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Nonprofit Organizations MySpace
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
The Nonprofit Organizations MySpace is a powerful tool for grassroots mobilization that seeks to create an online global community of 100,000+ social change activists.
Supporting organization:
DIOSA | Communications
URL:
www.diosacommunications.com
City:
Springfield
State/Region:
Missouri
Country:
United States
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
Vision Statement: The Nonprofit Organizations MySpace seeks to create a 100,000+ online global community of social change activists.
Potential Social Impact: The Nonprofit Organizations MySpace is on the verge of reaching a critical mass. The number of individuals joining each day is growing rapidly, and many of these are being exposed to nonprofit organizations and their work for the first time.
On a daily basis, I send out bulletins that educate individuals about the work of nonprofit organizations and send calls to action. Any one bulletin will generate 5-20 e-mails from individuals on MySpace telling me that they took action (e-mailed a senator, called the White House, made a donation, signed up for an e-newsletter, etc). Just imagine all the people that don’t e-mail me to tell me they took action and how many more will do so when the Nonprofit Organizations MySpace reaches 100,000 friends (within a year). MySpace is very powerful, and unfortunately is still being stereotyped as a narcissistic website for teens in the mainstream media. As the number friends grow on the Nonprofit Organizations MySpace, so grows the possibility for social impact – not just here in the United States, but this is quickly becoming a community of motivated and inspired activists from all over the world.
Additionally, Change.org recently launched a fundraising widget that allows nonprofit organizations and individuals on MySpace to easily fundraise. This has amazing implications for the power of the masses to generate donations for their favorite causes.
Sustainability (financial) model:
MySpace is free. I have spent the last 6 months digging into the MySpace html code to figure out to custom design MySpace profiles for nonprofit organizations. DIOSA | Commmunications specializes in MySpace design and online communications strategies for nonprofit organizations. I am very close to quitting my day job to do this work full-time. It doesn’t look like financial sustainability is going to be problem at all. A lot of nonprofit organizations are on MySpace and more join everyday, but often they don’t really know how to effectively use MySpace. That’s the purpose of the Nonprofit Organizations MySpace and my e-newsletter:
http://www.diosacommunications.com/myspacebestpractices.htm
On a personal note, let me just say, I have been building online communities for nonprofit organizations for close to a decade, and this experience is one of the best of my life. This MySpace community is full of caring and passionate individuals from all over the world who are very kind and very appreciative of my work. As an activist who has spent years trying to engage individuals online to take action for social change, I never seen this level of immediate response to calls for action.
Potential obstacles:
My biggest obstacle is that as the community grows, I won’t be able to give each individual the sort of attention that has made the community so successful. I won’t be able to answer every e-mail or post comments of support. People e-mail me everyday asking for advice about how to use MySpace, how to start a nonprofit organization, and/or how to help certain causes and nonprofit organizations. So far I have been able to respond, but soon it will be less and less simply because I do not have the time for the sort of personalized attention.
Resource Needs:
Right now the resource I need the most is time. There is so much more I could be doing for nonprofit organizations on MySpace if it was actually a paying job, but as I said, I am pretty close to quitting my day job and designing and consulting on MySpace full-time. That will still take away from the time needed to nurture the community, but it would be a better situation than I am in now as far as having free time.
Key Milestones:
In the next 90 days I will continue to do what I have been doing. Everyday a new opportunity or client presents itself. It is amazing. I am just taking it day by day, but I am confident that within 90 days I will reach the 25,000 friends benchmark and likely leave my day job to focus on this project full-time.
Project Summary:
The purpose of the Nonprofit Organizatiosn MySpace is three-fold: 1) To serve as a portal to all nonprofit organizations on MySpace. 2) To persuade nonprofit organizations to start a MySpace and to educate them on how to effectively use MySpace as a tool for online community building, fundraising, and social change. 3) To build a community of individuals who support nonprofit organizations and their presence on MySpace.
Background Information: MySpace is the largest social networking website in the world with 162,000,000 subscribers (as of March 2007). Currently, an average of 230,000 individuals subscribe and create new MySpace profiles each day. MySpace is the 3rd visited Web site in the United States and the 5th visited Web site in the world.
http://www.myspace.com/nonprofitorganizations
Comments
Great idea, great execution
Your project has already shown a high degree of value:
- it offers a way to find non-profits on MySpace
- it encourages non-profits to band together for greater visibility and impact (nearly 12K members and growing)
- it highlights important contributors/contributions
- it teaches best practices
- it fully utilizes the variety of connection tools on MySpace
- it meets the criteria for social value, financial sustainability, and use of web tech.
