Heading Home for the Holidays, Albeit with Heavy Hearts

Next week, many of us will be going home for the holidays… but the occasion won’t be as festive as usual. Many families will be hurting, and we’ll be hugging our loved ones a little bit closer this holiday… especially the little ones.

What happened on December 14^th in Newtown, Connecticut shocked ThinkInk staff to the core, brought tears to our eyes and served as a catalyst for anger and frustration. Regardless, all we can do right now is love our neighbors up north from afar and help out as much as we possibly can as part of the greater American family.

Which is why, this year, ThinkInk is dedicating our holiday season to giving to the victims and their families by donating to the Newtown Memorial Fund. We hope that our donation makes life a little easier for those who are grieving while having to bury their loved ones in the coming days.

Even in the face of great tragedy and in those moments where our faith in humanity falters, other people and their actions restore that faith. ThinkInk is proud to be a part of the American community, one that is reaching out to help our neighbors in Connecticut. 

This holiday season, hold your loved ones tight!

From all of us ThinkInk, we wish you and your loved ones a very safe, joyous and prosperous New Year.

Giving Tuesday: How Nonprofits are Leveraging Social Media to Reach Donors

By: Christian Williams, Social Enterprise and Visibility Specialist

Did you catch a #GivingTuesday tweet on your timeline during the week after Thanksgiving?

In the aftermath of the shopping ‘holidays’ of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday was a refreshing breakaway from the madness of people clamoring for hot deals from retailers across the United States. The social media movement encouraged consumers to make a difference this holiday season by donating to their favorite charities.

And guess what? It worked.

According to this infographic by MDG Advertising, nonprofits with a presence on social media networks saw a great outcome during the Tuesday campaign: a 53% increase in the amount donated on the same day in 2011. The average donation was $101, an almost-$40 increase from the average daily donation.

A visit to the movement’s website, GivingTuesday.org, provided a showcase of nonprofit partners big and small; both smaller regional organizations and huge international charities got involved in the project and ended up making a big return on their investment.

Today (on the once-in-a-lifetime calendar date of 12/12/12) in The ThinkTank’s hometown of Miami, the social giving continued locally with #GiveMiamiDay, a 24-hour giving project organized by The Miami Foundation and designed to provide funding for deserving nonprofits in the city. As of 3pm today, over $630,000 had been raised among more than 100 charities.

So why do these campaigns make such a big impact? It’s simple to explain: if you want a consumer to donate, you have to go to where they are. They are all on social media! Social platform ShareThis was mentioned in a Mashable article stating that socially shared content accounted for approximately 10% of all web content.

The ThinkTank loves nonprofits, and we’re definitely looking forward to watching the concept of social giving become bigger and better, and to see more organizations - large, tiny, local and international - hop on board. Any nonprofit that doesn’t do so risks losing out on a major opportunity not only to raise funds, but also to help others learn about their mission.

  

Giving Thanks for the Chance to Give Unused Rewards to Causes

This blog post was originally posted on KULA Causes' blog The Currency of Giving on 11/29/12. 

Thanksgiving may be over for another year but the feeling of gratitude, the desire to help others and to give back lives on at KULA and with our partner companies and their customers.

This is evident not in the Thanksgiving Thursday, Black Friday or Cyber Monday shop-a-thons, but in the millions of unused reward points and miles that are being converted by travelers into donations that benefit nonprofits all over the world.

When media has become so fixated on how much North Americans have shelled out during the four-day Thanksgiving period at brick-and-mortar outlets or online, it feels great to be contrarian and focus on how these consumers are using their points or miles to help others. It also feels great to know that we have a developed a very powerful giving engine that creates meaningful brand loyalty by connecting those consumers with the companies and causes they truly care about – all year round.

So while North Americans gave thanks then dashed out to shop last week, we continue to be grateful every day for the travelers who donate their miles and for our partners, like JetBlue and Milepoint that support the more than 2.5 millions causes available through the our CLM™ platform.

And instead of pictures of stampeding shoppers, we’ll close out with images that inspire us to be grateful.