Tag Archive for 'philanthropy'

Great reads from around the web on November 25th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of November 25th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • E-Commerce News: Customer Loyalty: If You Build a Branded Online Community, Will Customers Come? – "Despite the enormous popularity of peer-to-peer social networking, the adoption cycle for branded online communities has been relatively slow. That a growing number of consumer brands are transforming their existing static Web sites into interactive online communities is a trend that is not only recent, but also rapidly accelerating." What do you think? Do you have a branded online community for your organization or project? How did you ensure participation and membership?
  • ProjectRSS for describing projects (part of the Open Philanthropy effort) – I've recently come across this project from John Brennan (@worldlyjohn on Twitter) and am interested in what you all think about it! "Open source software exists in the computer industry. Open architecture exists in the construction industry. Yet only recently has there been a push for standards in communication of the philanthropic industry. The time is now. Open Philanthropy is about sharing. Open Philanthropy is about community. Open Philanthropy is about working together to increase the size of the proverbial pie (not the piece)."
  • The Report | Think Social – "This is a first draft of a longer effort dedicated to the study and advancement of developments in social media in the public interest that enable people to write history by acting online. It features concept definitions and examples for ten trends that we believe are shaping the use of social media in the public interest. We have compiled this list through interviews with public- and private-sector leaders; analysis of initiatives, organizations and government programs; reviews of industry and mainstream news coverage; and submissions from thousands of online participants."
  • Five Social Media Fundraising Trends for 2009 – Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media – "Over the past six months, I've been collaborating on a book with Allison Fine, titled "The Networked Nonprofit" and we've been sifting through stories, research, and seeing many patterns. So for this post, I'd like to share 5 fundraising trends that we saw emerging in 2009 related to fundraising and social media and that will most definitely continue to have impact in 2010."
  • Miro Community – "Miro Community lets you bring together all the videos about a topic, a community, or product into one elegant website, no matter where the videos are hosted." GetMiro.com is an open-source, non-profit video player and podcast client, check out the tool here: http://getmiro.com
Published on November 25, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Great reads from around the web on November 24th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of November 24th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • Have you always wanted to be a 'climate insider'? | TckTckTck – The 350ppm movement is doing a lot of hard work in the lead up to the talks in Copenhagen this December. "Our latest feature is a global rapid response community we launched last month, called ClimateInsider. ClimateInsider is fast becoming the new media hub that will support a digital rapid response network leading up to and during Copenhagen climate change summit." Check it out and apply to be an Insider now!
  • Facebook Charity Interview Questions – Earlier this year, John Carnell created a series called Twitter Charity Interviews that has over 40 interviews with nonprofits using Twitter talking about how, why, and what they do with the micro-blogging tool. Now, John is looking to replicate the process but focus on Facebook. If you want to share the ways your organizations is using Facebook to engage with supporters, visit this link to get the questions and the submission information.
  • Give to the Max Day – GiveMN – giveMN.org created Give to the Max Day as a way to kick off use of the new giving platform. It was more of a success than they expected with huge numbers of participation and donations! You can see the full results here and check out the site, too.
  • Strategy stuff – a three pronged approach – "Drawing together a few discussions I have been involved in recently about the different types of documents an organisation – such as a council – might need to put together to define its approach to engaging online, I thought it might be useful to set out how I think it could be done."
  • New Start Magazine: The toolkit for practitioners in regeneration, economic development & sustainable communities – "New Start is the toolkit for regeneration practitioners. It's a creative and informative magazine, but it's more than that: it's an online news service, a recruitment aid, a partner for organisations wanting to spread learning and to showcase good practice, and the place that the sector's leading thinkers use to kick-start a debate on key issues."
Published on November 24, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Great reads from around the web on November 16th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of November 16th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • Global Entrepreneurship Week – This week is Global Entrepreneurship Week! Find out how you can take part from wherever you are around the world! "Global Entrepreneurship Week takes place from 16 – 22 November 2009. It’s a worldwide movement of entrepreneurial people, with millions unleashing their enterprising talents and turning their ideas into reality."
  • http://idealist.org/ICA/root/en/Static/TheVision/default – Idealist has shared a vision and a call to action: Imagine, Connect, Act. Saying that "It's time fo rthe world's idealists to work together (seriously)." I couldn't agree more! Check it out: "What if by looking at the world from a different point of view we can quickly build a network of people and organizations that will allow us to make the most of what each of us has to offer, online and in person? What you'll find here is a vision for this network, a path and a timeline to get there, and an invitation to be part of this movement from the very start."
  • JPMorgan Chase: Chase and Facebook Launch Innovative Giving Program for Small and Local Charities – "For the first time ever, Facebook®: users will be able to choose from more than 500,000 small and local charities to decide which community organizations they want to receive donations totaling millions of dollars from a corporate philanthropy fund. Chase and Facebook today announced the launch of Chase Community Giving: You Decide What Matters, a grassroots campaign to inspire a new way of corporate philanthropy."
  • Nonprofit Tagline Report: Getting Attention Blog – The updated guide shows nonprofits top tagline approaches for stronger messaging, and features a directory of over 2,500 nonprofit tagline examples for organizations to use in creating strong messages. "The 2009 Report provides everything an organization needs to jump start its tagline development process: Why a Nonprofit’s Name Isn’t Enough; How a Strong Tagline Benefits Your Organization – Useful for developing support among colleagues and leadership; The 10 Have-Tos for Successful Taglines; Using Words that Work; The 7 Deadly Sins, 9 Snores and 5 Best Ways to Antagonize Your Audience – What not to do; Research, Create, Revise, Test, Repeat – The right steps to take to craft a potent tagline." Download the report!
  • Beth Asked a Question « A. Fine Blog – "Beth asked a question on her blog the other day: Do we have examples of using nonprofits using social media for: Volunteer or board recruitment strategy; Outreach or educational program delivery; Crowdsourcing ideas for program development; Professional development; Integrated in other areas? The answer is that there are a growing number of examples of organizations, and individuals, using social media as part of their programs not just part of fundraising and communications efforts."
Published on November 16, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Interview: Avi Kaplan, Epic Change for TweetsGiving

