microphilanthropy

SmallCanBeBig.org Micro-Giving

Submitted by SmallCanBeBig.org on November 24, 2009 - 11:42pm

SmallCanBeBig.org Micro-Giving

Project URL:

https://www.smallcanbebig.org

Short Project Overview:

SmallCanBeBig.org is a new charitable venture that provides a unique way for small donations to have a big impact.

Detailed Project Overview:

Founded in January 2009, our goal is to directly help 100 families this winter. On SmallCanBeBig.org 100% of every donation goes to immediately address a specific expense or urgent bill like rent, utility or medical expenses. Donations provide the specific help necessary to get families back on their feet, so donors know exactly how their donations make a difference. By pulling a community together, SmallCanBeBig.org can accomplish big things.

What else have you done in this area?:

To date we have helped 16 families with needs varying from $500 - $2,500.

Is there a video that helps describe your Project? If so, enter the embed code here:

Project RSS Feed:

http://twitter.com/SmallCanBeBig

Organization supporting your Project, if any:

City of Boston

Supporting Organization URL:

http://www.cityofboston.gov

City:

Waltham

State/Region:

Country:

United States

Does your Project have financial support?:

Yes

Is the impact area of your Project global?:

If no, what country(s) does it impact?:

United States

Type of expertise needed:

Marketing/Media Expertise

Description:

For our site to succeed, we need to leverage expertise in social media and social networks to help spread the word. SmallCanBeBig.org has gained traction and momentum through word of mouth to harness the power of the internet to attract people with a little extra to help families without enough. These days, itâ€™s not just the size of the contribution that matters, but the size of the group that shares the same goal.

Type of expertise needed:

Marketing/Media Expertise

Description:

On SmallCanBeBig.org family stories come to life through the amazing work of our copywriters.

Type of expertise needed:

Policy/Program Expertise

Description:

We work with a select group of reputable charities that specialize in helping families in need â€” together, theyâ€™ve stabilized and re-housed thousands of families. Their hands-on experience is invaluable to us.

Submitted by SmallCanBeBig.org on February 25, 2009 - 9:40am

A Mashup of 29+ Social Action Platforms -- Social Actions

Project URL:

http://mashup.socialactions.com

What will change in the world because this Project happens?:

Social Actions aggregates peer-to-peer social change campaigns so that individuals, organizations, and 3rd-party developers can find, support and mashup grassroots solutions to local and global problems.

View the widget we are using to promote the mashup proposal.

Test drive the current version of the Social Actions mashup

Social Actions brings together active campaigns from 29+ platforms into a single open API and search interface. The aggregator uses mark-up in the feeds to identify semantic data relating to the location, subject, time-frame, and goal of each campaign.

This innovation permits prospective donors, individuals and web apps to run queries on and map visually the dataset as a whole. We see a huge potential in the 29+ platforms to promote peer-to-peer social change. Weâ€™re pursuing this work to amplify their impact and to bring about a world in which everyone is a changemaker.

Here's a screen shot of the front end:

Social action platforms that are currently contributing content include: BringLight, Care2, Change.org, ChangingthePresent, DemocracyInAction, DonorsChoose, Firstgiving, Fundable, GiveMeaning, GlobalGiving, Helpalot, Kiva, MicroGiving, PincGiving, PledgeBank, Razoo, SixDegrees, ThePoint, and ZaZengo.

What information will people interact with to make this change?:

See our response above for a description of the information users will interact with.

Related to the DonateNow Mashup Challenge

Goal: Enhance the donor experience using NetworkforGood's open API.

Uniqueness & Creativity - By June 30, we will embed in the search results page of Social Actions an expandable donation form for each person-to-person fundraising campaign that originates from Change.org, SixDegrees, or any platform that uses NetworkforGood as a payment processesor.

Utility - The Social Actions / NetworkforGood integration will allow prospective donors to quickly mark a range of person-to-person campaigns they want to support. As more platforms make use of NetworkforGood's open API, our search interface will showcase the full range of how individuals are using NFG to raise money on behalf of organizations.

User Experience - Embedding the 'donate now' feature into the search results of Social Actions will permit prospective donors to participate in multiple campaigns across several platforms. For example, a user could donate to the top three campaigns on a given 'keyword' without leaving the search results page of Social Actions. These campaigns could originate from three different platforms.

Execution - Please test drive the current version of our mashup. The 'donate now' feature has not yet been implemented.

What else have you done in this Cause Area?:

I am the founder of Social Actions and the author of a blog called About Micro-Philanthropy.

Social Actions helps individuals and organizations use social media to plan, implement, and support peer-to-peer social change campaigns so that grassroots solutions to local and global problems can flourish.

About Micro-Philanthropy covers the peer-to-peer social change movement. The blog features the individuals, organizations, and thought-leaders that are using social media to increase small-scale giving and create social change.

I have presented webinars for NTEN on the subject of person-to-person fundraising and micro-philanthropy. I have also written and published articles on Personal Democracy Forum, TechSoup, and NTEN about launching peer-to-peer social change campaigns and selecting the right combination of technology platforms.

The underlying assumption of my work is that peer-to-peer citizen initiatives are the best incubator for broad social change.

Is there a video that helps describe your Project? If so, enter the embed code here:

Project RSS Feed:

http://www.netsquared.org/blog/peterdeitz/feed

Organization Supporting your project, if any:

Social Actions

Supporting Organization URL:

http://www.socialactions.com

Does your Project have financial support?:

What kind of help or resources do you need to turn your project idea into a completed mashup?:

The Social Actions mashup needs data integration experts and Flash developers.

When the mashup team has developed an open standard for indexing peer-to-peer social change campaigns, I will present this information to the staff and founders of social action platforms.

Enthusiastic platforms will implement the standard and present the mashup team with a feed of the latest campaigns on their platforms. At that point, the Flash developers will develop examples of how this data can be mapped visually.

I can envision more than a few Flash productions. Here are two ideas:

A world map where the latest campaigns in different cities light up as they are created or updated;
A search engine where the campaigns appear in the center of the screen based on a keyword search and link by a single line to related campaigns.

If you can visualize additional mashups of this content, please post your idea in the comments section.

List URLs that link to, or describe, your mashup data sources:

http://www.socialactions.com/meet-the-platforms

Project Engineer:

Cameron Booth

Project Engineer NetSquared Member Name:

cdb

Submitted by peterdeitz on February 9, 2008 - 8:35am