4 Facebook apps to raise funds for your cause

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Leverage the power of your social network to raise donations

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, fund-raisers, cause supporters.

Facebook recently recommended four fundraising applications that keep fundraising inside of Facebook.

What’s great about these applications is that they leverage the strength of Facebook by encouraging donors to share your fundraiser with others, see friends who have also donated, and make fundraising transactions more frictionless.

Justgiving: Share your donation

1justgiving is a UK-based fundraising platform where individuals can share their charitable giving actions on Facebook. This app gives people a way to share when they make a donation and support a friend or charity. Last year, people raised more than $40 million for charities through the justgiving app on Facebook. Their U.S. offshoot, FirstGiving, also has apps for Facebook.

WeTopia: Gamified giving

2WeTopia is a social game lets allows players build villages and earn points that turn into charitable donations. To date, players have provided more than 1.6 million gallons of drinking water and over 760,000 hot meals for children in Haiti, 45,000 meals for U.S. children living in poverty, and more than 3,000 warm coats to children in Afghanistan and the United States.

FundRazr: Crowdfund your idea
3FundRazr (a personal fav of mine) is a social fundraising app that helps people raise money. Fundrazr launched its open graph website integration with comment, donation and milestone actions.

Causes: Organize, advocate and fundraise

4The venerable Causes provides online tools for organizing, advocacy and fundraising campaigns. Not For Sale launched a campaign that raised $154,000 in two months and funded the launch of a beverage company working to fight human slavery.

Tools come last

Keep in mind that while these tools are useful, what makes online fundraising work is storytelling and planning.

Without a story that speaks directly and emotionally to a potential donor, and without the integration of email, direct mail, blogging, etc., you won’t get the full effect from these applications.

Have you used any of these applications? If so, share your experience in the comments below!

John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter or leave a comment.