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Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

epic change tweetsgiving logoI recently had the opportunity to connect with Avi Kaplan, the Community and Events Director at Epic Change, to discuss the upcoming TweetsGiving campaign and events.  Avi is just back from Tanzania where he and other Epic Change team members were working with the students in the classroom built with last year’s TweetsGiving proceeds.

Find out more in the interview below!

What is Epic Change?
Epic Change is a US nonprofit dedicated to helping social entrepreneurs harness the power of their stories to create change in their communities. We are a very heartful organization and a lot of what we do is thanks to an incredible group of volunteers.

What is TweetsGiving?
TweetsGiving is a global celebration of gratitude and giving on November 24-26. Participants will share what they are grateful for through Twitter and other online media and attend gratitude parties around the world. People donate to a shared cause in honor of that for which they are most grateful. Where do the funds go? Funds raised will go to support the work of Mama Lucy Kampton (@MamaLucy), a ChangeMaker who has transformed her community in Arusha, Tanzania through her school Shepherd’s Junior.

What was last year’s celebration like and how do you think it’ll be different this year?
TweetsGiving last year was overwhelming because we put the program together so quickly and really didn’t know what kind of response we would get. Once the tweets of gratitude started to flow in we new we had identified a very powerful emotional chord with people. The tone of the messages and the level of participation we saw were hopeful and inspiring. The addition of gratitude parties this year is significant. A different kind of reflection is accomplished face-to-face than you can achieve behind a computer screen. I expect the parties to be lively gatherings and for people to form new relationships and to come with open hearts ready to share.

How can people get involved?
You can find an event to attend on our website TweetsGiving.org, volunteer to host a gratitude party (it’s not too late!), and join the Epic Change Community online to receive continued updates on the project.

