On September 3rd, I got an email update from Twitter’s Biz Stone, introducing Scott Harrison, the 33 year-old founder of charity:water, a non-profit that raises funds to build wells and bring clean drinking water to people in need. The organization has so far brought successful projectsto life in Africa (Liberia, Central African Republic, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi), Latin America (Guatemala) and South East Asia (India and Bangladesh).
Scott was running a pretty cool fundraising effort, calling all September birthdays (his is the 7th) to donate to the cause and get their friends to do the same. The logic is simple: if you think you pretty much have what you need to get by, you can ask your friends to donate to the campaign instead of getting you things you may or may not use.
I ran a quick search on Twitter and came across 15 pages of posts from the past 6 months about the charity. Many people announcing their own contributions, encouraging their friends to donate or buzzing about the charity’s touching PSA and video announcements.
My question is why stop in September? The charity has raised close to $1MM from donations. Its goal is to reach $1.5 million. I am a November baby. My birthday often coincides with Thanksgiving. I am thankful for a lot of things in my life and will ask friends to donate here.
Idil has devised marketing and communication strategies for Fortune 500 companies and non-profit organizations for 20 years. She is the author of 'Implementing Word of Mouth Marketing: Online Strategies to Identify Influencers, Craft Stories and Draw Customers' (Wiley, 2010), as well as numerous industry briefs and articles on online communications.
Idil has been a public speaker on word-of-mouth marketing, women and ethnic minorities’ use of digital communications, and e-CRM. She has been widely quoted in trade journals and newspapers such as CNet news, CBS Market Watch, San Jose Mercury News, Chicago Sun Times, Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times and the New York Times. In 2010, she was selected ‘Digital Communicator of the Year’ by PRNews.
Idil is currently VP of Media Analytics at Nielsen, working with public sector, technology and telecom clients, gauging their advertising and brand communication effectiveness. She also serves on the Ad Council’s Research Committee.
Previously, she was a VP of Client Development at NM Incite – a Nielsen / McKinsey company, identifying and amplifying business opportunities in social media for clients. Prior to her roles at Nielsen, Cakim was a Senior Vice President in the global PR agency Golin’s digital practice and a Director of Burson-Marsteller’s think tank—the Knowledge Development group.
A native of Istanbul, she holds an M.A. in Communication from the Annenberg School at University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Sociology from Bryn Mawr College.
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