Great post the other day on Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog regarding some common issues nonprofits are facing when following instead of leading.  Lance Armstrong created LiveStrong and those ubiquitous yellow arm bands.  Suddenly there were white ones (The One Campaign), red ones (Project Red?) and pink ones (from a breast cancer charity).  You could go into any 7-Eleven and find a dozen different armbands.  Is it any wonder that few of these created any value for their charities when it became a commodity?  The LiveStrong yellow band was very cool when it first came out.  Now it’s ho hum.

Same is true for jumping on the social media bandwagon.  Sure – have a Facebook page and a listing on Causes – but don’t expect much.  In fact, the number one cause on Causes is “Support the Campaign for Cancer Research” which supports Brigham & Womens Hospital in Boston.  Note that B&W is kind of hidden behind the “Cause” name chosen by the Facebook user who created the listing.

You’d think that Brigham & Women’s was doing great with over 3.1 million Facebook members supporting this cause!  That’s a lot of people for any charity.  The problem is, the Causes listing has generated a mere $61,440 in donations from the mass of “supporters.”  That’s less than 2 cents per supporter.  Now, think about your charity and what might happen if a cause is listed on Facebook.  What would you expect?  $10?  $100?  Probably not a lot more.  The last one to the table gets only the food that everybody else wouldn’t eat.

The bottom line to Katya’s post is right on – you need to focus on the basic value proposition and hard work of raising money from your donors.  Fad-following takes time, money and typically disappoints.