"Working with Tipping Point has been a pleasure. Their commitment to fighting tobacco use in our communities is tremendous. They brought their savvy to our training on media and de-mystified key media buying elements and jargon. Their skills and expertise helped make the training a critical resource for making the most of media strategic plans and budgets."
Elena Deutsch - Cicatelli Associates, Inc. 

January 2010 Newsletter: Build A Home

Flower City Habitat for Humanity and Tipping Point Media have partnered together to build an exciting, new fundraising platform at http://www.rochabitat.org to build a Habitat home. This application leverages the power of social networking and can serve as a platform for innovative fundraising projects in the future. Donations raised through the Women Build application will be used to build a National Homebuilder Association-qualified home that breaks ground on May 8th in honor of Mother's Day. The house will be built in the 24-block JOSANA neighborhood where Flower City has already completed 15 homes.


A powerful platform for giving

The power of social media and technology for humanitarian relief and charitable fundraising was on full display in the aftermath of a devastating Earthquake in Haiti. Within hours of hearing about the stunning loss and human suffering, millions of Americans pledged ten dollars with their cell phones for relief, asking their friends, family, and co-workers to do the same through their Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.

Flower City Habitat for Humanity recognizes the power of new technology and team-building to create new donor relationships. Tipping Point Media developed an interactive, environmentally-responsible platform that collects donations and utilizes social networking to spread the word. This platform is not a one-time marketing tool, it is something we can adapt and expand to other Habitat projects and incorporate future technologies.



"Raising money is getting harder and harder, so using new media is essential to tap into potential supporters. Tipping Point Media has developed a fabulous social marketing application that will be used to raise donations for our Women Build program. It's innovative, fun, and easy to use. We expect the results it brings to exceed our original expectations and we think it might even fund two houses. This application is the way of the future and we'll be using it for other fund raising projects."

Flower City Habitat for Humanity CEO Arthur Woodward



How it works
Women Build application graphic

The Women Build application (http://www.rochabitat.org) challenges teams to raise money online. When a donation is pledged, donors play a "game" using interactive tools to animate their own home. Once their donation is collected, donators share this "digital home" on Facebook and share the message across multiple social networking sites to encourage friends and family to support their team and provide one click access to easily donate.

Widgets are available for teams to share information about their team progress. These widgets can be easily added to company or personal Web sites and blogs as well as Facebook and MySpace pages.



Encouraging women to build

The Women Build program was established by Habitat for Humanity International to encourage the involvement of women in the construction of Habitat homes. Crews of women volunteers have already built more than 1,000 Habitat for Humanity houses within the United States, and they are now building in more than a dozen other countries!



Support the build

While social media is a powerful medium, the Women Build project is powered by donations and the hard labor of volunteers. In addition to using our application at http://www.rochabitat.org we encourage you to visit the Women Build project Web site and learn more about the amazing work that has already been done and how your donation will help Habitat build a National Homebuilder Association-qualified home in Rochester.

If you would like to form a team, please contact Michelle Ashby at michelle@tippingpointmedia.com or call (585) 340-1119.



Follow our progress

You can follow the progress at the official http://www.rochabitat.org or across all of our homepages and social networking sites.

Flower City Habitat

Homepage: http://www.rochesterhabitat.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RochesterHabitat

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rochabitat


Tipping Point Media

Homepage: http://www.tippingpointmedia.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TippingPointMedia

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tippingptmedia