While looking at blogs, I noticed that the American Cancer Society has started posting videos online. Here are links to two of their videos:

History of the American Cancer Society

Jamaican Cancer Society 2007

I looked through the 21 projects and came up with 6 of them that I liked. There are more of them that I did like, but I felt alot of them did not meet the definition of what I think NetSquared is.

Here are the ones I thought were the most interesting:

1) An Anti-Genocide Community: Building the Political Will to End Genocide

2) Kabissa 2.0: Strengthening the Social Web in Africa

3) Stop Family Violence

4) WiserEarth

5) Social Web Tools for Developing Countries: Yankana.org

6) YouthAssets - Connecting the World's Most Vulnerable Youth

Last week I attended my first DC Net2 meetup. There were about 40 people who came to the meetup.

Katya Andersen of Network for Good gave a presentation about SixDegrees.org and online fundraising.

SixDegrees.org

Kevin Bacon purchased SixDegrees.org. He wanted to do something charitable with the website and he contacted Network for Good.

In January 2007, SixDegrees.org was launched. People can setup charity badges through SixDegrees.org to fundraise for causes/organizations they care about. There can be up to 5 charities listed on a badge and the organizations chosen must be listed in Guidestar.

Right now there is a contest on SixDegrees.org, which is being held through March 31st. The six badges with the most number of donations will receive a matching grant of up to $10,000.

Facts

• 15% gave to charities because of celebrities, 76% gave to charities because they were influenced by friends and family
• People stop giving to organizations because of how they were treated by the nonprofit
• 3,000 people have sixdegrees badges, 12% of badges have at least 1 donation
• 20% donate through Network for Good because they can be anonymous

Lessons Learned

In July 2006, Envision Solutions and The Medical Blog Network launched the first global survey of healthcare bloggers. They launched the survey because the healthcare blogosphere is rapidly growing in size and importance.

The results of the survey are now available and you can view the full report at http://www.envisionsolutionsnow.com/survey.html.

Here are the findings of the survey that I thought were interesting:

• 3.3% of the respondents classified their blog as an advocacy org/nonprofit
• When asked about the most important reason they started blogging, 19.2% of the respondents stated that they blog to educate others and 8.5% of the respondents blog to advocate for a cause
• When asked about the second most important reason they started blogging, 24.9% of the respondents (the majority of the respondents) said they blog to educate others and 11.9% blog to advocate for a cause
• 55.7% blog about health news, 60.9% blog about personal experiences, and
  47.1% blog about disease information

Since not many of the bloggers that participated in this survey blog for a nonprofit, I started thinking about the blogs I have come across that are for health related organizations and the content health organizations could blog about.

NP Action has information about nonprofit blogs in their article titled Showcase Groups: Using Blogs for Advocacy.

Here is a list of the nonprofit blogs listed in the article:

• The Nonprofit Blog Exchange
• BallotBlog (by the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center)
• Denounce Torture Blog , Death Penalty Blog , Stop Violence Against Women Blog (blogs by Amnesty International)
• Clean up Washington Blog (by Public Citizen)
• OMB Watch Advocacy Blog
• Spark program

While searching the Internet for videos for nonprofit organizations, I came across a great one for the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF).

This video is more of like a commerical advertising the organization and points you to their website for more information.

You can find this video on two websites. The first website is on their donation page on their website. I think this is a great idea to display a video on the donation page. The second website is on YouTube. Their video is titled Help Us Save The Wild Cheetah. People who come across this video on YouTube will learn what CFF is and can go to their website to find out more information.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy just posted a series of articles about nonprofit blogs. These articles include Blogs on the Rise, 'Barroom' Banter and Cyber-Appeal: Tips on Creating a Successful Blog, 10 Nonprofit Blogs That Get Attention, and Charity Blogs: Excerpts From Recent Postings.

The article titled Blogs on the Rise is free to access.

Bloggers of Benetech, Donor Power Blog, Gift Hub, Smart Communities, The Agitator, Grand Rapids Community Foundation, Donor InSite, Charity Governance Blog, Trent Stamp's Take,  and White Courtesy Telephone were mentioned in the article.

I just came across an article posted on Nonprofit Times titled Social Networking. It brings up some interesting points about nonprofits and social networking sites.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"Check out the American Cancer Society (ACS) on the Web portal YouTube.com and you'd think the nonprofit is active in showing videos. If you search for the organization on YouTube, you'll see the cartoon The Flintstones appearing to change directions after smoking. You'll also see that $100,000 was raised during one event at Michigan State University. News regarding colorectal cancer is in one video, and the Relay for Life details are shown in another video.

Since this week is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, I decided to see how different homeless shelters and food banks were using the social web. I also brainstormed a few ideas on how different communities can use the social web to share what they accomplished this week.
Here are a few examples of how shelters and food banks are using the social web:

The East Texas Food Bank has a video posted on YouTube at East Texas Food Bank - Better Choices/Healthier Lives

I just discovered The Nature Conservancy Group on Flickr.

They are having a digital photography contest on Flickr. They are looking for beautiful nature photography representing the diversity of life on Earth. Your own, original images of our lands, waters, plants, animals and people in nature are all eligible for the competition.