What are you up to right now in Africa?
We just spent three weeks at Shepherd’s Junior near Arusha, Tanzania setting up a technology lab and wireless internet at the school. Together with our fabulous volunteers Melissa & AJ Leon of theLacProject, we taught the students and teachers about computers and social media. The students of Class Five at the school are now on Twitter and Tumblr and you can follow them all by clicking their pictures in this blog post. The internet has opened up the world for these students and their teachers are increasingly using the web in their curriculum.

For more details from our recent work here, including video, photos and more in-depth coverage of all about the work we’ve been up to in Tanzania on the “I <3 Epic Change” Blog created by theLacProject and in a recent article in the Huffington Post.

I hope you’ll join us for TweetsGiving and I’m really excited for what’s next at Epic Change.

About Avi
After over a year working as a volunteer, Avi is excited to join Epic Change as the Community and Events Director. He is a South Florida native and currently lives in Washington DC. He’s interested in using technology to organize for social change and is a recent Harvard graduate. You can find him on twitter (@MeshugAvi)or by email (Avi@EpicChange.org).

Published on November 3, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

GlobalGiving’s second American Open

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Starting October 27th, GlobalGiving will hold its second “American Open Challenge” where 501 c3’s serving U.S. communities can compete with each other by fundraising on the GlobalGiving site.  Projects working in the U.S. will have the opportunity to earn a spot on the GlobalGiving website if they mobilize supporters to raise $4,000 from at least 50 unique donors.  There is also prize money available for the organizations raising the most donors and dollars.

Nominations must be submitted by October 2, and anyone familiar with an organization’s work may make a nomination.

Get started:

Published on September 10, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

UniversalGiving: Impact, with a little help from friends (SocialActions)

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“First, we’re strictly nonprofit.”  That’s how UniversalGiving begins when describing it’s work.  But, what it should really say is, “we may be non-profit, but we are not non-impact.”  Or at least something like that!  Why? UniversalGiving is making great impact on communities around the world, both in the work, funds or volunteer efforts contributed to individuals and groups via their platform, but also in effectively and passionately empowering donors and volunteers to contribute.  Additionally, UniversalGiving is a member of Social Actions, ensuring that their opportunities to make a difference are heard and seen in even more places around the Web.

What is UniversalGiving?

“UniversalGiving™ is an award-winning marketplace which allows people to volunteer and donate to top performing projects in more than 70 countries around the world.”

It’s a marketplace, really, of opportunities to take actions for social benefit in various topics you may be after—want to donate money and leave it at that? would you rather connect with a group or individual in need half way around the world? maybe you want to join forces for a longer-term project for real impact. People simply choose a country of interest (such as China or Thailand) and an area of interest (such as education or the environment) and find a list of vetted opportunities to which they can donate money or give their time.

I’ve been watching volunteer opportunities related to technology and am so excited to jump in!

What is the Impact?

For those of you that like the number overviews, here are a few numbers to consider:

  • more than $ 1.5 million has passed through www.universalgiving.org
  • nearly 10,000 people have volunteered
  • more than 70 countries served

UniversalGiving + Social Actions

As readers of this blog probably know, I’m really excited about the work Social Actions is doing to help connect the sources of actions and opportunities across the web to push them further.  Social Actions is “an open source database of actions people can take on any issue. The actions in our database are aggregated from across the social web and include everything from volunteer opportunities to micro credit loans.”

UniversalGiving has partnered with Social Actions to ensure that the volunteer and giving opportunities they vet and promote on their platform can be found by even more people, in more places online.  I think these partnerships are so exciting because I know how many people are willing, interested, and ready to contribute to social impact projects, whether big or small, near or far—but they just don’t know how to find the ones that match their interestes or skills.  This partnership means, then, that there is a higher chance interested people can find opportunities from UniversalGiving without having to know them!

