From 8:00 AM on Wednesday, October 10th until 8:00 PM on Thursday, October 11th, the Raising A Reader MA team was glued to Twitter promoting Raising A Reader MA in the Boston Foundation’s Giving Common Challenge.
The goal? To inspire our Twitter followers, and those of 13 “Power Tweeters” to make a gift of at least $25 to Raising A Reader MA through the Boston Foundation’s Giving Common portal. Power Tweeters were people who have an affinity for our work and have strong followings in this social medium. Twitter was complemented by a note to you all and a special email newsletter sent to our mailing list.
Donors Jim and Kris Blue offered to give $25 for the first 100 tweets, or $2,500 total to support the campaign, and our friends at the Massachusetts Innovation Nights invited us to exhibit at the monthly entrepreneur/funder event in Waltham the evening of 10/10 to raise awareness of our work and the campaign.
Over the 36 hours of the Boston Foundation Giving Common Challenge Raising A Reader MA raised $2,050 through the Giving Common Challenge. Raising A Reader MA also won the $2,000 “social media maven” prize in the campaign for the most donations secured through Twitter. While we did not secure 100 donations total in the campaign, Jim and Kris Blue, inspired by both our mission and our success in the campaign, donated the full $2,500 to Raising A Reader MA.
A highlight of the campaign was having HuffPost Books give a shout out to Raising A Reader MA in their Twitter feed (pictured at right), inviting their 55,000 Twitter followers to make a gift. All told, we raised $6,550 in 36 hours, or $182/hour. We secured ten new donors, and engaged eight donors who had not made a gift within the previous year. Two gifts were made anonymously, and seven board members (or their families) participated.
All funds received in the Tweet for Books campaign will be credited towards Raising A Reader MA’s Rodman Ride for Kids campaign, meaning gifts Raising A Reader MA will receive up to 10% on top of the total, or $655.
If you missed the opportunity to make a donation to Raising A Reader MA during October’s Giving Common challenge you can still make a gift on our website today.