goodworkpeople

Click Send, Raise Money

What if you could support your favorite cause every time you send an email?  Well, it’s gotten that easy.  Enmi Kendall, founder of replyforall, believes taking action should be a simple process.  replyforall has a great concept: you “donate” your email signature to the cause of your choice and replyforall places graphic ads featuring your cause and carefully selected sponsors.  With every email you send, you raise money and awareness for your specific cause.

Enmi is definitely on to something.  Not only is she finding new reasons for companies and nonprofits to work together, but she also understands that constituents are excited to carry causes they feel passionate about into their own communities online.  I think of the Iranian elections in June when millions of people showed their solidarity by turning their Twitter avatars and Facebook profile pictures green.  Those were small gestures, but collectively they had a big impact.  replyforall’s model makes those small gestures go even farther.

Check out our interview below.

Where did the idea for replyforall come from?

Most recently, I was with The New York Times digital strategy team prior to launching replyforall.com in September 2008.  While immersed in the digital media industry and as an early adopter myself, I saw the immense user engagement with social media platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn.  While users were growing these communities by spending hours generating content by posting photos and comments, the users never reaped the rewards of their hard work.  Each user was publishing content—but where was the ‘thank you’ back to the users?

At the same time, I saw that the most established, easily accessible form of social media is none other than email! It’s not just the tech-savvy, early adopters who email, but rather everyone.  It’s universal and not intimidating. We email the friends and family we know and love everyday—and our inbox very much reflects the most important people in our lives.

So I wanted to couple the two: to take the millions of social interactions living everyday in our emails already and convert them into an asset that can be used for good in the world.

Tell me what it’s been like working with both for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations.

What’s been interesting to see is that both companies and nonprofits have so much in common in their objectives.

More and more, I think companies are beginning to understand that simply forcing their marketing on users isn’t working. If the message isn’t useful or relevant to users, users (rightly) tune it out.  For nonprofits, given the downturn in the market, they’re becoming more receptive to exploring new sources of funds beyond traditional donations straight from supporters’ own checkbooks.

But an equally important goal for them is to identify and engage with their future potential donors and supporters much earlier than they might otherwise. For example, if they typically start recruiting donors who are in their early 40’s, replyforall users average younger in age: most of our users are in their 20’s and early 30’s.  With replyforall, nonprofits can identify potential supporters a full ten to twenty years earlier than they would otherwise and start having a relationship with them, similar to what our sponsor brands do.

The win-win is there for both companies and nonprofits.  What’s been helpful is both parties seeing that users clearly understand the model of interplay—that, in fact, the relationship of the brands with the nonprofits is precisely why they’ve signed up.  The fact that the users are in the driver’s seat can be comforting to both companies and brands because it’s explicit user validation each time.  However, it is a new departure from established models, so big props to our sponsor companies and nonprofit partners for joining in the mission early on!

There’s been some backlash in the cause community against an increase of “slacktivism” or “clicktivism”.  What’s your take on this?

replyforall is anchored by the belief that the most sustainable way for people to have an impact is to make it a part of what they do every day.  If participating is too painful, too hard to remember, or only appealing to a handful of people, then it limits our overall impact potential.

So if we have to pick between 5 people lifting 100 pounds of effort each day on behalf of our world or 1 million people lifting 1 pound a day, I think we can see what has more potential for scale.  There are going to be some people at one end of the spectrum that can do the heavy-lifting and are energized by the hard work of engaging at a grassroots level for an activist initiative. But if that can’t be for everyone right off the bat, then no judgments!  We should harness the potential of even incremental efforts that more of us can offer as a first step in a ladder to further engagement upwards—which is what replyforall aims to do.

What are the benefits beyond the donation made to the organization?

I hope that using replyforall in everyday emails reinforces your commitment to your cause by extending your knowledge and kicking off discourse.  For example, more than half of our users customize their signatures with rotating factoids related to their selected cause.  After sending hundreds of emails with a new factoid in it each time, you come to read and retain more than you’d imagine! As do the friends and family receiving your emails. And that’s one more step to helping us on our way towards deepening awareness of the issues and challenges facing our world, so we step towards greater engagement.

Any predictions for the future of digital advertising?

