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Have you seen those small digital gifts people send to each other on Facebook? Have you ever received a balloon icon on your birthday or a flower icon on Valentine’s Day? These tiny icons are actually worth millions of dollars to Facebook.  According to the Silicon Alley Insider blog, Facebook nets upwards of $75 million each year selling these $1 pictures or “virtual gifts.”   For anyone that doubts the value-add of virtual gift exchanges, visit Farmville.com and experience the hype yourself. In just 18 hours, Farmville players sent 220 million Valentine’s Day Virtual Gifts to their friends and other Farmville players.  According to Hallmark that means that Farmville players purchased 68 million more cards than the traditional consumers did industry-wide for Valentine’s Day (excluding packaged kids’ valentines for classroom exchanges.)

Does the selling of virtual gifts or real gifts offer an additional opportunity for nonprofits to raise more awareness or reach new donors? Consider the popularity of the LiveStrong wristbands and how quickly this product was adopted by other charities as a fundraising tool. The same can be said about the adoption of awareness ribbons and how today each charity can be defined by color.  (Pink = Breast Cancer, Red = AIDS, Yellow=Support our Troops, etc.) The common thread of these products is that they offer an extra level of engagement between the nonprofit and their community.  Take the same philosophy of a real gift and think of the benefits of sending a virtual gift: hassle free (no wrapping or mailing necessary), the recipients know you were thinking of them while your non-profit increases their exposure across both the recipient and donor’s social networks, and the nonprofit is able to utilize another channel for raising funds.

Virtual gifts can also be promoted by corporations to promote awareness and message on behalf of nonprofits.  Check out the following promotion on the Coca-Cola Live Postively Facebook FanPage – Send a virtual coke to your friends and Coca-Cola will donate $1 to Boys & Girls Club of America. The activity of sending a friend a virtual coke engages the Coca-Cola brand, the consumer and The Boys & Girls Club of America into the role of advocates for a greater cause.  This is a win-win for all involved.

Virtual gifts are proving to be an element that differentiates the user’s experience and encourages engagement between the user and an organization. I cannot think of the downside of sending a virtual gift on behalf of a nonprofit, can you?