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| Thought Leaders: Philanthropy |
Digital Do-Gooders
Tom Watson
11/01/2007
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I recently did a quick check on Facebook by running a query on
all the groups that my friends (a very loose descriptor on social networks) belong to. I found that the fastest-growing groups in my network are political
or high-tech, but there were also some small, grassroots causes that could
easily pass for social ventures—and some larger ones that are taking advantage
of the network. For example, I’m Going Green, a group backed by the
environment-cause marketing of Starbucks, which partnered with the nonprofit
Global Green USA, has a Facebook group featuring a Planet Green game that
spreads the message of ecology. Its membership currently totals 9,155.
Social network "mashups," which combine two or more Web information streams, are also coming online. Best-known is the collaboration
between Google and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to employ the Google Earth
satellite imagery program to portray the destruction in Darfur; the effort has
ties to Amnesty International, Save Darfur and the now-requisite Facebook group.
Just a few more bytes wandering around the networked world in
the cause of improving the planet.
Tom Watson is chief strategist for Changing Our World, a philanthropy consulting firm, and publisher of
onPhilanthropy.com.
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