By collaborating with Social Actions, UniversalGiving also gets to benefit from things like the Change the Web Challenge that saw many new applications for the Social Actions feeds – meaning new applications that could put Social Actions data (whether a general feed of information, or specific search criteria, or one specific action) in public places online like Facebook, blogs, and more.  Again, more people can now find UniversalGiving opportunities without even trying! :)

With the impact of that partnership in mind, I want to share two of the responses UniversalGiving has received from participants:

“Universal Giving is an instrumental partner to Sports Gift and our mission to provide sports to impoverished children.  Universal Giving helps us reach people across the country to tell them about volunteer opportunities, our community service programs and other charitable giving opportunities. Universal Giving has made a direct and significant impact on our ability to provide the gift of sports to thousands of children living in poverty around the world!” – Keven Baxter of Sports Gift

“Because we’re a relatively small NGO with a fairly specialized focus, it’s been great to be a part of UniversalGiving and gain the additional exposure to potential donors that we may have never otherwise reached.  Also, UniversalGiving’s ability to process a high volume of contributions from an intensive online donation drive, something beyond the capacity of my organization, allowed us to benefit from an MTV Networks employee giving campaign, even though it came about on very short notice.  UniversalGiving also provided MTV with the donation data they requested, quickly and efficiently, which secured a substantial corporate match for us.  UniversalGiving proved to be a great advocate for my organization.” – Michael Hayes of Solar Cookers International

Clearly, UniversalGiving is doing a good job making positive impact around the world.  I’m very excited to see them partner with Social Actions to make this impact reach even further and involve more people.  What I’m most excited about, though, is watching UniversalGiving’s work grow!

Connect & Learn more

You can follow UniversalGiving or Social Actions on Twitter, follow stories on their blogs (UG blog or SA blog) or visit their websites to learn more:

Published on August 28, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 6 Comments

More thoughts on Millenials

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Last month I shared some brief thoughts about the changing environment of nonprofits per the characteristics of Millenials.

A few weeks ago, Allison Fine participated in a live chat with the Chronicle of Philanthropy to discuss the topic of Engaging Millenials in Social Causes.  Quite a few people participated in the live discussion on the C of P website during the hour-long virtual event.  To reflect on some of the ideas and questions I raised in that previous post, I asked Allison:

How do you view the relationship between Millenials and older generations IN social media? Positive, negative, linear, hierarchical, leaders/followers, individuals, mentors/teachers, etc. And, do you think this relationship affects the conversations that nonprofits are trying to listen to, interact with, and learn from? Thanks!

I was thinking a lot about the way interactions and relationships between Millenials and those of older generations could effect the way organization adopt or integrate social media tools into their work.  Allison’s response was:

Hi, Amy, thanks for your question and the interesting thoughts on your blog last week. We provide astonishingly few opportunities for Millennials and older generations to use social media together. We’ve almost made it taboo, haven’t we? I would love to see younger people mentor older people on social media, what a great use of talents and skills! I think it would be a great way to unlock causes and organizations (again, back to provocative!) One of the most interesting aspects of Causes on Facebook is that there are so many causes for each issue. Take Darfur, for example. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Causes on Facebook dedicated to this issue. Before, in the proprietary age, people interested in this issue would have been largely locked into one or two organizations they knew about.

This is a long way to say that I think your interest in this area is right on the money and I would love to see more mentoring and more conversations between young and old people online or on Causes.org or even on Twitter (!) about issues that concern us all.

So, now I’m thinking about ways that organizations can use social media tools in a meaningful way that also allows all supporters (Millenials and beyond) to interact with each other.  How does your organization create places, on or offline, for supporters of all ages to interact or spread your work on behalf of the organization (fundraising, communications, etc.)?

You can read the other questions and answers from the Chronicle of Philanthropy live discussion with Allison Fine on the C of P website, here.

Published on June 23, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 Comments

Not just “grant” making

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Sean Stannard-Stockton at Tactical Philanthropy has been hosting a One Post Challenge this month, encouraging contributions to the blog from others in the philanthropic community. I wrote a post called Not Just “Grant” Making

As the holiday season is now in full swing and many organizations are launching online donation campaigns, I have been thinking more and more about how closely my personal views of “giving” have formed my professional ones.

I don’t think that our responsibility is to just dole out the cash—we have a whole lot more to offer!

Click here to read more and comment at Tactical Philanthropy!

Published on November 29, 2007 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments