Note: The online social activism sector is growing all the time, and sharing information and ideas is crucial to continuing that growth – and the very impact on society. I’ve been invited to carry the excellent Social Actions Round-up of links and resources here at CauseWired, created by the prolific and plugged-in Joe Solomon. Enjoy it – and pass it along!
DonorsChoose.org launched their annual Bloggers Challenge! Check out the opening news story here. You can also read more about it on the DonorsChoose.org blog. So far, the challenge is off to galloping start with over $80,000 raised and over 16,000 students reached! Check out these posts by TechCrunch, EndGadget, BoingBoing – all competing to win the challenge!
More Platform News:
- ThePoint launches a new feature “Channels” – campaigns grouped by topical and/or methodological themes, from “social experiments” to “charitable projects”
- Razoo launches the “Best Nonprofit Search Engine” – mashing together guidestar listing with CharityNavigator data, Google News + more feeds. Check out an example listing here.
- Idealist.org launches Pro Bono Designs and International Volunteerism Resource Center!
- Kiva turns 3 and hosts celebrations in 6 Major Cities (Oct. 8th)
- Both DonorsChoose.org and Kiva.org are among the 5 American Express Members Projects Finalists! Your vote can help one of the projects win 1.5 million! (FAQ here )
- Care2 launches America’s Favorite Animal Shelter Contest
- Tori Tuncan submitted Lend4Health to IdeaBlob – your vote can help this awesome new giving platform win $10,000!(Full Disclosure: we will soon be submitting a proposal to Lend4Health for strategy consulting)
Articles and Relevant News:
- Philoptima Launches New Open Innovation Community for Philanthropy (Press Release here)
- Lucy Bernholz ask and answers questions about why online giving marketplaces are an important and growing sector.
- See3 launches Guide to Online Video – 7 part introduction
- New Report Urges Foundations to Make More Use of New Media (Read it here)
- BlackBaud’s Chad Norman shares a podcast (Episode #16 of the Baudcast) that sheds light on how environmental orgs are leveraging Web 2.0 and other technologies to move their mission forward. Features an all-star cast with Jonathon Coleman, Danielle Brigida, and Michael Sola!
- Michel Bowens of the P2P Foundation shares “The constellation model of social change“
- An exchange w/an academic perspective of online activism – Participatory Culture and the Internet of the Masses
- Jed Sundwall of NetSquared interviews Isaac Coleman and John Wagner of SquarePeg – Read the interview here.
- Beth Kanter created a campaign on ThePoint to make hunger unacceptable (Alex Steed philosophizes about the campaign here)
- A Small Change gets a re-design and new logo!
- Just Discovered: Everywun – Like SocialVibe, you can create a sponsored badge for your favorite cause and automatically raise funds
Social Actions News:
- Peter Deitz will be attending the Social Capitals Market 2008 (Social Actions is a media sponsor) and Online Giving Marketplaces next week. If you’re attending and want to meet up, definitely ping Peter or leave a comment on this post.
- Britt Bravo recently asked 4 nonprofit marketing mavens and bloggers (Katya Andresen, Kivi Leroux Miller,Nancy Schwartz and Nedra Weinreich) if they would take a look at socialactions.com and share their tips for how Social Actions can communicate and market their mission more effectively. Check out their rock-star responses here.
- Social Actions Labs launched the Related Ways to Take Action WordPress Plugin – You can now automatically share related ways to take action on the bottom of your WordPress blog posts! More to come next week!
Each week, Social Actions community members post links and news about online social activism to the Social Actions Round Up group. The following round-up is a summary of the links that surfaced in the last 7 days.
Philanthropy and nonprofit management expert Susan Carey Dempsey is the editor-in-chief of onPhilanthropy.com. 
Veteran consultant, journalist and entrepreneur Tom Watson is the author of CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World, a new book about online social activism. 
Social media and philanthropy evaluation expert Allison Fine is the author of Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age. 
Veteran development consultant Stephen Manzi is a recognized national leader in nonprofit management and fundraising strategy. 
Tom – I just want to say how awesome it is to be able to share Social Actions roundups on CauseWired. Looks great – and I look forward to researching and writing round-ups knowing they’re going to be shared with CauseWired readers!