How PlayPumps shifted into hyperdrive
So how did PlayPumps get ahead of the game? Its journey from a South African social enterprise to a virtual, global fundraiser has had no hidden twists and turns. For years, the organization’s Web site had simply done the minimum. It explained the group’s mission, posted a few photos, and gave Net-surfing donors and potential ones a phone number to call for more information. Contributions would come in from companies wanting to put their ads on the pumps; staff members would host fundraising dinners and donor meet-and-greets.  Occasionally, the group was able to woo high-profile guests to a pump opening: In 1999, Nelson Mandela attended a new pump ceremony; the next year, the organization received the World Bank’s Development Marketplace Award, given to acknowledge innovative efforts to boost the local economies of countries around the world. Buzz was building for PlayPumps internationally, but the group was not yet seeing a flood of donations.

PlayPumps’ turning point came in 2005, when AOL founder Steve Case and his wife, Jean, visited a PlayPump project during a trip to South Africa. During that trip, the group asked Case for a donation; Case responded with an offer of $5 million — but with a catch: Build 4,000 more pumps by 2010, put Jean on the board, and open a Washington office. And one more thing? Getting up to Web speed would no longer be an option.

PlayPumps went into hyperdrive. It moved its Web site from a South African host to one in the U.S. and immediately hired Net strategist Garth Moore to help it go global and craft an “everyman” approach to raising new dollars.

Moore’s first task was to give the site a more modern feel and a marketer’s touch — a big switch from before, “when everything was about stuffing as much content as possible onto the site,” he says. The next step was to make the site a robust hub for fundraising. A link to donations was added to the home page that let donors choose whether to make one-time, monthly, or honorary contributions. That addition has, so far, brought in some $200,000 in online donations. Charity “badges” also were added, so that supporters and sponsors could tout their support on their own Web sites and link back to the nonprofit’s site.

Fundraising challenge tests new site
To test the new site, PlayPumps issued a challenge to supporters: Raise money for 100 pumps — $1.4 million — in 100 days. To the surprise of PlayPumps’ Washington director Nancy Murphy, the drive raised $1.6 million. Donations didn’t always top out at $10, as expected. “We had our share of $6 donations online, but we also had two donations for $14,000,”  Moore said.

But PlayPumps didn’t stop there. Partly due to Jean Case’s vision of “everyman” fundraising, Moore also got busy identifying ways to make the most of social networks like MySpace and Facebook, and put profiles of the group’s pump-building drive on both sites. PlayPumps also was among the first this year to take advantage of new fundraising features like ChipIn on MySpace and Causes on Facebook, which let PlayPumps organize vast groups of people around its cause from across the Web.

That’s working, too. As of late July, PlayPumps had drummed up 670 members on Facebook and raised $2,000 in small, dollar donations; another $500 came in via MySpace. PlayPumps also has started working with Razoo, a new social networking site focused on good works and giving. “Before, there was overseas interest in PlayPumps,” says Sandra Hayes, who has led the group’s donor relations since 2004, “but most of our donors were still local to Africa. The new use of the Web has made a huge difference.”

To be sure, not every gain is about new technology. The organization still makes use of traditional funding channels, even as it explores the new possibilities just now opening up to it online. “Are some of these new technology initiatives going to help us secure a grant from the Ford Foundation? Probably not,” says Murphy. “But will they help to raise awareness of the clean water crisis and raise funds for PlayPumps? Absolutely.”

Still not convinced of the power of digital networking? Nothing But Nets, a malaria-prevention group, launched a Web-based fundraising campaign in 2006 with a Web site that incorporated mainstream 2.0 technologies — including links to online donations and a Net-O-Meter clocking, in real-time, the number of mosquito nets donors were purchasing.

Net donations show power of the Net
The benefits were almost immediate. In the first month, the group raised $700,000 online, and online donations haven’t dipped below the $600,000 mark in any month since. Today, roughly 40 percent of the nonprofit’s donations come in via the Web.  Says Shannon Raybold, Internet director for the nonprofit: “Our overhead is significantly lower than a traditional nonprofit, and we are able to put more money into this campaign instead of direct mail. I really don’t see a downside to using the next generation of the Web.”

Facebook’s Causes cofounder Joe Green couldn’t agree more. The way most nonprofits raise money for a cause today makes it too expensive to reach out to the little guy, he says. “It’s hard for most nonprofits to solicit smaller donors because it costs so much for too-little return,” says Green. But that barrier goes out the window on a social network, he says. Fundraising on Facebook’s Causes application, he says, can cost 4 percent of transaction costs versus up to 40 percent using direct mail and other common methods.

Green predicts a philanthropy revolution as Web-based social networks bring more small-change donors to the party. Charities will begin to succeed, he says, “based not on how strong their fundraising is, but how interesting their programs are.”

All of which stands PlayPumps in good stead. In late July, the organization officially launched a fundraising campaign on Facebook, aiming to raise enough money for one pump. If it succeeds, says Murphy, the pump, when built, will bear a metal plaque identifying it as “The Facebook PlayPump”  and Murphy and crew will post its picture on Facebook for all to see.

Not a bad way to keep making waves.

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