Its about Giving Without Receiving !

How social media encourages people give back to the community  

In the last post I discussed how social media campaigns could influence people’s thoughts, feeling, behaviors and actions. This blog will look at two new campaigns developed by charities and the impact and influence that they have created and look at how stakeholder management can be vital to any individual, project, group or organisation.

Toms – One For One 

Toms One for One- for every pair sold a pair is giving to a child in need.
gives a pair of shoes

The first campaign I want to bring to light is Toms One for One campaign, by Tom’s shoes, and U.S Company that makes espadrille like shoes and for every pair sold one is giving to someone in need. Blake Mycoskie created Toms in 2006 since then the company has expanded from just shoes to stationary, eye wear and even coffee. The One for One campaign started when Blake delivered the first box of shoes, it was then he realized the potential of how much one for one could change lives and continued to deliver shoes across the world.

Watch the Video Here 

One day without shoes could you do it?

One for one has now expanded from shoes to sight, water, anti bullying, water and safe birth prevention. One for one has protected over 200 million children worldwide from Hookworm by providing them with Tom’s shoes and medication. One for one has achieved a lot and managed to help people in less fortunate Countries.

• Over 2 MILLION CHILD have been protected from hookworm with medication and TOMS Shoes provided by our Giving Partners.
• 42% INCREASE in maternal health care program participation as a result of shoe distribution
• INCREASE IN STUDENT ENROLLMENT OF 1000 in Liberian primary school classrooms after TOMS Shoe distribution began
• 100 CHILDREN identified during shoe-integrated health screenings as needing malnutrition care in Malawi

The Toms website goes into detail about the one for one campaign and the production and distribution details. Toms promotes sustainability also with their newest product coffee beans that are 100% sustainably sourced. One for one also saw the need to focus on home soil and improve the lives of less fortunate Americans as well. The Campaign has been well received within the community and people continue to buy shoes, as they are attracted to the promise of helping people in need.

Watch the Toms helping Americans video here 

Charity Water

Charity Water, provides clean drinking water to villages throughout Africa

Charity water is a company that does social media very well in fact its one of the best brands in terms using social media to raise funds. Over 60% of their donations are raised online, which is remarkable given that most nonprofits still struggle at online fundraising. Charity water has an only had an online presence for a number of years yet they have managed to raise over 100 million dollars without spending any money on social media campaigns. Charity water is the most followed non-for profit organization on twitter they are now on Vine, Facebook and Instagram and have millions of loyal followers.

Paul Young Talks Charity Waters Social Media Marketing.  

Rachel’s Wish 

The second social media campaign developed in an interesting way, it started out as a birthday wish from a little girl named Rachel Beckwith who wanted to raise $300 instead of getting gifts. Rachel opened a Charity water page and slowly friends and family started donating. Three weeks before her 9th birthday she was involved in a fatal car accident and later passed away in hospital. The charity water page was re activated to see if the family could raise her $300. Soon enough her wish went viral and was making headlines internationally the donations poured in, within a couple of month Rachel had raised 1.5 million dollars which meant that 37,000 wells could be made throughout third world countries.

Rachel was later honored at the CNN heroes’ award ceremony taking home the young wonder award

Rachel Family sees the wells she provided with her birthday wish 

These campaigns and companies have used social media to engage target publics and promote great messages about giving back to the community. People love to feel like they are helping out in small ways and both campaigns allow people to be actively involved in the Giving process which makes the companies very appealing to the community.

In the next blog I will look at more social media campaigns and how they have influenced audiences either in a positive or negative way. Stakeholder Management will also be covered in the next blog.