Building online communities: a case study

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Communities care. Whether in-person or virtual, whether connected by a location, campaign or shared beliefs, there is great strength and opportunity for raising funds. Places of worship have long been a focus for a community donating and using funds. Here we look at organisations who have built a community of supporters as a way of raising funds.

With the rise of social media in our lives, charities and non profit organisations are looking to the web as a way of building communities. However, it is not as simple as building a website and asking for donations.

Stuff4Sam

In June 2009, aged five, Sam died of meningitis. His parents died days later at Beachy Head. This case study has been kept on the site as a tribute to them and to help other people learn

from the activities of Stuff4Sam.

Background

Sam was just 16 months old when he was severely injured in a car accident in July 2005. After spending nine months in hospital, Sam was sent home. He is paralysed from the neck down, needs 24-hour care, breathes with the help of a machine but otherwise is a happy, cheeky boy who loves tractors!

Money was needed to buy equipment to support Sam's long-term development and health so Stuff4Sam was started by friends of Sam's parents.

Starting up Stuff4Sam

Lots of people wanted to do something to help Sam. We created Stuff4Sam as a way of bringing together different fundraising activities that were happening.

Initially money was raised via JustGiving as it could go directly to the hospital where Sam was being treated. We set up the Stuff4Sam blog as somewhere people doing events could talk about their training and progress and encourage donations via JustGiving. Events included Arctic dog-sledding, a 120-mile tandem bike ride through the night and a mile walk by one-year-olds!

Once Sam was sent home, we had to investigate how to continue. We found that we could not set up a charity that only benefited Sam, so needed to find other ways to manage the activities and finances.

We found a bank that offered Treasurers Accounts. This meant we could operate an account in the name of Stuff4Sam without having to set up a business account, thus avoiding banking costs.

The website

The focus was now all on the website and it had to grow to accommodate donations. To build this new infrastructure we registered the blog with an official domain making it easier to find and remember, created an email address, developed a logo, added PayPal so donations could be made online and set up a PO Box for postal donations.

Content on the site also grew. People sent Hi Sam messages and pictures from their holidays around the world, comments were added to posts and the family wrote news about Sam's progress.

We regularly updated the site with news, messages and events to make it a place people would come back to regularly. We also made sure that Sam's family and friends knew it was there by including it on our email signatures and Sam's parents including the address in their Christmas cards.

Stuff4Sam success

In December 2008 we reached our target of £30,000. This was used to buy major pieces of equipment to help Sam keep healthy and active. This included an FES exercise bike for £7000 and an outdoor buggy. This equipment is vital to Sam and his development.

All funds we raised went straight to Sam. We didn't spend any money on admin or staff costs. The Stuff4Sam team of four, maintained and built the site in our spare time.

Even after we stopped fundraising, the site still continued with Hi Sam messages, updates about Sam and links to other charities involved in spinal injuries. 

The site is visited by people not connected to Sam. These people may have similar injuries or are looking for information about the innovative equipment that Sam uses.

The site is also important to Sam and his family. They have found it a great comfort through some difficult times to know there is community of people supporting them.

Find out more

Find out more about Stuff4Sam.

Useful links

• Another example of the use of social media to build a community around a cause is the child's i foundation. Visit their website to find out more about them.

Have your say

Do you know of any online communities that have succeeded in raising money for their cause? Why did it work so well?

Share your experience by joining in a discussion on the fundraising forum.