Here’s an recent example of the “long tail” effect working for a non-profit.

Backstage Technologies is a small, “secretly Canadian” software company. They specialize in developing applications for Facebook - specifically, they’ve invented a way to simulate playing “scratch and win” lottery tickets. Careful, I said “simulate” - there isn’t actually money changing hands, you can’t win any cash.

However, you do get to pretend you are scratching that grey stuff off of the front of a real lottery ticket - in Facebook. And if you win you get to look at a nice photograph, and keep it as part of your collection. Admittedly, this sounds like just the kind of thing “Web 2.0″ is infamous for: very cool technology, but fundamentally kind of stupid. Until you combine it with fundraising…

Recently, Backstage partnered with a local charity, The Land Conservancy, who are fabulous fundraisers and have an apparent willingness to dive into new, potentially ridiculous, fundraising strategies. Backstage set up a way for people who play a particular kind of “scratch and win” ticket on Facebook to easily donate $1 to TLC. In fact, they get to play 10 tickets for each dollar donated. In return...

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Hey, to read the rest of the post (and to hear Backstage's response!) please visit the original post here.