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| Submitted by Julia Meek on January 18, 2011 |
It's a tricky line to tread, the line between rewarding people for philanthropic things they've done and doing something that undermines their'pure motives - not to mention uses up valuable budget. However, we've decided to give it a go, and I would love to hear your feedback.
So what have we done?
In our offline activities, Wokai has always been a grassroots movement. Word about us has spread not through big campaigns, but through our events and chapter networks, person to person. As you can see from the stats on our home page, there are Wokai contributors in over 50 countries... it seems to be working.
We are now asking our contributors to take this online and use email, social networks, and whatever tools they have to spread the word further and help increase contributions to our entrepreneurs. And we want to reward them for their efforts.
Our plan (the advocate program) like this:
- POINTS Every time a person that a current contributor has referred makes their first contribution they will receive 100 impact points. They will also earn points every time they make a contribution on a per dollar basis.
- PRESENTS Every time a contributor reaches a certain number of impact points, they will win a specially designed, Wokai branded gift.
- PRIZES Every time we clock 600 qualified referrals (where someone clicks on a referral link and then goes on to make a contribution) we will hold a prize draw. The lucky referrer will win 60,000 Asia Miles, sponsored by Cathay Pacific, the equivalent of a round trip from San Francisco to Beijing.
We've worked really hard to think of incentives but would love to hear your ideas, and you views on the following questions:
- Are these incentives and referrals against the spirit of charity?
- What if non-profits started rewarding people not with 'things' but with a percentage of the donations they bring in?
Please leave comments below!
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I don't think referrals are against the spirit of charity. If you've already identified that word of mouth is the most effective way you are getting your message out there, then by all means you should use that as a pathway. As far as incentives and rewarding people goes, it's a very fine line. How much of your resources do you allocate to these rewards? Is the amount allocated balanced out by more money flowing through? Does providing incentives to people attractive a different type of participant (a non-altruistic one), or are you simply encouraging the wrong types of giving (the type with strings attached)?
Difficult questions to answer, but I think that only an ultimate purist would say that incentives for the contributor are outright wrong.
If people were rewarded with a percentage of donations being brought in, how would the donors feel about this? There already is such a clamour about the percentage of donations that goes towards the final recipient, that I think this would be heading down a very dangerous path indeed. It would be extremely hard to justify.
As for the actual gift receiving, personally it's not something that I would be comfortable with, and I'm there are at least some other people who would feel the same way. That's not to say that it shouldn't be there as a milestone to aim towards. Whether or not people accept the gift is a different story, but it could act as something of a target to reach. How about this scenario? If a contributor reaches a certain number of impact points, they can either opt to receive a gift from Wokai, or they can donate the dollar value of that gift back into the charity? You might find that many people opt for the second choice.
How about rewarding contributors using a point system that directly translates into dollars that can only be used to further sponsor Wokai entrepreneurs?
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