tweet4good: Donate and fundraise using Twitter.

Submitted by edobejar on May 19, 2008 - 9:02am

Project URL:

http://www.tweet4good.org

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

tweet4good is a mashup that integrates Network for Good's donation processing platform with Twitter, allowing any user of this microblogging service to easily donate to any cause or organization.

Similarly, any nonprofit organization listed at Network for Good's database can start fundraising on Twitter just by creating a profile and tweeting about its cause.

As new social networks arise, reaching online users for fundraising becomes more of a challenge. The key for organizations will be to provide easy ways for people to send their donations, using each one of these networks and services.

How tweet4good works?

For donors:

1) If you are already on Twitter, follow tweet4good.
2) To donate to an organization, tweet $username (i.e. $techsoup). To donate to a cause, tweet $cause (i.e. $genocide).
3) You will receive a direct message with a link where you can place your donation.

For organizations:

1) Confirm that you are listed at Network for Good.
2) Create a Twitter account for your organization.
3) Start tweeting about your cause and invite your followers to donate.

Twitter gives nonprofit organizations the opportunity to share their stories and create a group of followers that later can be the support to a fundraising initiative. tweet4good allows users to easily donate to organizations that they follow and like.

We have a working demo of this mashup that you can test at www.tweet4good.org.

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

People using Twitter will have access to information about more than 1 million charities listed at Network for Good; and on the other hand, nonprofit organizations will be able to reach an estimatedÂ universe of more than 1.5 million users on Twitter.

What else have you done in this Cause Area?:

Since 2001, we have been working on exploring social uses of technology for organizations and communities, to help minimize the digital divide. Last year, our project Yankana was one of N2Y2 featured projects; and recently, we launched nonprofit pulse, a mashup that tracks messages shared at Twitter by people working or related to the nonprofit area, worldwide.

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

Organization Supporting your project, if any:

Fundacion de Ayuda por Internet (Fundapi)

Supporting Organization URL:

http://www.fundapi.org

Does your Project have financial support?:

City:

Guayaquil

State/Region:

Guayas

Country:

Ecuador

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

We have a working demo of this mashup that you can test at www.tweet4good.org. Any suggestions to improve it will be very helpful. We need funding for setting up a more stable infrastructure, and also permanent access to the Network for Good's API to launch this initiative publicly.

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

Network for Good API: Database of more than 1 million charities.
Twitter API: Microblogging platform with an estimated of more than 1.5 million users.
Twurl API: Service for creating short URLs.

Workarounds for twitter name

Submitted by Caz (not verified) on November 28, 2008 - 8:00am.

This an interesting idea. Is there workaround for non-profits whose Network for Good name is not available in twitter?

follow tweet4good

Submitted by rootwork on May 31, 2008 - 8:00am.

Hey Eduardo! Congrats on your award and sorry I didn't get a chance to connect with you this year. I like this project a lot and congratulations on your award!

The only comment I would have is that not all orgs will probably set up Twitter accounts that are precisely their org names. For instance, the Genocide Intervention Network's Twitter account is twitter.com/antigenocide. twitter.com/genocideinterventionnetwork would just be a little too long, in my opinion.

Other than that, I'm excited to see how this develops!

--ivan (Rootwork.org and Genocide Intervention Network)

Re: follow tweet4good

Submitted by edobejar on May 31, 2008 - 11:30am.

Hey Ivan! Thank you, it was really nice to see you and to know that your project was one of the 21 featured ones.

Regarding your question, the Twitter username for your organization can be anything, like in your case, just twitter.com/antigenocide, or even something unrelated. What tweet4good does is get from Twitter the Name associated to that username and search it on Network for Good. For organizations with long names that do not fit on the Twitter name field, they can use part of it so the script can find it when searching for keywords.

Regards and we'll keep in touch!

Eduardo

No repsonse from tweet4good

Submitted by CarolHayzlett (not verified) on July 16, 2009 - 7:48am.

I see that you answered my question on my organization name being slightly different than my twitter account name (LifeLight Communications vs. LifeLight) however I have not received any direct responses from tweet4good on my tweet after several attempt to donate (using $LifeLight). I cannot find any contact info on tweet4good.org either so this is a problem for getting help. How do I get this to work? I am at a loss and really need to get this working ASAP.

Thanks,
Carol Hayzlett
Executive Assistant
LifeLight Communications, Inc.
www.LifeLight.org
@LifeLight

Information from Tweet4Good

Submitted by Amy Sample Ward on July 21, 2009 - 1:31am.

Carol, I shared your comment above with the Tweet4Good contact and wanted to share the response here on the blog for your reference and anyone else who reads it.

"Tweet4good was an iniciative presented at N2Y3, and one of the winners of the Donate Now Mashup Challenge. We had interesting objectives and perspectives about it, though there are two major barriers which we haven't been able to surpass yet. Both related to the rules of the challenge (which of course we knew from the beginning):

1)
Q: Can international organizations participate?
A: The Network for Good donatation API can only be used by U.S organization and can only process transactions from North American credit cards. However, international organizations and individuals CAN participate in the DonateNow Mashup Challenge and are eligible for the $10,000 prize. However, they would have to donate the one-year license for the API to a U.S organization of their choice.

2)
Q: If my project does not win and I want to purchase the Network for Good API for use beyond June 30th, what do I do?
A: Network for Good currently offers two levels of its API: 1) Donate and 2) GuideStar Search & Donate. Organizations interested in purchasing a developer license for use beyond June 30, 2008 should email customerservice@networkforgood.org. The cost ranges from $6,000 - $9,000 depending on the type of organization, and which level of web services are being used. While we wish we could give the API away for free, there are significant internal and third-party costs incurred by Network for Good in supporting the API which must be recovered.

http://www.netsquared.org/challenges/n2y3/donatenowchallenge

So currently tweet4good.com is online but the process is not operational, as license to access Network for Good's database expired last year."