The Gong Show

I clicked on my first Facebook ad today. While I was playing Scrabulous (if you’re a Scrabulous fan on Facebook, lets play! I’m hooked.) I saw an add for “unexpected gifts” from Oxfam America. My mother has an active role in Oxfam America, plus I’m interested in new models leveraging digital media for philanthropic lending and giving (Kiva, Donor’s Choose, etc), so I clicked on the ad.

It’s actually pretty cool. It’s called Oxfam America Unwrapped, and it allows you to give a friend/family-member/loved-one/etc a sheep or a can of worm or something else as a gift. The item given goes to a a village in need in a third world country. And all the gifts fit into Oxfam’s higher mission in line with the old saying: “give a man a fish and it feeds him for one day, but teach a man to fish and it feeds him for the rest of his life.”

I think Oxfam America is missing a larger opportunity though. They should tap into the virtual gifting market, except the gifting should only be virtual to the gifter and giftee, and the physical item gifted goes to a third-world village.

For example, on Oxfam America Unwrapped I can gift a sheep to a friend, but what the friend actually receives is a physical card. Perhaps the recipient will put the card on display in their house, and a few house guests will see it. That’s the maximum virality of this idea in its current implementation. Instead, I propose that the friend receive a digital representation of the gift too, on Facebook or in a widget that’s embeddable on a blog. Then, if I were the recipient, all of the people that read my blog or see my facebook profile would see my gift, thus, significantly increasing the viral distribution coefficient.

The Causes app on Facebook should be doing this too. I hope they’re already on it.