Case Study: Students Helping Honduras, Erin Kelly

Background

Students Helping Honduras is a fledgling nonprofit with the goal of mobilizing students to empower orphaned and at-risk children in Honduras to reach their full potential. College students Shin Fujiyama and his younger sister Cosmo had volunteered in the city of El Progreso in Honduras in 2005, and personally witnessed hundreds of children without adequate housing, health care, or access to education.

Upon returning to their universities, Shin and Cosmo began to advocate for change in the community —in particular, to benefit the children of the overcrowded Copprome Orphanage and the families of the area's largest squatter community, Siete de Abril. In February 2006, Students Helping Honduras (SHH) became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with chapters on college campuses across the country to raise money to build an education center and several other projects to assist at-risk children in Honduras.

One such chapter was Mary Washington College in Virginia, where SHH member and international studies major Erin Kelly received an e-mail message from a high school friend about the America's Giving Challenge. With less than two weeks left in the challenge, her friend asked her to donate to a charity on Global Giving as part of the competition. Her charity could win $50,000, her friend said, if she got the most unique donors.

Erin immediately visited her friend’s fundraising page and realized she could enter for SHH. “We had missed half the competition by that point,” says Erin, “but we decided to give it a try.” So, on January 23, with less than ten days to go in the contest, Erin set up a badge to raise money with a specific goal: to raise enough money to buy 300 fuel efficient stoves for Honduran families in need.

Although she is a self-described member of the Facebook generation and very comfortable with using the Internet, Erin “wouldn’t call myself a geek because I had no idea what a widget was or how it worked.” Though she had been involved in offline fundraising efforts, the contest was Erin’s first online fundraising project with SHH. She found that over the course of two very intensive weeks that her social media skills improved significantly.

Finding the Motivation

Erin says her motivation to enter the contest was initially because of the prize money: “The top prize of $50,000 was a huge carrot.” As Erin rallied the student group to compete in the contest, they realized there were many additional benefits beyond the dollars.

“When you participate in a competition like this, you have an opportunity to really animate your group around a goal,” Erin says. “Also, it was a fantastic excuse to ask people to donate to the organization. Normally, we’re sort of shy about asking people to donate but there was so much at stake, how we could not ask everyone we knew?”

An Excuse to Ask for Money

Erin observed that every student volunteer in their group went all out to solicit their friends, families, and strangers. “One of our most devoted volunteers, Bobby, was amazing,” she says. “Armed with a deadline and a goal, he was ready to ask anyone and everyone he knew to donate $10, even his ex-girlfriend!” Erin recalls that Bobby signed up to talk about the contest and organization at several Rotary Clubs as well. Forty-nine percent of the donors to this Cause were friends, another 31% were family, and the remaining few were casual acquaintances.

Erin describes the contest as a “good conversation starter.” She says, “I called everyone I knew, I sent IM messages to my junior friends, and sent text messages to everyone in my address book. I was inspired by Bobby and called up my ex-boyfriend and asked him to ask his parents to ask their students to help. But it wasn’t just me and Bobby who went all out; our entire group of student volunteers in every student club did this. That’s what made a difference.”

Just Do It: Planning and Implementation

Erin notes that when they entered the contest, the cause with the most donors had 400 donors. And because they entered the contest late in the game, they didn’t do any systematic planning. Instead, they decided to jump in, watch closely, and adjust their techniques and strategies as they went along.

“It was at the beginning of the semester,” Erin says. “For the first four days, I worked on the Challenge and went to class. I didn't do much homework or sleeping during that time. When I got exhausted, other students in the club took over for me.”

It became clear very quickly that asking students, who were the majority of their donors, to give required putting the ask in terms they understood—in this case, donating the cost of a pizza. Eighty five percent of donors said they donated because they wanted to support their family member, friend, or colleague, a slightly higher percentage than those who gave because of the work of the cause.

Erin described how a group of volunteers camped outside the dining hall because it was near the ATM. She says, “So many college students don't keep track of their money and so if they weren't sure they had the ten bucks, we told them [to] go check their balance. If they say they had the ten bucks, they donated. We set up computers near the ATM machine. We did everything we could!”

A Committed Volunteer Team

After the first couple of days Erin realized they couldn’t do it alone. So the students organized and recruited volunteers at their sister clubs located on different campuses. As Erin recalls, “We had a core group at each of the chapters devoted almost full-time to organizing and soliciting donors. We had a total of 25 volunteers. These were all college students.”

The volunteer group was in constant communication with one another, trading ideas and sharing what did and didn't work. Says Erin, “Our group would try something – like the Collectathons [described below] – and then we’d write up how to do it and share with the student clubs at other campuses. It was exciting to share the enthusiasm over the phone with other chapters. There was a sense of teamwork and shared experience.”

A Gen Y Twist on Telethons

The first weekend, Erin and the student volunteers organized a “Collect-a-thon.” Erin describes it as similar to a phone-a-thon, but more thorough: “We had 15 students come to the house and bring their cell phones, laptops, and chargers. We asked them to call anyone involved with the club from our University and ask them to donate $10 and tell their friends. When we exhausted that list, we got everyone in the group to call, text, or IM [instant message] their friends with no shame allowed. We told everyone to multi-task, to IM while on the phone.”

