and volunteers to support UNICEF’s mission to do whatever it takes to save children’s lives.”
In another first year milestone, Causes partnered with the Case Foundation and Network for Good to launch the Causes Giving Challenge. The Causes Giving Challenge raised more than $570,000 for participating nonprofit organizations, apart from $250,000 matched by the Case Foundation. The peak of the campaign saw nearly 8,000 donors contributing to nonprofits in a single 24-hour period.
“This first year of growth on Causes has demonstrated the power of citizen philanthropy,” said Joe Green, co-founder of Causes. “Causes is on track to help restore social capital to the process of giving, and to provide young people or others who are not super-wealthy with a way to engage, contribute and become more aware.”
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It’s unfortunate the number was that low, as it really could have been a huge boon to the NP space.
In previous interviews they said they collected 1.5% (and even most of that was given to one of their vendors), but let’s say it was 1.5%, so they made……$37,500.00….in one year.
With the enormous cost of infrastructure/salary that’s required to operate a Facebook app, I’m thinking they will need to change their business model soon or end up looking like Kintera.
I still think the secret sauce is to partner with the non-profits, and integrate directly with the CRM’s they have. Non profits are simply not willing to let most of their donors give anonomously, as the true potential of a donor is never on the first gift- it’s on the second.
As soon as a donor gives that second gift, their propensity to give an additional gift skyrockets (i.e., someone who gives once to an organization has about a 40% chance of giving another gift. Someone who has given twice has a nearly 90+% chance of giving another gift, and this 90+% calculation keeps rising as they give more gifts, approaching 98% until they or the organization moves or dies).
That’s why it’s so critical to know who your donors are, and is perhaps one of the reasons that the adoption rate for causes is so slow.
-Jon Biedermann
Vice President
DonorPerfect.com
[...] Causes raised $2.5 million in first year of operation (englisch) Allan Benamer berichtet über die Ergebnisse von Project Agape bzw. deren, insbesondere durch Facebook bekannt gewordenen, Applikation Causes. In den Kommentaren des entsprechenden Techcrunch-Artikels kann man verschiedene Stimmen finden, die sich von den 2,5 Millionen US$ nicht sonderlich beeindruckt zeigen. Auf der anderen Seite darf man auch nicht unterschätzen wie viel zusätzliche Aufmerksamkeit Causes auf diverse gemeinnützige Organisationen gelenkt hat. [...]
I’d like to see a number to indicate how many orgs received it and what the average per org involved was. I admit that I’m somewhat skeptical that the facebook audience, overall, is interested this sort of app. They are at facebook to interact with friends, not find causes.
Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.
Jon, I’m going to have to take issue with the notion that the donation revenue was “low”. Again… let’s start with the basics. It’s the first year of operation and they raised $2.5 million in donations. That amount is actually greater than the first year revenue for Kiva, GlobalGiving and DonorsChoose COMBINED. This notion that Causes “doesn’t work” simply flies in the face of the numbers they’re producing. I’m antsy that they didn’t deliver more but it’s certainly extremely good for a first year of operation. Sustainability of course is a huge issue and they’re certainly not sustainable right now. I’d say that they did a credible job their first year. Your mileage may vary.
Allan – I agree with you about Causes. Not bad for the first year, and frankly, when you look at the Case contest and some of the other “supporter-building” successes they’ve had, the growth is remarkable. It’s all about potential, making some mistakes, trying a few things, and seeing where it goes – after all, it’s a startup.
It’s a startup with $7.35 million in financing. It just raised $5 million in the second round. I think the investors are sufficiently farsighted so far. I’m not worried yet. Talk to me at the end of 2009 though.
I was talking with Sean Parker on the CECP panel last week, they’re pleased with the growth and reaching out to corporate partners to do more campaigns. Their second year should be interesting to watch…And yeah, they’re well-founded, but then again Sean’s not just a founder, he’s a funder too.
I tried to sign our non profit up to Facebook causes last year. Unfortunately the issues I found were that you could not register a Canadian NP at the time (I don’t know if that has changed now.) There also seems to be a lot of complaints of shell charities routing donations to dubious recipients and claims of no real validation of the charities registering. I personally don’t know how much of that is true but it does cast a cloud over something that I thought was a good idea. I was just disappointed not to be able to register since our organization does have a Facebook presence.