Co-creation in health

Lewis and colleagues analyzed the donation and recruitment activity of more than 1 million members of the Save Darfur Cause between May 2007 and January 2010. About 80 percent of the members had been recruited by other members and about 20 percent had joined independently.

Of these 1 million-plus members, 99.76 percent never donated any money and 72.19 percent never recruited anyone else.

The Save Darfur Cause on Facebook raised only about $100,000. While the average donation amounts were similar to more traditional fundraising methods ($29.06), the donation rate was much smaller: 0.24 percent. Compare that to mail solicitations which typically yield donation rates of 2 to 8 percent. The larger Save Darfur campaign, the researchers note, raised more than $1 million through direct-mail contributions in fiscal year 2008 alone.

Interestingly, those that had joined the Facebook cause independently were both more likely to donate and to recruit.

Social and financial contributions, though rare on both counts, also tended to go hand-in-hand. Those individuals that did recruit were nearly four times as likely as non-recruiters to donate. And donors were more than twice as likely as non-donors to recruit.

The data contained no demographic information on the cause's members. Nor, the researchers write, could they estimate "the personal significance of [the joining] gesture to participants or the symbolic impact of the movement to onlookers.

"It is possible," they add, "that the individuals in our data set contributed to Save Darfur in other meaningful but unobserved ways."

Still, Lewis and colleagues believe the study gives some valuable insights into collective action in a digital age.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-social-network-click-deep.html#jCp