I’m more than a little jealous of Beth Kanter’s ability to fundraise. I’m also not surprised and taking notes on how she did it.

Here we are in the final week of the SF Election Truthiness Campaign (1.5 months in) and still $260 short of our $2,500 goal. In truth – I’m already considering this a success as I never thought we’d be able to reach our $2,500 goal and now it’s within grasp (just need a few more donations). But Spot.us can certainly learn a lot from Beth who has been raising money for good causes longer than this site has been in existence

From Beth:

“My first fundraising effort was to send Leng Sopharath to college her first year in November 2006 took 3 weeks to raise $800. In 2007, Chris Brogan and 81 other people helped raise enough money in 24 hours for her college tuition and in a few days were able to raise enough to help support another student. So, my challenge was: Can this room of highly connected gnomedexers get 250 people to donate $10 by the end of the conference?”

At 90 minutes, we raised $2,557 from 112 donors….The ball kept rolling – the combined total as of 7:00 PM was $3,699 – including 1/3 of that in cash.

Beth had help in her fundraising extravaganza from internet rock stars such as Marshall Kirkpatrick (see the tweet) Buzz Bruggeman, Tara Hunt, Duncan Riley, Francine Hardaway and more. That certainly doesn’t hurt. Anyone one of these people could probably fundraise a few hundred dollars (more?) at the whim of a blog post if they really wanted.

I think the most important asset Beth had in raising the money was time in front of the group to present. I’ve seen Beth speak – she’s a great storyteller. I can just imagine the narrative she told by the end of which – everyone in the audience would look to their neigbors on the left and right, and reach for their wallet. I was almost tempted to do this at Social Media Camp and I think the next time I present to a large group I may approach it as a direct plea to fundraise for a specific pitch (let’s see what happens).

Lessons to learn from Beth’s experiment.

1. Never underestimate the power of an internet rock star. I’ve benefited from this as well. Right after Jeff Jarvis donated to the SF Election Campaign and linked to it, I got a few more $25 donations. In terms of journalism – it’s the new blurb on the front jacket of a book. “Jeff Jarvis says, this investigation is worth my money and yours too.”
2. The power of a crowd all listening at once. It’s easier to take action if you look around and see everyone else is doing it. Or perhaps it’s the reverse – it’s easier to do nothing if you can’t see other people participating.
3. It all starts with a story. I think journalists have a natural edge here – at least, that’s the theory behind Spot.Us. Just the other day a community leader talked to me about the high rate of violent crime in Richmond (1-3 murders a week). A journalist could construct a very moving pitch about this and raise money to dig deeper into the issues. They would use their natural storytelling abilities to raise awareness and the funds needed to find out what the community and government can do to address the issue. That’s public journalism – that’s the type of journalism we need to get back to.

There are probably more lessons to learn and I hope to run into Beth soon. Perhaps she’ll rub some of her fundraising juice with me and next time Spot.Us tries to raise $2,500 it’ll be more fluid (fundraising is tough work).

Related posts:

1. My Chat with Beth Kanter
2. Spot.Us is Hiring, Sorta: Time to Find Some Reporters
3. More on Food, the Garbage Patch and Cuts–But Also Raises?