Everyone's buzzing about the Case Foundation's America's Giving Challenge and the Causes Giving Challenge. Want to help out your favorite cause? Here's how:

How to Join America's Giving Challenge (December 13, 2007-January 31, 2008)

• 1. Go to the America's Giving Challenge page in Parade Magazine.

• 2. Click on "Get Started."

• 3. Choose a cause you care about in the U.S. or Abroad.
  

Did you know that as of this writing, Hilary Clinton has raised $63,075,926, Barack Obama has raised $58,913,134 and Mitt Romney has raised $44,432,349? Mike Gravel, on the other hand, has raised $238,744.

You can see and share these astounding figures with MAPLight.org's Presidential Fundraising Widget, which can be placed on your blog or web site.

simple ... yet effective.
this is one a slew of widgets we just launched in partnership with peta2 and their "i'm not a nugget" campaign. thousands of people have already passed it on in the last week or so since we've launched -> yay!

thanks if you've passed it on and if you haven't ... please consider taking 30 seconds to click in and post out to your places ... offer feedback on the experience if you're so inclined. many thanks in advance.

i have some stickers if you're interested (leave a comment with where to send them...)

see all of them here:

Change.org, the social network where users can find like-minded do-gooders based on shared issues that they want to change, or nonprofits that they support, has launched a fundraising widget (pictured left).  The widget can be placed on a blog, MySpace, Facebook, or a website.

According to Ben Rattray, the founder of Change.org, over 200 nonprofits and NGOs like CARE, Oxfam America, Ashoka, Amnesty International, Grameen Foundation, Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, USA for UNHCR, World Wildlife Fund, and Natural Resources Defense Council have signed up for accounts on Change.org.

Carnet Williams is a popular guy. Steve Bridger interviewed him last week in his "Interview with the Widget King", the 501c3Cast is posting an interview with him on their February 26th show, and I posted an interview with him on the NetSquared Podcast this week.

Who is he?

He's the CEO of ChipIn and you can read an transcript of my interview with him below. (Full disclosure: I am on ChipIn's Nonprofit Advisory Board).

Carnet Williams: My name is Carnet Williams. I am CEO and co founder of ChipIn. We are a distributed fundraising widget platform geared towards both individuals and institutional fundraising. ChipIn works in a couple of different ways. I think, first off, ChipIn works by leveraging an individual, in particular lets say a non-profit stakeholder, leveraging an individual's social network for fundraising purposes. Now when we talk about fundraising it has a relatively wide appeal. It could be an individual raising funds to buy a new laptop computer, or it could be an individual raising funds to support a particular non-profit cause or charity.

So the strength of the system really is in providing tools for individuals to raise money. We tried to build ChipIn.com as simple as possible and it's build around the concept of having an embeddable flash-based application that can be transported through many different sites such as blogs, social media sites such as MySpace, Xanga etc. The concept is very simple. There are really only three things you need to know to even start a ChipIn event. You just need to know how much money you want to raise, some sort of title for the event, and how you want the money sent to you via your PayPal account, or do you want ChipIn to collect the money and send it to you via ACH.

Once you decide on the parameters of the event, you are given the opportunity to promote the event in two ways. First you are able to customize a flash widget with parameters such as the title, the description, the color, the size, and then you are able to place that widget on your website or your blog or your MySpace page. The concept of the widget is that it allows individuals to very easily copy and distribute your particular ChipIn event, so that they can help you with your fundraising effect.

A second way that we allow individuals to promote their particular ChipIn event is by providing a very simple domain space, meaning that individuals can register their particular name or eventname.chipin.com and then we provide a very simple editing tool to put up images, pictures, text and video, sort of like a very, very simplified blogging tool, where they can actually send people to read about the event and contribute. So those are the two ways that we allow users to utilize our system to raise money.

Britt Bravo: How can non-profits use ChipIn for their work?

