Is Facebook Causes a Joke?!?

I signed my organization up to Facebook Causes about two months. After about a 4-6 week wait we were finally approved. However, the password I originally signed up with, and noted down in my files, does not work. When trying to recover the password by going through the process I receive no email telling me how to reset or change my password. I've tried emailing them - no reply. I've tried calling them with the phone number they listed on their newsletter - no answer, no voicemail, no auto-attendent, NO NOTHING. My question is: Is Facebook Causes a joke?

Reportedly there have been two NPO's that have gained returns greater than the investment required to participate on Facebook Causes, so for these two NPO's, it's certainly not a joke...

For the other estimated 49,000... (there are actually more than 250,000 causes on Facebook, however more than 200,000 of these are scams, jokes,or otherwise unaffiliated with legitimate and registered NPO's - eg The Cause [ Global Warming is a Fraud ] offering to support the political campaign of John McCain is one of the few genuinely clever causes out there... but hardly legitimate from a charitable or NPO perspective :-)

Is it a joke? - it depends on your perspective and choice of associates. Mostly on how you wish your org to be perceived. Your report on the difficulties contacting anyone seems to be fairly wide-spread amongst other would-be FB Cause users.

I'm assuming that you tried the Causes help information center? There's contact information there and their about us has links to the Facebook profiles of individuals involved with Causes that you could also contact via Facebook. I also put the word out to my network to try to get you a response.

donc:

Your report on the difficulties contacting anyone seems to be fairly wide-spread amongst other would-be FB Cause users.

Don, where have you heard this? I've set up a few Causes and found it to be a very seamless process. Thus far, this is the first time I've heard about their being an issue with contacting folks there so I'm curious to know about these widespread complaints.

I guess it depends on one's perspective.  I think it's a fine replacement for bulk mailing.  I don't think it's that effective for fundraising.  For example, the cause Autism speaks has 107, 979 members who have donated $5697.  That's not so great.  Another example, Think Autism has over a 1,000,000 members who have combined for whopping $31,923.  Probably enough to cover the costs for creating and growing that Cause group. 

Is Facebook Causes Joke?  For fundraising yes.  For messaging I think its fine expecially if you can recoup your costs through their donation modules.

Like most things, I suspect the amount of return is proportional to the amount of effort. There is still an onus on the part of the organization to promote the facebook effort.

To what end, Tim?  To promote social networking or their  mission?  What should the desired outcome be for the increased effort?  If the desired outcome is increased revenue, then I suspect it's not going to work.

sburadagunta is right. you have to look at the return on everything you do.

you can still increase your awareness significantly by leveraging facebook without even having a facebook account yourself

just simple scripts on your findraising or donation page will allow facook users to spread the word like crasy.

example:   https://www.donationrelay.com/uya/2ndcycle4change/donate/index.php?sec=cl&cid=566

This page has a simple link to allow visitors to share it.  The return on this 5 minutes job is astronomical!!!

Just wanted to chime in here that I just found out NTEN is holding an online chat tmorrow with Joe Green, the founder of Causes. Free for NTEN members and more details here. Looks like this could be very helpful.

Best,

Megan

We assure you Causes is no joke.  We have processed over $10 million in donations to nonprofits and we have a dedicated staff in Berkeley, CA and Washington DC working to make this platform happen.  Occasionally, our password retrieval email gets caught in spam filters so if you have problems signing in, email support@causes.com and don't forget to check your spam.  We usually return emails very promptly (within 2 days) but we have a small team so feel free to follow-up with urgent requests.  In response to fundraising through Causes, as with any new technology, not every nonprofit who has a cause has figured out the key to fundraising success. Many nonprofits have - and they aren't just giant nonprofits or ones with big budgets.  But to say that a cause has failed because it has a lot of members but not a lot of dollars donated, we believe is an incorrect way of measuring the success of a cause. Some causes are not trying to fundraise but are trying to identify a community of people who care about an issue.  Others are focused on offline actions or buildling relationships with supporters but not donations.  And many have not tried setting fundraising goals, matching donations, or compelling campaigns so we are trying to do more and more to provide resources, ideas, and best practices for those that want to fundraise but haven't.  Our blog/resource center is at www.causes.com for more info.

Thanks for the info.  My contention was that Causes was not an effective fundraising tool.  You seem to think it could be.  Let's hope so. 

According to numbers i found on techcrunch - http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/28/causes-reports-on-its-first-year/, roughly 20,000 orgs received $2.5 in donations as of last year.  That sounds like alot but it really isn't.  Thats an average of $125 per org/cause.

You note that you've processed $10 MM to date.  How many orgs is that for?  I'm assuming that there are over 100,000 Causes by now.  If so, that's still only about $100 per Cause. 

Given those numbers, I think decision makers at NPO's need to think twice about using Causes as a fundraising tool.  It hasn't proven to be that effective for that, 

Thats not to say that it never could be or that Causes is not useful for awreness building.  I also don't think its a matter of orgs not figuring it out yet.   It could just be that the forum itself (Facebook) is not conducive to asking for donations. 

The numbers to date don't allow one to draw the conclusion that Causes can be a reliable part of a fundraising portfolio.

Syam Buradagunta

Blue Sky Collaborative

i joined facebook and the causes application back in June of this year (2009). We have about 100 members and we have raised 30 dollars. There is approximately about 40 cents fee for the 10 dollar donation. I am really enjoying  this application but you have to be dedicated to it.

Kenosha Davenport

Executive Director

Victim Services of Cullman, Inc.

We have a couple of hundred members and have raised about $700.00 in the 6 months that we've had our Cause running.  

IMO, It's another viral method of having others support your cause with minimal effort. 

The most effective Cause-raiser  for us has been when a member asked for donations to our Cause in lieu of a birthday present. 

It certainly isn't going to be a huge funding source, but every $10.00 helps!  :)

Lisa