Nice work.
I definitely advocate voting for this one.
Thanks
I think that infortunately little people feel concerned by the problems of planet, and those which surround us... However more we advance intime and more we advance in time and more the problems persist ! My role in France east to try to communicate, inform, of exchange on what occurs to Darfur, for example... I am volontary commity S.O.S Racism Paris bets and that enables me to meet political artists and characters. My blog has just been creates and I hope to make of it a pole of diffusion for all those wich I meet. I support you and would do all in the my best capacity to be carries french word of your association. With the pleasure of reading you.
The fairy laught Against Racism.
Thanks
I am taking some time to thank nonprofit organizations myspace. I appreciate having someone providing many people with information about important topics that everyone should be involved in. Such as global warming prevention and endangered species conservation. Thanks for all of the work you have done. Keep it up.
I want to take thetime to
I want to take thetime to thank non-profit org. on myspace. It is a great way to get info out there to tons of people all at once.
I agree that myspace can and is being used to get awareness out there to people that might other wise not here it. Keep up the great work that you have started. And I will try to do my part in all of this :)
Thanks everyone! As I said,
Thanks everyone! As I said, I have never worked with a better online community. All these responses from one bulletin on MySpace! Amazing.
Thank you from a newer non-profit
Thank you for all you're doing to help non-profits, even smaller ones and newbies! We have had a webiste for a year or so and knew a blog was a good idea. We had tried LiveSpaces and Blogger but (thanks to watching over my kids shoulders) got interested in MySpace. We have a space now at http://www.myspace.com/arkofhope We know we don't use it to it's potential at all yet but it is so encouraging there is someone here who knows the ropes and wants to help make us successfully reach the masses in a positive way. Thank you and looking forward to what we can learn.
Blair - Ark of Hope For Children http://www.arkforkids.org
Thanks for being an
Thanks for being an inspiration!
All my love.
C.S.
Thank You!
Thanks so much for all that you do. Keep fighting the good fight!
Great Networking Opportunity
Non-profit Organization's MySpace page has been an incredible go-to location for me to build networking relationships for the NPO that I work for. I have received extremely helpful information from this site, and developed numerous networking opportunities. Without this site, I would not have been introduced to the great resource MySpace truly is. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the non-profit field. It is truly people like you who make working in an NPO worthwhile. People like you also give me hope when I am feeling frustrated and doubtful about continuing my career in the Non-Profit realm.
We need more people like you
We need more people like you in the world.
Thanks for all you work and dedication.
Personally, I know you're
Personally, I know you're doing a WONDERFUL job! It takes ALOT of HARD work to get through to people & get them to care. Whatever you do, don't give up! We are here for you!
God Bless!
Peace & Love'
Chris
Love the nonprofits
Just showing my support for the nonprofits, I usually am involved in the financial/fundraising side of it. My favorite nonprofit is ADRA by far.
YOU ARE MAKING AN IMPACT!!!
You are raising awareness and educating the myspace community about what they can do to get invovled and make a difference not only in cyberspace but in the world. I appreciate the hard work that you're doing to open our hearts and our minds to something greater than ourselves. You have made an impact on me!
Nonprofit Orgs on Myspace
As media changes, so should our approach in using it. Myspace is a great tool for reaching out to let people know what is going on as well as what they can do about it. People love to help other people. People NEED to help other people. As more and more nonprofits get a web presence, we should all be able to share our best practices. This is the true gift of this site. Being the incredibly web savvy person I am (insert sarcasm here), Nonprofits Organizations Myspace saved me hours by allowing me to incorporate good ideas without having to repeatedly reinvent the wheel.
THANKS!!!
Social Networking
I just wanted to leave a message about what a great idea this myspace is. I work in the social services and am constantly looking for creative ways to network using the technology of today. As myspace is one of the youth communication tools, how important it is that we continue to spread our messages about issues facing our world today and about how each person can become involved in non-profit work or volunteerism! Keep up the good work! Ann
Nonprofit Organizations MySpace
We are in the process of developing a consultancy that will principally serve non-profits and interested major corporations in order to ensure philanthropic return on investment. Along with this, our group will facilitate, project manage and provide outsourcing for expert staff in the areas of non-profit management, blended value, social and economic development, program development, capitial improvements, etc. This team comprises decades of experience in the NPO arena.