Erin says that many of the student volunteers were like her, with contacts on IM lists that included friends from middle school, high school, and connections from back home. In addition, since all the students had Facebook profiles, they sent personalized messages to friends, wrote on their friends' walls, and posted notes tagging people to encourage them to give and to help get the word out about the Challenge as well.

Tapping Personal Networks Really Matters

“We asked our core volunteers to reach out to their networks back home – whether it was their church, their school, or local rotary clubs,” says Erin. “We realized that we all needed to reach out beyond our university networks to win. I contacted my high school social studies teacher and she put a notice in the school newsletter. And, we actually got some donations from that.”

Erin also describes using a more traditional outreach strategy of previous donors to the organization: “The organization sells t-shirts and holds events for fundraisers. So, we had our volunteers pick out the donors they knew and asked them to call them. What was surprising was this was less effective than reaching out to our personal networks because we didn’t have a personal connection to many of the people on the list. “

Building Generational Bridges

Many of the student volunteers asked their parents and grandparents to donate to the campaign – many of whom had never donated online before. Erin noted that they got very good at providing tech support and demystifying the tools for older donors—and she was no exception.

“My grandmother had no idea what a widget was, but she would be willing to donate,” Erin says. “We had to learn how to explain it so they understood and got past their fears of security. My mom was scared of identity theft.” The demographic data from the donor survey reflects the generational bridge, with 28% of donors in the 18-21 age group and 29% over age 50.

The Competitive Aspects Inspired Creative Approaches

Watching their position on the leaderboard go and up down helped engage and motivate everyone. It inspired them to work harder. “On the second to last night, we were in third place,” Erin remembers. “I was exhausted so I decided to get some sleep and woke up and we were in 5th place. We went into crisis mode. The founder was in town and postponed his flight. He stayed so he could rally as many people as possible.”

The last twenty-four hours were critical. The founder of the organization was on campus and working along side student volunteers. He brought along a young woman from Honduras who was the first student to attend college from the orphanage that the organization supports.

Erin recalled, “I haven’t been to Honduras, but this college student was amazing and she had been through so much. When she told her story, it made us all work that much harder to win the contest.” And win they did with a final tally of $28,790 from1,639 donors, most of whom were new to the cause, plus the $50,000 grant as one of the top winners of America’s Giving Challenge.

Was It Worth It?

The answer is a resounding YES! according to Erin. The visibility, the new donors (35% of the donors who responded to the survey said that they were new to the cause), and the prize money were well worth the time, stress, and fundraising asks required to succeed. Sixty-two percent of the donors said that they are likely to make a donation to the cause in the future, and an equal amount are likely to tell others about the cause.

Reflecting on the Challenge, Erin said, “When we tell the story about our organization and what we’re doing to change the world – it is awesome. We’re often told that we have to wait to graduate and get a job before we can do things in the world. Being able to raise this money for a great cause and win the contest is so empowering. There is no question that we’d do this all over again.”

Donor Profile

Demographics

• 88% frequently or sometimes donate to causes/organizations.
• 72% had made an online prior to making an online donation to the Cause during the Giving Challenge.
• 84% had made an online donation through the website of a specific charity or organization.
• 8% had made an online donation through a social networking site.
• 6% had made an online donation through a charity badge, widget, or SixDegrees.org.
• 9% had made an online donation through other method.  

Relationship to the Champion and to the Cause     

• 75% were aware of the Cause prior to the Giving Challenge.
• 59% had donated to the Cause prior to the Giving Challenge.
• 32% had volunteered their time with the Cause prior to the Giving Challenge.

Q: By what means were you contacted and asked to donate to the Giving Challenge?

Q: Which of the following best describes your relationship to the person who asked your to make a donation?

Q: Was the person who asked you to make a donation to the Cause the person who was ultimately competing the Giving Challenge?

Motivations and Barriers

Why they donated 

• 85% said to support my friend, family member, or colleague in the Challenge.
• 84% said the work of the Cause.
• 56% said I have a personal connection to the Cause.
• 61% said the ease of making an online donation.
• 50% said the amount requested was minimal.
• 22% said knew many others were donating.

Barriers 

• 87% agree the process of making an online donation to the Cause during the Giving Challenge was simple.
• 1% agree they had technical difficulties when making an online donation to the Cause during the Giving Cause.
• 73% agree it is easier to make donations online than it is to make donations offline.
• 18% agree that they had concerns about the security of online donations.

Giving Challenge Impact

• 62% are likely to make a donation to the Cause in the future.
• 26% are likely to volunteer their time with the Cause in the future.
• 62% are likely to tell others about the Cause in the future.
• 57% learned something about the Cause during the Challenge.
• 88% feel their donation during the Challenge had an impact.
• 65% prefer to donate online rather than through another method.
• 8% joined an online social network as a result of the Challenge.