‘Everyday Philanthropy’

How Social Networks Encourage New Models of Giving and Personal Involvement

I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

Bob Dylan wrote that every grain of sand — like every fallen bird or leaf that trembles — is counted by someone somewhere. Not too many years ago, what we think of as philanthropy was often measured in million-dollar increments, in the big gifts that made headlines and etched their names on prominent institutions. The mega-gifts were counted — the small kindnesses slipped by.

But a new movement, powered in part by technology and partly by the human spirit, is changing the public notion of giving and is beginning to measure our individual actions, down to the smallest grain of sand.

Or grain of rice.

FreeRice.com
Spend a few minutes on FreeRice.com and you’ll spend an hour — spend an hour and you’ll donate thousands of grains of rice, ten grains at a time, by playing an intoxicatingly simple online game designed to boost your vocabulary. The rice is purchased by the rotating sponsors on the site, and it is distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme, the world’s largest food aid agency.

FreeRice.com is a nifty gimmick that works, bringing attention to a specific need and a rush of good feeling to participants. It’s a fun way to do good, and it’s one of scores of inventive new models for helping others — some of which just take a little time, and others a little money.

Lately, my e-mail inbox and feed reader have been filled with small acts of charity to counterbalance the “breaking news” — all of it bad — that so often dominates the media. Thanks to organizations like Kiva and DonorsChoose, Party4APurpose and Razoo, my social network has expanded well beyond my “friends” to my partners.

Spend any time at all on Kiva.org’s website and you’re likely to become an international banker. I did.

Kiva.org
A few months ago, I began lending money to small businesses in developing countries, providing loans of $25 or $50 to entrepreneurs and following their stories online. The lending mechanism behind it was developed by Kiva, one of the hottest start-up organizations in the fast-growing and bustling public commons that exists between social networks and social causes.

In this particular case, Kiva (Swahili for “unity”) is a registered 501c3 in California and a microfinance organization that connects small entrepreneurs in developing countries with a network of connected, online lenders.

But Kiva is also something of a social network; not only do you “meet” the storekeepers and business owners of Ghana and Mexico (where I’ve lent my money) and other places, you can also read the profiles of your co-lenders. Participation is transparent, and some degree of virtual partnership is encouraged.

DonorsChoose has a different model, but the same sense of direct participation that’s frankly quite different from writing a check to a major relief agency.

DonorsChoose.org
On DonorsChoose.org, teachers submit project proposals for materials or experiences for their students — and donors respond directly.

Donors experience a real connection not only to the students who receive their goodwill but to the teachers and the often-struggling public education system as well. At the time of this writing, the site has raised a total of more than $15.2 million, benefiting 771,251 students from donors in all 50 states.

Needless to say, DonorsChoose and Kiva also have Facebook groups, and that makes it more interesting — because donors and supporters can connect in a larger social framework, displaying pride in their involvement and urging others to get involved, and not just at year-end holiday giving time, but every day.

Social networks like Facebook hold the promise of connecting social entrepreneurship with mass markets of consumers — of linking the motivation behind philanthropy with the aspiration to bring about change. And the result may change how developed societies come to view charity and causes.

These new models for everyday giving engage people in all areas of society, but they have special resonance with the so-called “millennials,” that group of young consumers that has never known a “non-wired” world where your friends and your tastes aren’t counted in public.

Party4APurpose.com
Jason Paez is the founder and CEO of Party4APurpose.com, a free event portal and community whose goal is to list every charitable and purposeful event in the country. The site is also a social network, and clearly aims at younger consumers. Paez and I were both part of a panel discussion of technologists, philanthropists, venture capitalists, and analysts called “Hacking Philanthropy” held earlier this year at Columbia University, and I was struck by his remarks on the social involvement of the millennials.

“It’s a lifestyle pride application, like Facebook Causes,” he said. “And no money is given. But it’s like they’re closing on the proposal [that] ‘I care. This is what I care about. This is who I am. This is who I like to connect with.’ They’re used to emotionally connecting online through data.”

And that’s the premise behind another hot new “giving” startup, Razoo.com — an addictive social networking site that captures all sorts of good works in everyday life, from basic kindnesses like “hug my wife” or basic good works like “take mass transit” or healthy lifestyle choices like “walk up a flight of stairs.”

Razoo.com
Razoo calls itself a “platform for social change,” and it also has a serious cause-recruiting function, encouraging members to get their friends to join causes, as well as some fundraising.

What I like about Razoo is that nothing happens in a vacuum — every day, I get a feed that tells me what great things my friends in Razoo are doing, and there’s the subtle urging to do something good myself.

On Facebook, Causes is the name of an applet written by an organization called Project Agape, a for-profit startup backed by venture capitalists in California. Causes allows organizations to raise money and gather supporters within Facebook — and while the money raised thus far has been small, Causes has more than 250,000 daily active users who support everything from assisting genocide-scarred Darfur to curing breast cancer.

It’s not just the young, super-wired set either. There is strong evidence that the aging Baby Boomer population is buying into this “everyday philanthropy” movement.

Eons.com
At Eons.com, a social network for Americans over 50 developed by Jeff Taylor — the founder of the popular jobs site Monster.com — volunteerism and charitable works are among the leading topics discussed by members. In the website’s Lifepath section, nearly 200,000 people proudly say they support good causes — and in thousands of discussions and user groups, they share stories and recruit new supporters.

There’s no telling where these new sites and models will take us; most are in their infancies. But the combination of what the “Facebook Generation” expects and what it has access to will combine to change the nature of philanthropy and giving and causes.

I believe that the “net native” generation is applying this principle to individuals. The concept of a personal brand is everywhere. Turns out Andy Warhol had it wrong, probably because he was commenting on an era dominated by TV networks and tabloids — an era that has passed. We won’t all have our 15 minutes of fame — we’ll have lifetimes of slight notoriety within our personal networks — some small, some large. And one factor in how we rank is our public support for the causes that are close to us.

As these networks grow, our causes will increasingly define who we are, and “everyday philanthropy” will continue to connect givers with activists, entrepreneurs with committed lenders. The circle of commitment, and communication, and connection, will become a widening sphere of enduring change.

Tom Watson is chief strategy officer of Changing Our World, Inc., a national philanthropic services company he helped to found. Watson is also the publisher of onPhilanthropy.com, a leading online resource for philanthropy professionals.