The Buzz Bin took a moment to speak with Connie Reece on just what this pea-news was all about. Connie is the founder (or “Frozen Pea Fairy God-Mother”) for the Frozen Pea Fund, a site dedicated to Susan Reynolds, a fellow blogger and friend.

BB: What inspired you to launch the Frozen Pea Fund?

CR: I got to know Susan Reynolds, an artist, blogger and relationship media consultant, on Twitter. After corresponding with her online, I wound up buying an island adjacent to hers in Second Life, where Susan has created a virtual coworking space. While I haven’t met her in person, we have spoken on the phone a number of times and were about to collaborate on a business project when cancer intervened.

The Frozen Pea Fund is one of those things that just happened, and it has grown organically. When I say it “just happened,” I’m referring to the speed and spontaneity with which it was birthed. The frozen peas theme came from Susan, who used a pack of frozen peas instead of an ice pack following multiple stabs during a biopsy that diagnosed an invasive form of breast cancer.

The fund-raising project started with an off-the-cuff remark by a friend on Twitter, who suggested that perhaps we should donate the cost of a bag of frozen peas to cancer research. That remark turned into a Facebook discussion thread among a handful of online friends. And before you know it, I was registering a domain name for the Frozen Pea Fund.

BB: I see that you are working with the American Cancer Society. What do they think of this social media campaign?

CR: They couldn’t be happier. The ACS is already a believer in social media. For example, they are active in Second Life, and the virtual Relay for Life event organized by SL volunteers raised $116,000 last year.

My company is doing a social media campaign for a new ACS video initiative that will launch next month. When David Neff, Director of Online Communications, first emailed to ask us to do some pro bono work for the Society, my reaction was to wonder how I could gracefully decline. David has been part of our local Social Media Club since the very beginning, and it would be hard to turn him down. But I didn’t see any way I could carve out enough time for the project.
Before I could decline, however, Susan got her diagnosis. And everything changed.

BB: How many people have participated in this pea linking/awareness effort? How soon did people catch on?

CR: People caught on immediately. After only a few of us added peas to our avatars, for example, the idea caught fire. By the end of that first day I had created a Flickr group that now has about 300 members who have posted their “peavatars.”

When we launched the first Frozen Pea Friday on December 21—which, coincidentally, turned out to be the day of Susan’s surgery—the story made TechCrunch, and that story was picked up by the BBC Technology section. Over the next two days around 200 blogs linked to or wrote about the fund. That number is approaching 500 now.

BB: How much money has been raised to date from this effort?

CR: As of Monday the fund total was at $7,171. Our big weekly effort is on Fridays, when we encourage people on Twitter and other social networks to “go green—pea green” with their avatars.

BB: Do you see this as more of an online giving effort, or as a community building effort?

CR: The latter, definitely. It started within a small community, mostly among a handful of friends on Twitter and Facebook, expanded to a larger circle within Twitter, and now an extended community is building around the cause. I call this “community-driven fundraising,” because it is all run by volunteers.

It’s also an example of how fast things move in online communication. The entire campaign was done with no advertising, no press release — not even a budget or a business plan. Now, a couple of weeks after the fact, we’re slowing down to do the organizational work to ensure the fund’s sustainability. In addition to the FPF blog, we now have a wiki where people who want to help determine the future of the Fund can participate.

BB: What do you perceive as the key to this campaign’s success? What worked that made it go so well?

CR: It’s a combination of factors, but I think the quirky nature of frozen peas as a symbol and our desire to “put the FUN in fundraising” have a lot to do with it. Our campaign is a reflection of the way Susan is approaching her cancer experience — with openness, honesty, generosity and a healthy dose of humor. We chose to take a somewhat light-hearted approach while recognizing that we’re raising money to fight a deadly serious disease.

BB: How long will you maintain the Frozen Pea Fund project? What’s next?

CR: The fund is set to run through October 2008, when many of the American Cancer Society’s key events for breast cancer fund-raising take place. One of our members has volunteered to organize Frozen Pea Fund teams to do the 5-mile walk in different cities, and we are also planning virtual events in Second Life. Other volunteers are working on merchandising, with profits from pea-related items going to the fund.

As I said, this is all-volunteer, community-driven fund-raising, but we would love to see some large companies catch the pea-fever and offer matching funds. Birds Eye, LeFleur, GreenGiant — if you’re listening, peas help!

Resources

To donate to the Frozen Pea Fund via the American Cancer Society click here

See the Washington Post story on Susan here

Come to the Tweet-Meet up for Susan TONIGHT in Herndon! Details here