Do you speak a language that isn't English?  Do you have a passion for multi-lingual social justice?  If so (or even if not) this is the opportunity for you.

Wiser Earth is a nonprofit and social justice community that includes members from around the world.  However, they are now seeking to expand their resources to support the huge number of non-English speakers who use to WiserEarth so they can become a more effective global resource.  They hope to encourage their members to use WiserEarth in their own language.  How to make this happen?  Well, the good news is, you can help!

In recent days, Causes has left MySpace and IdeaBlob has shutdown. To some, these events were unimportant. In reaction to the Causes announcement, Economist bureau chief Matthew Bishop tweeted “Who knew it was on MySpace?” to which New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom tweeted back “No kidding.”  But to many people active in online social action communities, these events had deeper meaning.

Visit the Tactical Philanthropy blog to read today's guest post from Amy Sample Ward, NetSquared’s Global Community Development Manager.

Originally published on the TechSoup Blog.

There's been a lot of discussion over the past week about Causes leaving MySpace and becoming a Facebook-only application. In a sense, the news isn't that surprising (being a for-profit company, Causes must focus on platforms generating the most commercial interest), but it's raised a lot of questions about how closely the nonprofit community aligns itself with commercial tools.

My colleague Amy wrote in a Stanford Social Innovation Review column, "The debate around social media and the Internet in general as a leveling force is still heated from all sides. Yes you can claim that anyone has the power to blog, but that's really only the people who have access to the tools and the time and the empowerment. The access debate aside, the removal of Causes from MySpace where there are active communities of supporters means 'equal opportunity activism' is defined by only certain communities." If nonprofits have the goal of making more resources available to more people, what happens when the tools we're using seem to undermine those goals? Amy points out danah boyd's much-discussed research on the socioeconomic and racial differences between MySpace and Facebook users. Justin Massa goes so far as to call the move redlining: "Causes' justification sounds an awful lot like what financial institutions and the real estate industry used to say about poor and minority neighborhoods."

Marshall at ReadWriteWeb snaps:

Causes co-founder Sean Parker poses sitting with crossed legs in his photo on the company profile page; his mission statement begins with the words "According to the historical Buddha..." It's hard to imagine a beneficent religious figure that would ditch MySpace for Facebook, isn't it? Perhaps "the historical Buddha" would choose to pull up stakes from the 11th most popular website in the world if the people were too shallow and go to the hip social network where the money-raising action is.

This is a lightly revised note that I shared with 157 fellow Net Tuesday Organizers this past Friday evening, concerning Causes' recent announcement to 'abandon 184,674 users' on MySpace. Here's a quick way for you to share it on Twitter & Facebook.

Dear friends,

I hope this note finds you well on a lovely evening. Or morning. Or afternoon. We're a truly global bunch - so this note could find you at just about any time of day or night. Which offers somewhat of an introduction to something I want to share with you.

So much of the work we do is around connecting people across boundaries, from different countries & time-zones (from Douala to Tokyo to Vancouver) to different ethnicities, classes, and cultures within our own communities. While we don't have a stated mission, it may be fair to say we use the web to strengthen the fabric of our social ties with the intent of weaving together a better world. We use and push for tools that break down barriers, help diverse voices get heard, and bring more of us together for the beautiful array of changes we all seek.

Sadly, Something recently happened in the world of web tools for social change that seems to go against this -- of what we aspire for and work towards with a democratic web.

Net Tuesdays are free monthly gatherings for social changemakers and web innovators to network, socialize and share ideas about how nonprofits and social benefit organizations can use the social web for social change. Net Tuesdays are an initiative of NetSquared, a Project of TechSoup.

January's Event

Join Facebook and three leaders in using social media for social change for a deeper look at how to spread causes and organize real-world movement through online networks. The session is being held as part of Advertising Week in New York, and is free and open to the public.

Facebook Spark Series: Spark a Movement
When: Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008, 9:00-9:45 am ET

Where: The Times Center, 242 W. 41st Street, New York, NY

Register for free at: http://www.advertisingweek.com/?page=calendar&eventid=25_17

Presenters:

Dwight Caines, Lead Digital Strategy, Stand Up to Cancer
Joe Green, Co-Founder, Causes
Oscar Morales, activist and organizer, One Million Voices Against FARC

Care2's nonprofit online marketing blog, frogloop, recently released a dual post on social networking worthy of a read from even the most staunch social networking gurus. Both the ROI Calculator and The Long, Long Tail of Facebook Causes articles will help you determine whether marketing on social networking makes sense for you.

The first one, an ROI Calculator, will help you calculate an estimate of cost and return on investment for the recruitment and fundraising efforts of your staff in social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. It works sort of like an online mortgage calculator.

Just enter the starting assumptions like cost per hour of staff/volunteers, social network "friends" recruited per week, and the average response rate for outreach or advocacy mailings, and the tool calculates results automatically. This is a fantastic way to help you determine whether or not developing a presence on social networking sites is worth your hard earned dollars and precious time.

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