I think the best type of advertising is going to be more like an integrated part of a person’s day by becoming more relevant and useful to them. I think being ‘useful’ will be a great coattail that advertisers can ride to being relevant in a person’s very busy digital day online.

That relevance will translate into awareness and then appreciation of the brand’s value. Our sponsors are playing a very integral part to the replyforall model by driving a very special type of value to our users: picking up the tab to drive funds to their favorite causes. That “payback” isn’t lost on our users and has both an immediate and long-lasting residual awareness among them.  The best advertisers understand that the currency is relevance and that lasting relevance can’t be bullied into: it should be earned, as in any viable personal relationship.

But I think the best advertisers will take a page from how the best conversationalists engage their counterparts: by listening first to see what needs are being expressed—and then filling that need by being first and foremost useful to the user. The repeat invitation to the party will follow naturally then.

Changing the Way We Act

Marketing veteran Cindy Gallop plans to break open the traditional CSR model with a new website, IfWeRanTheWorld.com.  As she described yesterday on AdAge’s “Good Work” blog, her latest venture is “an extremely simple web platform designed to turn good intentions into action,” Google-esque in its transactional ease.

While the project is still in development, the idea is to allow brands to create customized action programs that users can discover and complete through a series of micro-actions.  Brands promote good in a way that’s tied to their day-to-day business, and consumers do good in small increments allowed by their busy schedules.

There are lots of web platforms trying to close the gap between good intentions and good actions—Causecast, The Extraordinaries, Better the World, Do Something, Social Actions—and I expect many more coming down the pipeline.  Each platform relies on its own mix of participation from nonprofits, companies, and the public, and it’s clear that these mobilization hubs will play an important role in how we use the Internet to take action.

As these platforms keep growing, there are several observations I want to make:

1.  People need more than an easy action.

Online platforms can make an action easy to find and easy to do, but that’s usually not enough to close the gap.  I get simple actions delivered straight to my inbox through the various nonprofit email lists I subscribe to, and there are plenty of things I could do, but don’t.  Either the issue doesn’t touch me in a personal way, I can’t visualize the lasting impact of my action, or there’s something else I prioritize.  The technology is only one piece—the emotional and intellectual motivation is the other.

2.  Corporations need to be involved for the right reasons.

Getting more eyeballs on your brand and turning a profit is a byproduct of CSR efforts, not the goal itself.  If we expect companies to truly help solve the global problems we’re facing, we have to demand a wholistic, long-term commitment based on an ethical viewpoint, not a strategic decision.  It’s possible.  Leadership must see that surviving means a shift in thinking from one bottom line to many.

3.  Nonprofits should re-evaluate how people like to work.

I have a Twitter search running for the term “nonprofit”, which shows me any mention of that word in the Twittersphere.  In most cases, people are sharing nonprofit resources and raising awareness for their cause.  But every so often I see someone complain about how “That’s the last time I’ll volunteer for a nonprofit again!” I’ve seen this reflected in comments on other sites, too, and there seems to be frustration with the way some nonprofits handle their volunteers.

The feeling is that nonprofits put too much emphasis on their own needs without considering the needs of their supporters.  To engage supporters, nonprofits need to create volunteer opportunities at varying levels of involvement, be organized and ready, and focus the experience on the people, not themselves.

4.  It’s easy to be cynical when companies get involved.

When a company supports social initiatives on the public side and then makes a product that seriously harms our population and our environment, there’s a real disconnect that leads to consumer cynicism.  I feel that myself.  But efforts to bring those companies into the conversation are steps in the right direction, and they are small moves to push the boundaries of corporate thinking.  We are building momentum around social consciousness, and little by little companies will have to make a shift toward real honesty and transparency.

5.  These ideas require cooperation and testing.

People in advertising and people in the social sector have something in common: they’re always thinking big.  But even the biggest social network, Facebook, started very small.  Had it been built as the Facebook we know today, it would be a much less intelligent system with a much less committed user base.

Whenever I see an inactive social network, a little part of me dies.  I think of all the brainpower, money, and talent that went into building it, and I wonder how it could have been applied to something actually useful to people.  Not everything will succeed.  But those who go straight for the win without a tangible listening, feedback, and testing process are bound to fail.