By Chris Lee

Cloud computing has been around for years in business, but how is it impacting charities? A new online event fundraising software as a service (SaaS) is helping Cancer Research UK to raise funds and awareness, as well as take advantage of social media marketing. New Media Knowledge caught up with Convio, the people behind the software, to learn more.

As part of its Relay for Life campaign, Cancer Research UK is the first UK charity using TeamRaiser, a SaaS which Convio says provides a fully branded event platform including reporting, email and social media integration.

Simon O’Leary, Head of Volunteer Fundraising at Cancer Research UK, said: “TeamRaiser allows us to provide a better experience to members of the public who are registering for our Relay For Life events and crucially provides more integrated fundraising capability that we can use to drive incremental income growth.”

The American Cancer Society has been using the programme since 2005 and seen increased online revenues of 48 per cent.

Getting social with charities

Martin Campbell, UK Managing Director, Convio, told NMK that social media is as important to charities in the "third sector" as it is to business.

“It’s where people share information and chat with their network so it is not only an effective place for charities to raise overall awareness and help with fundraising, but it is also a powerful way for event organisers to drive participation and engage supporters,” he said.

TeamRaiser is now available to UK charities and will provide a fully branded online platform that allows registration, online donations, real-time fundraising reporting, event management, email capability and social media integration to maintain engagement with participants all in one package, its creators Convio says.

Campbell said that TeamRaiser aims to maximise the value of charity events and social integration is a significant part of that. Experience with a variety of other sites has shown that a simple "share this" type approach isn't sufficient, he argued, and neither is it appropriate to “spam your social network every time someone gives you a donation or sponsors you,” he added.

“What works is when an individual can use more sophisticated tools to work out who among their social network is interested in the event or fundraising that they're doing and can then communicate with them right across the mix of social networks and email,” he told NMK.

Charity in action

Campbell said that Cancer Research UK volunteers, team captains and event participants can share info about events on Facebook and Twitter and also embed YouTube videos on their site, share photos with one-click permissions via photo sharing site Flickr. They cans also use location services such as Google Maps to drive event attendance.

“It is natural for anyone taking part in an event to want to share their experience and encourage supporters and we wanted to make it is easy as possible for them to do so,” Campbell concluded. “Charities have been slow to truly embrace cloud-based technologies that are essential to deliver results in the fast changing web of social networks but that is changing. Software as a Service (SaaS) is by far the most cost effective and efficient way for charities to make the most of online channels and build those valuable long-term relationships with supporters that are so important.”