CW: I think there are a couple of things that we have assumed. One is that individuals as a whole are becoming more interested in active giving. And how I define active giving is individuals who want to know where their money is going, what's being done with it, and what specific need is being addressed. I feel that the days of giving, you know, a thousand dollars to a five million dollar capital campaign, are over. I think that my generation, or our generation, who is finally coming into a financial position where they can give some of their money to causes that they believe in, really are very interested in, what is that particular, I use the term, return on my investment.

And so I think where non-profits can use ChipIn very effectively is to break down and segment any particular campaign they are running. So when we work with groups and organizations, we always say, instead of saying you want to raise a million dollars, break it down into discreet chunks--we want to raise a hundred thousand dollar for scholarships, we want to raise two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for improving a shelter--be very discreet in terms of what are the specific uses of the money, and then utilize the widget so that if I support a non-profit, but I most particularly support their after-school scholarship program, then I am more apt to take that widget, place it within my social network and say, "Hey I really support this very specific need of this non-profit organization, and I want my social network to also support it."

So I think for non-profits, the concept that we are introducing of distributed fundraising is really two-fold. I think it's one, it's utilizing the social networks of their best supporters, and two, it's allowing individuals to discreetly grab elements of a particular campaign and be the greatest advocates for that element. Very recently we also published, in conjunction with Beth Kanter, a great case study at widgetfundraising.org that really highlights how she used the ChipIn widget system to raise money for the Sharing Foundation, which is a cause very near and dear to her heart.

BB: What are some other ChipIn success stories?

CW: One of the other things that we have very much focused on is that the widget in itself isn't the full story. Even though we've worked to create a very rich and robust set of media on the widget, meaning we can stream video, audio, and images, we think that's only part of the picture. I think what's most important is that the supporters of these non-profits need to have a very close connection into why they are fundraising, why they are trying to get their social network, their friends and family, to support it.

A couple of examples that I think I can share that just sort of jump out to me, we get examples of these almost every day, but a couple of ones that we have had, a number of examples where you know, a particular individual within a community had some sort of medical issue. Now this isn't particularly a non-profit example, but you can quickly see where someone puts up a certain person who maybe just came down with cancer, or just injured themselves and they can't support their families, someone puts up a widget on a MySpace page, the word gets out, and you would be amazed at the breadth of the network of people who step forward to contribute even just a little amount.

In 2006, Beth Kanter raised over $800 in a couple weeks to fund a college education for Leng Sopharath, a Cambodian orphan, using ChipIn. You can learn how she did, and how you can do it too at: widgetfundraising.org

As Nick Booth posted about on Saturday, you can also listen to Beth talk about online fundraising and widgets on the Podnosh podcast and download a beginner's guide to online fundraising from the Podnosh site.

Full disclosure: I am on ChipIn's Nonprofit Advisory Board.

Photo Credit: Photo of Leng in Kampong Speau by Beth Kanter. 

At the beginning of December, nptech blogger extraordinaire, Beth Kanter, created a Network for Good Charity Badge for the Sharing Foundation's education programs, and began a campaign to win a $50,000 matching grant from Yahoo!.  In order to win, the Sharing Foundation had to have the most individal donors give through the Sharing Foundation's Network for Good Charity Badge. In three weeks, they raised $49,537 from 745 donors and won the Yahoo! Matching grant of $50,000.  Second runner up was WorldChanging with 522 donors giving $12,767.  Third runner up was Global Justice with 261 donors giving $14,321.

For those of you who followed Beth Kanter's fundraising campaign for the Sharing Foundation using ChipIn, you saw how it can be a powerful tool for nonprofits. ChipIn will even be adding features in January specially designed for nonprofits (full disclosure, I am on their nonprofit advisory board).  They have been nominated for a Widget of the Year award on Mashable, but the competition is stiff, and they'll need lots of votes to win.

If you'd like to help ChipIn out, click here, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and in the comments box type: "vote: chipin."  Correction: Voting for the Social Networking Awards has ended.  Here are the winners.