Amicus is a company that helps with fundraising, but with a twist. Last year $300 billion was raised for nonprofits with $60 billion going to fundraising. The purpose of Amicus is to utilize volunteers to network and spread the word instead of throwing expensive banquets and paying for advertisement. Seth Bannon and Ben Lamothe started Amicus when they realized how much money that could be helping people is “wasted” on getting the word out. Why should all that money be spent like that when there are so many volunteers available, each with their own friends, facebook account and cell phone. They can do all the networking that any social enterprise could possibly need.
Amicus provides social enterprises a way for their volunteers to do just that, giving them a personalized space, top networking charts for all participants, and even direct mailing services. It also has a goal system so each networker, and the company itself, can see how things are progressing all while the company can control everything. They have raised over $3.2 million for social en devours.
“I’ve been involved with causes since I was 14 and I’ve always been super frustrated. I thought crappy tech was holding the causes back and wasting my time and my volunteers’ time. So a few colleagues challenged me to fix it and here we are.”
–Seth Bannon
Amicus is certainly filling a need gap. I have been involved with many social enterprise fundraising campaigns, either has a supporter or a volunteer trying to raise money. Fundraising is by far the hardest part, and as it appears, an expensive one too. I think it’s great that those at Amicus are looking at the process differently, making use of resources and saving money! Hopefully other nonprofits can make use of these innovative ways for raising funds.
The fact that people spend an unnecessary amount of money throwing parties and entertaining themselves to raise is something that has always seemed counterproductive to me. I’m thankful that Amicus decided to do something about it. Taking advantage of social networking and the network of human relationships is certainly the way to solve this problem cheaply and effectively. I would love to learn more about this nonprofit!
Social Networking has such a huge influence on today’s world, I think it’s so smart to use it for fundraising! This seems like a smart, efficient system where you can really get the word out about your fundraising needs without wasting any money. Great idea!