Nonprofit Organizations MySpace provides a target rich venue with which to bring attention to our concerns and to effectively 'launch' in the global community. It is readily apparent that the stakeholders of Nonprofit Organizations MySpace have done their homework and are mission driven, highly committed and will inevitably acheive great success. We are very appreciative of their efforts and wish them the all the best!
Sincerely,
Kimball Diamond
Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofit Organizations MySpace is fantastic! There are many, many resources there for every kind of volunteer-based organization that has a MySpace. It's a wonderful resource for nonprofits and even for people wishing to help out their favorite cause! Since discovering Nonprofit Organizations MySpace, I've become a lot more involved with nonprofits and found many new causes I'd never heard of before. Great work Nonprofit Organizations MySpace!!
Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofit Organizations MySpace is a great addition to MySpace as a whole. We're actually attempting to start a non-profit organization and to come across a page like NPO MySpace was a delight. They host a wealth of information on the page as well as in their blogs. We're glad to have come across such a page. Many blessings to NPO MySpace's founders. You're doing a wonderful work.
Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofit Organizations MySpace ROCKS!
Thank you for providing opportunities for those who believe that one individual can make a difference and that each person should stand up for what they believe. Keep up the great work!
MySpace and expanding the conversation
As someone who's written, spoken and been interviewed about MySpace organizing for nonprofits, I really appreciate the work you're doing.
I think the tools you are giving nonprofits (especially design help) can really make a world of difference. In my opinion, coupling it with some "theory" on different approaches to MySpace (which is what I usually talk about) would make it stronger, but even without that it seems pretty useful.
My only question is whether the project is limited in scope to MySpace alone. Facebook, for instance, is a different beast entirely -- very different organizing model, tools, etc. You integrate some functionality from change.org, but there are other similar options like ChipIn. And in general, while I think it IS useful to give nonprofits access to a specific technology (MySpace) it seems like in the long-term the project should be to give nonprofits the tools to evaluate ANY social-networking site and their participation in it. So I guess I'm just wondering if you can extrapolate your MySpace tips into more general approaches to nonprofit social-network organizing. Eventually MySpace will fade (as Friendster did, and Xanga before that) and I think it's useful to talk about a unified approach rather than (only) focus on one technology.
Just my two cents.
--ivan (quixotic1.com/Genocide Intervention Network)
Thanks Ivan
You do bring up a very good point, and I do plan on branching out into Facebook when I quit my day job, but right now MySpace is all can handle as a volunteer gig. A bigger discussion of all social networking websites in relation to nonprofit organizations is definitely timely and useful... as well as tips and strategies.
I advocate for Change.org rather than ChipIn because Change.org donations are processed by a nonprofit organization called JustGive.org - this allows the nonprofit's status and fundraising to actually be verified. ChipIn's donationas are processed through PayPal and the fees are a little higher (not much... just a little). I commend ChipIn for their work and innovation, but I like that Change.org's donations are processed by a nonprofit (rather than PayPal) and Change.org is also in fact a social networking website.
I don't personally see MySpace fading like Friendster and Xanga. I've read articles predicting MySpace will hit the 1,000,000,000 mark in less a decade. Facebook has 10,000,000 users while MySpace currently has 168,000,000. I may be wrong, but I think MySpace is here to stay... and I personally love that it is html-based (I think the key to its success... as well as the music) for the long haul. It's the Yahoo!, Google, Craigslist, eBay, etc. of its genre... social networking websites. Not that there isn't room for others, but MySpace nailed it.
Thanks Ivan... keep up the good work!
DIOSA | Communications
myspace.com/NonprofitOrganizations
Cool Stuff
Hey, we saw your project proposal and just wanted to give a shout- nice work mobilizing charities on such a powerful medium.
Best,
Phil
Cauzoo
Give. Together.
Thanks
I appreciate the positive feedback... it's getting really interesting now that the fundraising widget is available... helping MySpace become a successful fundraising tool. Good luck with Cauzoo!