The Case Foundation's follow-up research and assessment report from their 2007-2008 America's Giving Challenge has been getting a lot of love on Twitter, and just in case you missed it, here it is:

The Giving Challenge: Assessment and Reflection Report

The report was written by the always fabulous Allison Fine and Beth Kanter.

A few highlights:

• The Giving Challenge raised $1.8 million from more than 71,000 donors, benefiting thousands of nonprofits
• Four key elements contributed to the success of the 2007-2008 Giving Challenge: its competitive structure, the limited timeframe, the leaderboard allowing participants to track their progress, and the incentive to receive additional award funds.
• Personal connections were critical in activating the viral effect of successful cause efforts - by large margins (between 61-74%), cause champions reported reaching out for donations and outreach assistance to people they knew personally, including known supporters, family, friends and colleagues first to spread the word and encourage participation in the Challenge.
• Smaller organizations & all-volunteer efforts experienced significant success - 11 of the 16 Giving Challenge award recipients interviewed were for causes with annual organizational budgets of less than $1m
• Individuals and nonprofits learned how to use new tools and technologies to encourage participation and give new significance to small donors - while some participants were more comfortable with using social networking and other tools such as microblogging, other more novice users turned to their networks for advice and technical support, and immersed themselves in learning how to use these tools.