Social Networking For Social Causes

Social networking is not just about personal connections, it has also helped raise awareness for charities and causes.

I was interested to read at Techcrunch that Causes the fundraising application for Facebook and Myspace as raised $10,000,000 in 2 years!

Causes has

• A community which currently stands at 70 million users
• Supporting 270,000 different causes and 53,000 nonprofits.
• Monetary donations have come from a total of 192,000 different users, with an impressive average donation size of $25.

Often the naysayers see social networking as something people do when they can’t be bothered to work or have too much time on their hands! However, social networking brings together people who share the same values, the same interests and can act as a catalyst for change – just think of the Barack Obama campaign.

For me, non profit organisations have been at the forefront of social media – which just shows if money is tight, then creativity flows. If money is tight then you want to engage the community to help spread your voice. Business could learn a lot from non profit activity!