9 Social Media for Social Good Sites You Should know About
It’s amazing to watch technology evolve. Think about it for a second. Ten years ago there was no Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. But now over 300 million people log-in to Facebook daily, Twitter supports over 50 million tweets per day, and 2 billion videos are watched every day on YouTube. Amazing stuff.
This is a very good sign for the non-profit world. Why? Well, because the non-profit sector is built on human connectedness, relationships, passion and the desire to create positive change in the world. All this innovation birthed a new type of website – one that’s not driven by a specific non-profit, but is focused on individual people and their online networks.
These new websites enable people to support the causes they’re passionate about and connect with like minded individuals – inspiring further interaction, engagement and support. Social media for social good is grassroots organizing, fundraising and impact in the digital world.
Here’s 9 “social media for social good” websites you should check out today.
1) Crowdrise – http://www.crowdrise.com
Crowdrise came on the scene with a big splash in 2010. According to the Crowdrise team “It’s revolutionary. Really. Crowdrise is an innovative, crowd-sourcing community of volunteers and fundraisers that are answering the call to service, raising money for charity, and having the most fun in the world while doing it.”
The big differentiator for Crowdrise is the built in community that encourages people to raise money and awareness while earning points. These points lead to winning amazing prizes and all you have to do is check the Points Leaderboard to see how you’re doing.
2) Causes – http://www.causes.com
Causes was the very first application built to work with Facebook a few short years ago and now they’ve seen 30 Million dollars raised for 27,000 non-profits. Their belief is that “The most successful movements have always been born out of and held together by the bonds of real world relationships, and online social networks present never before seen opportunities for organizing.” By tying in with Facebook from the start they’ve harnessed the relational power of the most prolific social network built to date.
One of the key’s to the success of Causes is their Create a Cause Wish for Charity concept. Essentially you can set up a page that allows you to fundraise by asking people to donate money in support of the cause you care about instead of buying you a gift. To date they’ve seen close to 10 Million dollars raised this way.
3) Jumo – http://www.jumo.com
Jumo is another social media for social good platform that entered the mix in 2010. Jumo’s received a very warm welcome and a lot of press being that the founder Chris Hughes was also the co-founder of Facebook and director of online organizing for Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign.
According to Jumo they are “a social network connecting individuals and organizations who want to change the world.” Their goal is to make it to find the issues and organization you care about, follow the latest news and updates, support their work with your time, money and skills.
The core benefit of Jumo is it’s ability to surface news and information about the causes and charities you support in a central location. An incredible added benefit is that you can see who else has joined Jumo from your Facebook social network and get an idea of what causes they’re interested in by checking out their Jumo profile.
4) Razoo – http://www.razoo.com
Razoo has seen over 40 Million dollars raised by passionate supporters of charitable work through their platform. According to them “Razoo is more than a website. It’s a movement of people who want to make generosity a part of everyday life.”
You can make a donation to your favorite non-profit, start a fundraising project or create a team where your friends and family can join you in supporting the cause your passionate about.
6) 1% Club – http://www.onepercentclub.com
The 1% Club allows non-profits who’s mission is, in some part, aimed at helping end world poverty. At the heart of the 1% club is a belief that “If everyone would offer 1% of their time, knowledge and income, we can structurally solve poverty” according to their website.
As projects are created people can support projects that interest them by making a donation, joining a project community and spreading the word.
7) GiveZooks – http://www.givezooks.com
givezooks is geared towards non-profit organizations – making it easy for them to bring their fundraising efforts online, promote them through social media channels and process donations, but givezooks also gives individuals the ability to the support non-porfit organizations they care about. They call it “social fundraising that makes it easy for individuals to get involved in philanthropy in a whole new way!”
Once you have an account you can find philanthropic opportunities in your neck of the woods and even start grassroots fundraising like those that you see here for the California School Project.
9) RainMaker – http://www.rainmakerapp.com
Similar to HelpAttack, RainMaker’s focus is on giving you a simple way to make a donation to a non-profit through Twitter. Once you’ve set up your RainMaker account and connected it to your PayPal account you’ll be able to easily spread the word about a cause you care about while also making a donation. All you have to do is Tweet something like “#redcross is doing wonderful things, so I’m giving $20 through @rainmakerapp“
Non-profit organizations using RainMaker are able to easily see who’s supported to them, track how much money has been raised via Twitter and send automated thank you Tweets to each donor.
What else have you see ?
Editor’s note: this post has been updated on Apr. 25, 2023 to remove broken links. Company and organization names remain the same for historical purposes.
