My name is Bottesini Brockholst. My shirt (purple) and jacket (red) clash horribly. My nose has a distinct curve to the left. I can fly. I'm homeless and penniless. The other day, I spent about half an hour trapped in a spiral staircase in a castle, unable to go up or down the steps. (I finally escaped, and flew away in a huff.)
That's my life in Second Life, an immersive online virtual reality "world" you can visit and do all kinds of things in. I highly recommend you sign up, just to see what's going on. (Read about it in Wikipedia).
Last month the American Cancer Society held a virtual Relay for Life in Second Life. It brought in $38,000 (peanuts for the Society), but it has created a lot of buzz for the possibilities it signals. Here's some of what's being said:
- Second Life Fundraising: Philanthropy Dips its Toe Into Virtual Worlds (OnPhilanthropy).
- Is Second Life the New Blogging for NGOs? (Non-governmental Imagination).
- Mixed Reality Event - Impressions (npMarketing blog).
Yeah, it's pretty cool. In Second Life, you can raise real money and create real community in a virtual space. It's likely a foretaste of things to come.
But don't quit your day-job. It's going to be a while before this is a mainstream communication channel, especially for donor-aged (55+) people. There are probably a couple of generations of technology improvements that will help this stuff take off.
So go ahead. Learn. Get involved. Experiment. But remember who and where your donors are. So far, they're still pretty solidly on the boring old direct-mail world.
Technorati Tags: fundraising, second life, American Cancer Society, nptech
Exellent analysis. $38K is peanuts for ACS, but how much is the buzz worth? It's attracting attention within the non-profit technology world, but is it convincing other donors or foundations that ACS is an innovative group who is worthy of much larger donations? I don't know, remains to be seen.
Posted by: Seth Mazow | 02 August 2006 at 12:38