Social Ch@nge

In our last post, we wrote about the brilliance of the Obama internet campaign. Apparently, Joe the Plumber is now joining the fray - with an internet fundraising site.

Secure Our Dream is a terrific example of what not to do. Let’s take it apart…

1) Unclear Mission
If you’re going to convince people to give you money, you need to be able to clearly articulate where that money is going to go.

Joe’s charity is dedicated to bringing together “individuals who want to help others, while at the same time ensuring our government keeps answering our tough questions.” As Joe writes, despite rumours that he might be running for congress (or giving “a shot at the country and western scene”), he really wants to do his “civic duty.” But what does this mean? What’s the big picture, Joe? Show me the path that my money will take, from my hands, through yours, and make a difference in the world.

2) Unclear Audience
Clearly, there are legions of Republicans, out-of-work plumbers, and, apparently, country and western music fans who will form the base of support for Joe’s charity. But it’s not clear on the website who else will gravitate towards Joe’s cause. This is related to point #1, and it all comes back to relevence: on your website, you need to demonstrate that you know exactly who will give you money, and how their money will make a difference.

3) Unclear Call to Action
Joe generously gives away a “We Are Joe” membership for free - provided you can stomach the grammatical inconsistency. Frankly, I’d rather have a “We Are Joes” membership, or even a “We Is Joe,” which sounds especially good if you grunt it out. The free membership doesn’t apparently get you anything, beyond Joe’s love. You can upgrade to a “freedom membership” or pre-order Joe’s upcoming book. You can also “Shop Joe,” which somehow sounds a little creepy.

One of the big advantages of fundraising on the web is that if you can instantly motivate a donor to give, the transaction can happen right away. If you can make someone feel passionate about your cause then they can instantly help out. You need a clear call to action, which Joe doesn’t have.

4) Crappy design
This is subjective, I suppose, but from a user standpoint the site is a little stinky. The menu options aren’t clear; there’s no strategy to move the user through the site; there’s no fresh content. It’s all a bit of a circa 1995-era website.

5) Top Down, Not Bottom Up
The site is all about Joe: it’s not about his supporters (or potential supporters.) For a cause-related website to survive in the current environment, it has to embrace some level of interactivity from the site visitors. Granted, Joe has put a placeholder in for an upcoming forum for paying members (”Joe the Forum.”) But that’s not going to be enough - the site should be linked over to Facebook pages, to Twitter, to all the other social media tools that encourage a community to form around a cause.

Joe needs to work on his charity site before it becomes a raging success. However, there are some great lessons to learn from looking at something like this - what’s important, and what to avoid.