The Great Fundraising Act: Social Media for Social Good

Time after time, the willingness of perfect strangers to rally around a good cause (and good people) blows my mind.

I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of several quality projects, but one of my proudest moments came this week with something called The Great Fundraising Act.

image credit: The Great Balancing Act

A little bit of background — a few weeks ago, a blogger named Susan (The Great Balancing Act) announced that after weeks of feeling a pain in her neck and some other subtle symptoms, doctors dropped some horrifying news on her.

She had cancer.

Lymphoma, specifically, and while she could be treated, the future for Susan would involve massive rounds of chemotherapy, both in- and out-patient treatments and a very, very expensive bill at the end.

When I heard the news, I was absolutely shocked. Sure, we’ve all been touched by cancer in some way, but Susan is 25…a personal trainer…an active and upbeat person, closely connected to the healthy living and social media communities.

While I sat back and let it soak in, another blogger jumped into action. Within days of Susan’s first post about the cancer diagnosis (“A Long Hard Road“), Janetha from meals & moves had put out the call for people to donate products, goods and services for a special auction, all in support of Susan. Hundreds of people came forward to donate their time and items, and what started as a somewhat small plan to raise maybe $5,000 culminated in one of the most amazing acts of social media that I have ever seen.

In less than 24 hours, the Internet — again, mostly people who have never and will never meet Susan — had raised:

• $26,432 in auction bids and direct monetary contributions (source: “auction results” on meals & moves)

I know that Susan is just one soldier in the war against cancer, and that thousands of others are facing the fight without the support of people across the world. That makes my heart break for them as much as this week’s social media for social good project makes my soul soar for Susan.

How have you seen social media make a difference? What projects made your heart soar?