Online Iraq Campaign Provides Running Tally
By Nicole Wallace
Mercy Corps is harnessing the immediacy of the Internet in its campaign to raise money for relief efforts in Iraq.
The international-aid organization, located in Portland, Ore., is trying to raise $2-million in two months. In the first three weeks of the campaign, Mercy Corps raised more than $300,000, approximately 80 percent of which came in online.
The organization's progress toward the overall campaign goal, as well as the goal for each day, is updated continually on the Mercy Corps Web site. Gifts that come in through the Web site are added to the tally automatically, and the organization each day adds in gifts that are made through the mail or over the telephone. The site also lists the hometowns of and amounts contributed by the 10 most recent donors.
Matthew De Galan, the group's chief development officer, thinks that the campaign's real-time features -- in combination with the information posted on the site about the relief work Mercy Corps is doing in Iraq -- will strengthen the connection donors feel with the organization.
"It encourages them to come back, visit again, maybe even make a second gift," says Mr. De Galan. "We all want to be part of a winning team. We want to be part of an effort that's making a difference."
Mercy Corps asks visitors to the site -- as well as the organization's volunteers and staff members -- to tell their friends and family members about the campaign through the site's "E-mail 5 Friends" feature. The charity is also asking the campaign's corporate sponsors to help spread the word.
The success of the campaign depends on getting people to the site, says Mr. De Galan, who adds that actively promoting such word-of-mouth techniques is less expensive than buying online advertising banners and more reliable than seeking contributed ad space.
"It's one thing to have a really nice Web site," he says. "It's another thing entirely to get people to actually come and look at it."
Mr. De Galan says that Mercy Corps took a much more passive approach to raising money for the Afghanistan crisis. The organization posted information about its relief work and a request for gifts on its Web site, but it didn't set a goal, ask donors and sponsors to spread the word, or allow donors to track the progress of the campaign online.
In the first three weeks of raising money for Afghanistan, Mercy Corps took in $97,000, compared to the more than $300,000 in the first three weeks for Iraq. Mr. De Galan credits the group's more aggressive online approach as one of the primary reasons for the increase.
To get there: Go to http://www.mercycorps.org/iraq.
