contest | Social Signal

Asked on LinkedIn:
In an earlier question regarding promotional ideas to promote our community classes, it was suggested that we offer a free sign language course (value $195) to someone in need; maybe a family member, spouse, or other individual who wants to learn this valuable and important language. We like the idea of this type of promotion, but not sure how to structure this offer and create criteria so that the selection of winner is fair. We plan to send a press release to announce this free offer. Do you have any ideas on how-to set the criteria, and/or any lessons learned offering a similar promotion?

Our friends (and clients) at Vancity's ChangeEverything.ca community are running a great little contest with a cool twist. Blog about a good cause (at ChangeEverything.ca), tag it "changesomething", whip up some buzz around it, and you could win a $1,000 donation from Vancity to the group you blogged about.

They're doing in in celebration of their new branches, which just opened. What I love about this is the chance to give some profile to the smaller groups out there, the folks for whom $1,000 could make a real difference.

Best-case scenario: a good cause gets the money. Worst-case scenario: even the groups that don't win get some real profile in a community of more than 1,500 people dedicated to change. And either way, some important stories get told.