DonorsChoose: open source philanthropy from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Social Media Challenge is a leading example of micro-giving

When you think of organizations and nonprofits that have made effective use of Web 2.0 technologies to raise funds for a cause, DonorsChoose.org should be near the top of a very short list.

And October is once again the month when bloggers step up to the plate for the Social Media Challenge, now in its third year. Last year, bloggers big and small raised $270,000 to provide 65,000 students with the resources needed to learn. This year, Twitter has joined the fray.

At Socialbrite, we’d like to call on our readers to support students in public school classrooms in low-income areas. The cool part? You get to decide which projects to support — and you’ll be able to hear directly from the students who received your donation.

Please make a donation on the Socialbrite Giving Page. Some of the donations will have twice the impact because of a matching grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

And, of course, you can always create your own Giving Page.

Meantime, if you’re not familiar with DonorsChoose, the idea is a simple one: It’s a site where public school teachers could post what materials they were lacking in the classroom. Requests stay up for five months or until they’re fully funded.

Interview with founder Charles Best

I recently buttonholed founder and CEO Charles Best to get a first-hand account of the groundbreaking charity and its model for funding public school projects around the country. Charles thought up the site during a lunch conversation with colleagues at a public high school in the Bronx where he was a social studies teacher for five years, and his students volunteered to help start the organization. They hope individuals will contribute around $17 million this year for books, field trips, art supplies and technology needed by classrooms in low-income areas.

Watch, embed or download the 6-minute video on Vimeo
Watch the video in H.264 on Ourmedia

Some highlights from our chat:

• During the 2007 Blogger Challenge, he said, “we saw that a handful of bloggers who wouldn’t appear on the Technorati top 100 list and don’ have huge readerships were actually capable of raising the most money from their readers because they have a personal relationship with their followers.”

• With micro-giving, “someone with $10 or $25 to give can be a philanthropist. and get the same kind of accountability and vivid feedback that bill gates gets when he gives $1 million,” he said.

• The main reason it works is that you get to see how your donation was spent, you get photos from the classroom, and you get a personal reply from the teacher or students.

• There are 12,000 to 14,000 classroom project requests on the site at a time. About two-thirds get fully funded before they hit their expiration date.

• DonorsChoose is a great target for companies’ Corporate Social Responsibility programs. “Companies have a new ability to empower their customers to be philanthropists, to open source their philanthropy and let their customers or employees participate as grant makers,” he said.

• Long term, DonorsChoose wants raise $100 million a year for public classrooms this way.

Nonprofit tech experts team up to help others master ‘social tools for social change’

Eight leading experts in social media and nonprofit technology have joined forces to create Socialbrite.org, a hub that showcases social tools for social change. The site, which serves as a learning and sharing center for nonprofits and social change organizations, debuted today at http://www.socialbrite.org/.

The Socialbrite team is made up of strategists with deep experience in offering social media consulting services, training workshops, conversational marketing, fundraising and outreach campaigns.

“We’re here to help nonprofits master the social Web to bring about meaningful social change,” said J.D. Lasica, a consultant and author of four books about emerging technologies. “There’s nothing else like this on the Web for nonprofits, social change organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and educators. Socialbrite’s mission is to shine a light on the best practices, social tools and strategies that will benefit each of these important constituencies.”

Beth Kanter, Amy Sample Ward, Katrin Verclas and John Haydon are among the familiar names in the nonprofit tech sector who are part of the effort.

Socialbrite.org is launching with a rich set of resources:

• A directory of Web 2.0 Productivity Tools in dozens of categories that can help organizations get a handle on the social Web.
• A Social Media Glossary that offers a deep, friendly introduction to dozens of social media terms in plain English.
• A first-of-its-kind Twitter widget that tracks tweets about nonprofits or social causes in real time.
• A Free Photos Directory, Free Video Directory and Free Music Directory that offers nonprofits, cause organizations and Web publishers a guide to hundreds of online resources for adding legal, high-quality content to their own Web sites, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, printed materials or online presentations.
• A Causes widget that points to charitable actions and donations on other sites such as GlobalGiving and Facebook Causes.
• Scores of additional articles, guides and tutorials to help newcomers and veterans alike get better acquainted with this fast-moving space.

Socialbrite draws on a team of experts whose practical, easy-to-grasp advice will help organizations find social media success. The strategists – located in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and London – are:

• Beth Kanter, a longtime trainer and advisor to the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) and other organizations. Her upcoming book “The Networked Nonprofit” will provide a social media roadmap for nonprofits.
• J.D. Lasica, a social media pioneer who co-founded Ourmedia.org, the first video hosting and sharing site. He advises both Fortune 500 corporations and nonprofits in social media strategies.
• Katrin Verclas, co-founder and editor of MobileActive.org and past executive director of NTEN.
• John Haydon, a consultant who advises small nonprofits, small businesses and social entrepreneurs on social marketing strategies.
• Amy Sample Ward, a strategist who supports and educates clients in the nonprofit and social change sectors.
• Ken Banks, who is using mobile technology to foster positive social and environmental change in the developing world, particularly in Africa.
• Sloane Berrent, a cause-based marketing consultant who works with nonprofits and social cause organizations. She is currently a Kiva fellow serving a three-month tour in a rural section of the Philippines.
• Carla A. Schlemminger, a strategic marketing communications professional who integrates best practices in branding, PR and social media.

The Socialbrite site features dozens of videos, screencasts and slide presentations. All materials created for the site are released under Creative Commons licenses so that other sites and blogs can freely reuse the content.

“Collaboration is the key to success, in everything really,” said Amy Sample Ward, an Oregonian now living in London who heads up London Net Tuesday and collaborates with others to create local opportunities to share and learn. “I see Socialbrite as a great chance for us as strategists to collaborate while helping nonprofits keep pace with this fast-changing landscape.”

Socialbrite.org is built in WordPress, the popular open source blogging platform. Socialbrite’s lead developer, Esteban Panzeri, just finished work on a Creative Commons plug-in that lets bloggers assign different licenses to different blog posts, which he is releasing to the WordPress community.

The Socialbrite team members make their living through paid services to client organizations. Services include conducting in-depth workshops, working with senior staff to develop a social media strategy, and crafting campaigns to reach contributors and supporters through Twitter, Facebook and digital storytelling, among other modern approaches.

Visit the Socialbrite.org Media Center for tweets, information and more about the launch to help spread the word about this collaborative resource!

• Follow us on Twitter: @socialbrite
• Subscribe to our blog updates: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/socialbrite
• For business and speaking inquiries: newbiz@socialbrite.org
• To contact a member of the Socialbrite team: team@socialbrite.org