Three Lessons Learned from Freeing Three American Hikers: From Integrity to Engagement to Relationship-based Fundraising - NPQ – Nonprofit Quarterly - Promoting an active an engaged democracy.

Three Lessons Learned from Freeing Three American Hikers: From Integrity to Engagement to Relationship-based Fundraising - NPQ – Nonprofit Quarterly - Promoting an active an engaged democracy.: Since our Free the Hikers social media campaign achieved its primary, seemingly impossible, objective of freeing my dear friends Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, I have received numerous requests to share our secret. Political prisoner campaigns, human rights organizations, mental health organizations, and even businesses, want to know how we built the global movement that it took to free them. They want to replicate our success in building a large, very engaged global support base that takes action to help them achieve their key objective(s). For political prisoner campaigns and non-profit organizations, a key objective is fundraising to enable them to pursue their mission. They want to know how we used social media to fundraise. Many of the campaigns and organizations that have sought my advice have the misconception that I can share our “secret” in a brief phone call or e-mail message, that they can replicate our success in a few minutes or hours/week, and that social media work starts with posting on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.