This idea will allow anyone buying something online to donate their change automatically.

cheers

Fazza

One of the most interesting things is the number of comments people make on other people wishes. Sometimes the nice comments are more valuable to the person than the money.

Many of these cause-focused sites tend to be started by young (under 30), attractive men for the most part, living in the San Francisco Bay area and venture-funded. The ones that are not tend to be in Canada. Now, nothing wrong with being good-looking and living in the Bay area, I used to live there. However, the comments tend to be very myopic in perspective and not very engaging at most of these sites. To be sure, Ben Rattray is probably one of the few gentlemen that seem secure and clearly shows a level of humility about the direction of his firm—warts and all. Big ups to Ben!

But in general, when you look at these social-cause site’s they look and feel—well, the same. The audience tends to be highly educated, fairly young men and women who can “afford” to pursue their interest or passion. When you look at the various communities, the comments tend to be esoteric rants and not very deep in terms of the discussion—even the site with a reported 7 million members.

The other thing is that the elitism with this stuff oozes from many of the comments. It’s as if, your ideas have to be “perfectly coifed” rather than being refined along the way for the Web 2.0 intelligentsia to accept.

Strategically, another site asking for money (donations) is strategically flawed. Too much competition and the need being filled is not compelling—donations and activism. What is missing is the critical thinking and culture around these communities. Take for example, PlumpyNut (solution to malnutrition and famine) and OneAcreFund.org (problem of the hunger season in Africa).

At our site, http://www.spangy.com we are working with OneAcreFund by promoting their site because they have a compelling story to tell—and our community accelerates the discussion. OneArceFund gets the donation should people go there, but they get traffic from us because of the compelling story to tell. Our value proposition is the discussion and engagement about these challenges in a cross-generational context.

To be sure, our site is not as elegant as the others—because it is self-funded by me, and I am not the recipient of previous big payday. I have regular job, but believe in this, which is why I am putting my money and energy where my mouth is. However, I recognized that an international focus of our energy from the start was key, rather than trying to build an audience in the US first with the same small group of people that everyone else is trying to pursue.

Our business model is quite different. While the standard advertising is somewhat important for us, the real opportunity happens when our “solution company” relationships take off and grow, we stand to do well; there are a lot of companies that have great solutions with extraordinary global application, but don’t have advertising budgets. So, not having a lot of money forces ingenuity, which we hope will pay off for us and the solution company. For now, we are working hard to build a truly global community of people from all corners of the globe. For more, check out our video vision at http://spangy.com/about.html.

Google “donate car” and look for the most common phrase in each result’s description…;)

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Rack Pallet: “If this rich guy really cared; would he not, do it with his own money – ?”

Not sure where you read that he “cared”? If charity and activist groups benefit, what difference does it make who’s money it is and if he derives revenue from it or not?

I totally understand your misgivings, but its lass a matter of willingness, or null choice than old fashioned branding and new tech.

Example:

Part of the issue involves standard “branding” and how the donation is framed, many small drops lead to a torrent, I’m not talking 3-4$ at a time I’m talking .10-.20c (or less) that would not be missed and can be piggybacked onto a purchase thats already going to be made anyway. Add to this the current available technology and you get an actionable result, localized to your community.

The implications for charaties and activists that understand dynamic social network analysis are huge. Best of luck to Parker and the FF.

“Surging waters flow together” even on the net….

Micah
http://foodfore...t.wordpress.com

Really excited to see where agape and fivelimes goes as they build critical mass.

I agree with Amy that one of the problems in this space is that most people just don’t know where to donate money. There’s a great book called “The Paradox of Choice” by Barry Schwartz and the argument is made that sometimes when we have too many options, we end up choosing none. There are so many charities and causes that deciding which ones most deserve our money can be difficult. Throw in the existence of charity scandals and the fact that it’s not always clear how much of each donation is really going to the cause, and I think it’s easy for a lot of generous people to donate a lot less than they normally would. I’m intrigued by the possibility of applying viral marketing and social networking to charitable giving (i.e. see where people in your network are donating their money, encourage them to donate by agreeing to match their donation, etc.) but what type of impact it will really have remains to be seen.

Interestingly, bequests are down, b/c fewer % are dying (many contributing factors there). I read the annual report published by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University which has been tracking this.

Still have to say it again: plaxo (and accucard etc) is evil.

There is a lot of innovation in this space already, with Kiva.org, Changingthepresent.org and *many* others working to bring people closer to the change they are seeking to make and to create community around it. If you want to see community plus action, go to Care2 (www.care2.com) where they already have 7 million people doing both.

Americans are some of the most generous people with their own money (and I”m not talking taxes here, I’m talking voluntary giving).

I would imagine more people would give (or those that give might give more) if they could get a little help sorting out some of the charities that are out there.

However, I question the association of activism with charities. Activism is just another word for lobbyist…

rack pallet:

If one increases the amount that charities receive, even without giving one’s own money, one has done good. Anti-capitalism is quite in vogue. Congratulations for being fashionable.

http://www.tekn...ld.blogspot.com

capitlizing the act of being ”good” … by make a ”compassion” ”good” company….. backed by money – simply means …

– its another company; just another company –

– but this one is portraying itself as ”good” ……

If this rich guy really cared; would he not, do it with his own money – ?