Because we’re in the process of planning the 2012 SoMeBizLife Conference and are dedicating a track to Social Media for Nonprofits, I absolutely must share with you the very best solicitation I’ve received in a long time from a very worthy charity — Philabundance. Waiting for me in today’s mail — yes, the old-fashioned, junk-mail kind of mail — was an envelope containing “an invitation” to the organization’s “Not At All A Ball.” I opened it and found the following inside:

I opened it up, and was delighted to find this wonderful message:

Essentially, this tells me that they are NOT going to have a charity ball, so I don’t have to spend money and go to something I don’t want to go to, but I can just show my support by sending a donation. Awesome! Done!

Now, would I have responded to this if it had just been a social media event? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I don’t know. But I do expect that they will get a nice social media buzz going based on this — and I hope a lot of other supporters will jump in as I did. You can NOT go to the ball, too: Just go to the Philabundance (non)event on their website and jump on in!

— Chuck Hall

http://www.philabundance.org/2012/03/23/not-at-all-a-ball-2012/