The Bay Area nonprofit Samasource will host the first GiveWork Charity Gala on Nov. 12 at the University Club of San Francisco, bringing together writers, luminaries, and some of the most influential women entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

The event will feature a live auction, with items for bid including a conversation with Nobel Prize laureates George Akerlof and Myron Scholes, a secret challenge with “The 4-Hour Workweek” author Tim Ferriss, and a date with Bollywood actress Vida Samadzai (Miss Afghanistan 2003).

The gala aims to raise funds for Samasource, a nonprofit social enterprise that creates computer-based work for women, youth and refugees living in developing countries.

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Guest post by Kari Dunn Saratovsky
Case Foundation

Armed with just $45, a laptop, and a small handheld camera, Mark Horvath set out on a journey that will forever change the face of homelessness in America. I had the opportunity to catch up with Mark as he made his way back to California following a cross country-road trip that documented stories of the homeless through a series of powerful, raw, and unedited videos — all of which can be seen on his vlog, InvisiblePeople.tv.

So, how do you raise awareness about a cause you are so passionate about with no money and no consistent resources to lean on? You put faith in the kindness of others, you leave a lot to chance encounters, and you leverage social media in ways that you never thought possible.

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Competition lets you win up to $50,000 for your favorite charity

Yesterday the Case Foundation, Causes and Parade Publications kicked off the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge. It’s a 30-day nationwide online competition that encourages people to use their personal networks and social media to build cause communities that raise funds and recruit supporters for a nonprofit.

Nonprofits and individuals can get involved in two ways:

1. Champion a cause. Individuals who are passionate about a specific cause can become “cause champions” and will compete to obtain the most donations for their cause through the Causes application on Facebook.

2. Promote, donate or join a cause. All individuals are encouraged to take part in the Giving Challenge by joining, promoting and donating to the causes they care about. Facebook membership is not required to donate to a cause. Just go to Causes.com between now and Nov. 6 to win up to $50,000 for your favorite cause.

Today, for example, causes receiving the most votes so far include the National Inclusion Project, Angel Covers, FACE AIDS, Compassion International and Facilitating Leadership in Youth. I just donated to Think Autism. If you already support a cause on Facebook, opt in your existing cause.

The Case Foundation will award a total of $170,000 to the nonprofit beneficiaries of the causes. $50,000 goes to the cause with the most daily donations over the 30 days (you can donate as often as you’d like — say, as little as $10 — and each donation counts as a vote); second prize is $25,000. To keep people engaged, the sponsors are also awarding $1,000 each day to the cause with the most donations (not the most money raised); second prize is $500.

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The sprouted seeds that create most non-profits are often powerful and personal stories. Stories that can revive a bored board meeting or fuel a fundraising event. They can be told with pictures, videos, or blog posts.

But sometimes they need to be told face to face.

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending a meet-up in Florida with Patience Salgado, Sanjay Patel, Liz Rosas, Shannon Aronin, Danny Brown, Stacey Monk, Jen Lemen, Vince Hunt, Charles McKeever, Avi Kaplan, Kira Siddall. Without getting into the details, the main point of this meeting was to deepen our connections with each other. We did this by sharing our stories and dreams.

I interviewed Stacey Monk a few months ago, so I was familiar with the Epic Change mission and their success with Tweetsgiving. But I wanted to hear the personal backstory. I wanted to hear the “why.”

So when I had a minute alone with her, I asked: “Why did you start Epic Change?”

What followed was an exchange that helped me renew my own personal dreams and resolutions — my “whys.”

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I‘ve produced two new printable handouts for the annual conference of the Online News Association this weekend: 6 Twitter tools for journalists (PDF, also at http://bit.ly/6twittertips) and 8 ways to use social media in the newsroom (PDF) — see the accompanying post.

While the PDFs are spiffy-looking, they’re less than optimal for search engines and for the disabled, so I’ll mirror the handouts here in html.

6 Twitter tips for journalists

Create a Twitter dashboard

1Organize and manage your Twitterverse by selecting an app to work with throughout the day. Your top choices are two downloadable desktop apps — Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop — or Hootsuite, a configurable Web-based app. All allow you to customize your Twitterstream into groups (or, if you prefer, beats).

Find local tweeps

2Twitter’s a great way to connect to the local community. A handful of tools let you suss out who’s in your area. First try Twitter’s advanced search feature. Go to search.twitter.com/advanced, enter a city or zip code into the “Near this place” field and choose a search radius. The results are based on the location people enter in their Twitter bios. Other tools worth a try: TwitterLocal.net, NearbyTweets, Localtweeps and various iPhone apps, such as Twinkle, TwitterFon, Tweetie and Twittelator Pro. Happn.in is a new local Twitter app that lets you track trends and conversations in specific metro areas. We also like Twellow (and a href=”http://www.twellow.com/twellowhood”>Twellowhood) — the Twitter Yellow Pages — MrTweet and Justtweetit, three tools to help you discover folks relevant to your interests.

Follow breaking news

3Use Twitterfall to follow the real-time Web. Create a custom search to follow topics you specify — and save them for later retrieval. Type in an address into the geolocation panel to see what people are discussing in that area. Use this app to follow breaking news stories. You may also want to follow hashtags on topics of interest, like #health, #obama, etc. BreakingTweets is a site where reporters curate and organize news stories around Twitter. TweetBeep lets you receive hourly
email alerts of topics you specify. (Image: Waterfall by tokyogoat)

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