Recently I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to volunteer for Twestival, a global charity event sparked by the Twitter community in aid of charity:water.

To learn more about the event, check out these two posts I wrote at Mashable (a media partner of the event):

• Twestival: Social Media For Social Change
  
• 5 Ways to Help Twestival Raise $1 Million for charity:water

Simultaneous tweetup events were held in close to 200 cities around the globe, each organized by local volunteers with all proceeds going directly to charity:water. Charity:water is an incredible organization I’m proud to support - I got to know them by raising money for their September campaign last year and, as a part of the NYC Twestival organizing team, got to meet their team and learn even more about their amazing work.

All in all, over $250,000 has been raised, benefiting 55 communities in desperate need, along with huge amounts of online buzz and mainstream media attention.

Personally, I found the timing uncanny, as the February 12 event occurred just as Australia was mobilizing to raise funds in aid of the victims of our horrific bushfires. As I worked with the NYC Twestival organizing team on the last-minute preparations for our event, I couldn’t help but think of how this concept could apply to helping my own Aussie countrymen.

KEY LEARNINGS

First off, I’d like to share some of my key learnings from being involved in this effort:

• Cede control: Don’t tell people how they can support, just provide a framework for them to do what they can. Let your supporters come up with their own ideas - for Twestival, this type of crowdsourcing led to supporters creating innovative additional efforts like the Water Cloud, a twestival.fm station with donated music, an official T-shirt competition, and even a web-celebrity eBay auction
• Share ownership: Allowing supporters to take on some degree of ownership for the project can give a huge boost to a social media charity effort. Of course, this gives an ego boost to those involved (always important in social media!) but it also gets a deeper level of engagement and commitment from supporters.
• Boost awareness and understanding, along with raising funds: Money is always important for charity and donation is frequently the most important action you can drive. Alongside this goal, social media is at its best when spreading ideas and raising awareness - basically, if you’re going to take the time to make some noise in social media, make sure you’re educating people while you’re at it.
• Spread WOM online and build to mainstream media: When a story takes off in social media, it’s like moths to a flame. Noise begets noise - as more and more blogs and Twitter users jump on board and start making noise, the more attention you’ll receive. A social media-sparked charity campaign can put a story on the agenda through online WOM, eventually making something newsworthy that the MSM would never have blinked an eye at beforehand.
• People power is the key, but corporates can assist: Rather than a campaign attempting to garner a lot of press with the support of a couple of big corporates, a social media campaign works best with a mass of individuals giving what they can (donations of both cash and attention). This was a great fit with charity:water, as their model depends on small microdonations.

And, of course, my insights pale into insignificance alongside those of the global leader of the Twestival effort, Amanda Rose. To catch up on her thinking, read this excellent interview and post from non-profit social media smartie Beth Kanter.

How could this apply to the bushfires?

The Australian bushfires shattered lives, families and communities in their destructive path. They were Australia’s worst disaster, a true inferno that will take years of committed effort to even begin to set right. To date, we’ve seen huge outpouring of support from both corporates and everyday Australians alike. I agree with Duncan Riley that the true Aussie spirit shines through in situations like these, and I know every one of us feels a deep urge to help the poor victims of this tragedy.

The mainstream media has been throwing huge resources against the bushfires story. It’s been the biggest story in Australia, with coverage saturating the media landscape for the past couple of weeks. However, this definitely won’t last. The media will pay attention while it rates, but I fear they will soon forget the issue as the story loses its timeliness.

Likewise, many smart media commentators, such as Margaret Simons and Michael Gawenda at Crikey and Ross Gittins in the SMH, have been reflecting on the media’s current response to the disaster and how this could change - in particular, this comment from Simons rang true for me, given my recent Twestival experience:

We need new ideas on how to do the job of reporting. Something that goes beyond the cliches in which everyone is either a hero or a victim.

As I say in the Crikey e-mail, I have never known a story that so intimately involves us all. Everyone in Victoria, it seems, is either directly affected or knows someone who has lost their home or their life.

If we believe what we say - that journalism is important and a force for good - then we should have the courage to ask what, in this situation, journalists can be for.

I’d take that a bit further and ask: what can citizen journalists - the widespread social media community - be for? And with that, I’d like to propose an idea to the Aussie social media community.

A Social Media Bushfire Benefit

My concept is for a global event uniting Aussies around Australia and the world (in the mold of the brilliant Twestival) in support of bushfire victims, to be held six months from the date of the fires: Saturday, August 8.

In my opinion, our goal would be to raise money for a few key charities through real-world events supported by social media elements, while also putting this issue back on the news agenda and front and center in the community at a time when it may have dropped off the radar.

Given the insights I learned above, I’d like to give no more structure to the concept than that at this early stage. All I ask for is expressions of interest, along with some ideas.

So with that…who’s with me? Please leave a comment with expressions of interest, ideas, critiques and so on. I don’t know if this is the right approach, but I do know that it feels right to me.

And if some of you are in, I’ll take it upon myself to plan and execute an NYC event to put my money where my mouth is.

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