At BCG we are constantly on the lookout for the latest and greatest innovations in giving that we can share with you, our BCG Friends! Our newest obsession is Snoball, an event-based online donation platform. With close to two million charities in their database, Snoball lets you contribute an amount of your choosing every time a certain event happens. The platform is based upon incorporating micro-donations into one’s weekly activities. It allows anyone, whether they are an individual, a company or a nonprofit to start their own cause marketing campaign for free and to do this in fun and new ways.
Snoball is FREE and 95% of all donations go directly to the charity. Tax and giving reports are built-in. Users receive billing notifications and can put limits on how much they want to give each month.
So How does Snoball Work?
Individuals create what we call a “Snoball”. An example might be: Every time the Lakers (or whichever team you choose) win, $5 is donated to a charity of your choice. You can then leverage your social network to make that donation grow exponentially, hence creating the “Snoball Effect”. This allows a reach far beyond the charities own donor base. Snoballs can be created based on sports, social media like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, MapMyFitness, YouTube, etc.and also on a more traditional calendar basis like daily, weekly, or monthly. Even one-time donations can be made through this platform.
The company’s goal is to transform giving for non-profits to create a steady flow of income so large, time-consuming events become a thing of the past.
Through snoball.com, users anywhere can create momentum around donations for their favorite charities. When a user creates a Snoball account, they instantly have the ability to donate to over 1.7 million non-profits, with all of their giving managed in one central location. Using the platform, users can create a parameter for giving known as a ‘Snoball.’ Snoballs define a specific condition of a donation and can be tied to a user’s interests. For example, a Snoball may be defined as: “Every time the Dallas Cowboys win, I will donate $1 to the American Red Cross,” or “When I check-in at my favorite coffee shop using Foursquare, I will donate $2 to the local area food bank.” The specific event, donation amount and time interval are defined by the user.
Once a Snoball is defined and enabled, the platform’s underlying patented technology takes care of the rest, triggering the specified donation at the pre-defined intervals for the life of the Snoball. This can ultimately transform a one dollar donation into millions.
Snoball has a unique platform for nonprofits and it’s time to claim your nonprofit and build your page!
To get started, create a user account on snoball.com. After creating your own user account, search their database for the nonprofit that you represent, get this if your are a 501(c) 3, chances are you are already in the database! Once you find your nonprofit’s page on Snoball, click the “Claim This Nonprofit” button in the middle of the page. After a few quick steps you will then you have the opportunity to tell the story of your nonprofit in your own words, on your own page. You can upload your logo, include a youtube video and your mission statement, and highlight your favorite snoballs. Snoball will help you create a unique sub-domain to make it easy to promote on the web and in your newsletters
(i.e. yourcharityname.snoball.com).
It’s time to get the Snoball effect working for your nonprofit! To learn more about Snoball and how you can give back or get your nonprofit involved visit snoball.com!
