If a category existed for "corporate wins in social media" in the Guinness Book of World Records, Chase Bank would surely hold the top spot today. In its recently concluded effort, two million users became Facebook Fans of Chase Community Giving in order to direct $5 million in donations to their favorite charities. 

In round one, Chase fans were given 20 votes to parcel out among 500,000 eligible 501(c)(3) charities. First-round voting ended Dec. 12. The 100 charities with the most votes were declared finalists and moved into round two. Round two voting ended Jan. 22, 2010.

The winner was awarded $1 million; five runner-ups received $100,000 each; and 100 finalists received $25,000 each. The winning charity, Invisible Children, received more than 100,000 votes as did second place Isha Foundation. But anyone looking to recreate Chase's success should think carefully about the official rules. With less than 1200 votes separating the two charities, and with $900,000 at stake, there were accusations of voter fraud in the Chase contest. Future contests will likely give the bank some leeway in declaring a tie and splitting the pot equitably.

Relevance for Netbankers: If you still have social media naysayers in your company, give them the link to Chase's recap page (screenshot below). That ought to get their attention. 

Contest recap on Chase's Community Giving Facebook page (link, 31 March 2010)

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One magazine I always look forward to receiving is Fast Company, not only do they love the same companies as we, but their pages are chock full of ideas and real-world case studies. I find something inspiring in every issue.

But I was surprised to spot (April issue) this headline in the upper-left corner of the cover --

One Bank to Love

-- and immediately thought of Vancity. But the object of Fast Company's affection this month was Triodos Bank, a Dutch bank founded in 1980 (company timeline) with a mission similar to my Vancity friends in Vancouver. Wikipedia says Triodos is a pioneer in ethical banking and that it "lends only to companies and nonprofits with social or ecological benefits."

And to prove that they follow this mantra, Triodos maintains an open database of the organizations it lends to. You can search by country and sector, or narrow your search to specific topics such as "wind farms" (see UK results below).

Search results at Triodos Bank UK for "wind farms" (link, 24 March 2010)

Relevance to Netbankers
While many negative stories have yet to run, the tide may be about to turn. The press will increasingly be looking for positive stories where banks and credit unions are helping customers and small businesses flourish. You can help by identifying individual success stories within your customer base.

Or go full bore with a searchable database of your commercial loan customers, especially those in nonprofit sectors. Naturally, this requires written consent from your clients, but if there's something in it for them (e.g., free publicity), you should get quite a few takers.

If that's a little too open, you could anonymously map commercial loan recipients (similar to the screenshot above). That would demonstrate your involvement in various communities/neighborhoods without a lengthy consent process. 

One of the lasting benefits of the Internet is it's ability to quickly rally resources. The latest proof point: raising funds for Haitian earthquake relief. The big Internet companies, such as Amazon, Google, Bing, Craigslist and PayPal, post links almost immediately to provide site visitors with a trusted path to donate funds (see screenshots below). 

Consumers trust those companies and visit frequently, so it's a great way to raise awareness and funds. But there's another group of Internet powerhouses that historically have not participated in Web-based fundraising: financial institutions.

Even during the New Orleans flooding in 2005, we found only three top-50 banks linking to the Red Cross. It's not a whole lot better this time. But one major bank, Citibank, has a homepage link to earthquake relief (screenshots below). Also, we found two other top-50 banks with homepage links: Astoria Federal and Webster Bank (see screenshots below). None of the largest 10 credit unions had links up on Saturday.

Several major banks, such as Wells Fargo and Chase, have homepage references to their own donations, but no way for their customers to participate directly. 

Online bill-pay fundraising
Another welcome addition to bank-enabled fundraising was launched by Online Resources just two days after the earthquake hit. The bill-pay provider created banners and splash pages for its clients to use in publicizing the availability of bank bill pay for use in donating to the Red Cross (see inset right and top of the page; link to ORCC page with examples).

As of Friday, ORCC had commitments from about 10 clients to participate in the effort.

Mobile fundraising
It was also interesting to see the role mobile is taking in the current crisis. Websites and television networks have done a great job publicizing a simple way to donate $10 to the Red Cross: text "Haiti" to the shortcode 90999. Once you authorize the transaction via a return text message, $10 is automatically added to your mobile phone bill. The service is powered by mGive, a nonprofit based in Colorado. In a Friday blog post, the organization said $8.5 million had been raised so far, a number likely exceeding $10 million by now.

Banks with links: Citibank, Astoria, and Webster Bank (18 Jan. 2010)

 Links for Haitian relief at Google, PayPal, Amazon, Craigslist, and Microsoft Bing (18 Jan. 2010, 11 AM PDT)

I love how the Internet removes friction from everyday tasks, especially payment-related ones. And one of the great success stories of recent years, beginning with Hurricane Katrina relief in August 2005, is how easy it is to make charitable gifts online.

I've used the Red Cross site several times. It gets the job done, but not with the flair and superb user experience of Donors Choose (note 1). 

Thanks to Fred Wilson, blogging at A VC, I contributed to the Social Media Challenge last week and got a first-hand look at Donors Choose. The simple checkout process has three features that I'd not seen before:

• Amazon Payments as a payment choice (along with PayPal, credit card, or check; first screenshot)
• Automated Facebook wall post integration (second screenshot)
• Automated Twitter posting with two options:
  -- allow Donors Choose to Tweet a thank-you to you referencing your @twittername
  -- provides a template for you to make a Tweet from your own Twitter account

If you want to see a state-of-the-art checkout system in action, and support kids in the classroom, check out Donors Choose.

Or if you are looking to add a charitable-giving feature to your banking site for the holidays, you can easily create your own giving page at Donors Choose and run a widget on your website tracking the campaign's progress (see inset). You can choose which projects to support so long as they fall within the nonprofit's mission of "helping students in need."

Donors Choose cart with Amazon Payments and PayPal integration (13 Oct 2009)

Facebook wall post integration
This screen popped up after I checked out

Twitter integration

Donors Choose shout-out page on Twitter (link)
Note: First Tweet was Sep 29. Have done 342 since then (through 13 Oct 2009).

Note:
1. My first donation via Amazon Payments failed because I accidentally used a canceled credit card number. And evidently there is a bit of a bug in the feedback loop to the Donors Choose site. I got an error message, but when I clicked "next" to re-enter the payment, the site transferred me out to the thank-you page and I was unable to go back and re-do the transaction. I had to start all over again, and now the site shows that I've made two donations instead of one.