Petition challenges company’s nonprofit-unfriendly policy

Guest post by Beth Kanter
bethkanter.org

In June I wrote about how unfriendly Apple’s iPhone donation app policy was when I came across this editorial by Jake Shapiro, the CEO of PRX, (the company behind the popular This American Life iPhone and Public Radio Player apps), arguing that Apple’s policy that bars nonprofits from soliciting donations is a cop-out and blocks a major revenue stream for public radio (and other nonprofits) — whose content enhances the value of Apple’s devices.

His analysis looked at Apple’s flimsy excuses for their  policy of prohibiting donations. Jake examines possible solutions to the problem – like in-app donations – which unfortunately would mean that Apple would take a 30% cut! Finally, he examines Apple’s lack of generosity as a failure of being a good corporate citizen. Jake suggests that given Apple’s hardball stance with tech partners, nonprofits and public media would have a slim chance of reversing the decision.

In August, when PayPal added a donation feature that allowed users to make charitable contributions from within the service’s iPhone app, it appeared that Apple might have listened.   Unfortunately, in late October, Apple made them pull the plug with no warning and little explanation. You can read about it in this post at Gizmodo.

I love my iPhone, but I don’t want to support a company that is so nonprofit-unfriendly. Since none of these in-App donation challenges apply to the Android – as soon as my contract is up, I’m getting an Android. But, since I have a few more months on my contract,  I’ve left a comment on this post asking Apple to reconsider its policy. 

If you would like to have the ability to make in-app donations through iPhones without hefty fees or hassle, please send Steve Jobs a message now by signing this online petition.

Beth Kanter is CEO of Zoetica. Republished from bethkanter.org. Image copyright 2010 artstechnica.

Storytellers for Good from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

A chat with the founder of Storytellers for Good

Of all the people I’ve met this year, probably the most fascinating encounter I’ve had was the few minutes I spent with Cara Jones, founder of Storytellers for Good (tagline: “Promoting goodness, inspiring greatness”).

A former broadcast journalist and television news reporter in Boston, Cara decided to quit the news business and heed the Zen proverb, “Leap, and the net will appear.” She bought a one-way ticket to Argentina, followed by odysseys through Spain and India — in all, a year trekking across the globe. “I traded in my career for a backpack,” she says.

“What kept coming up for me in those still places was a genuine passion around wanting to use this medium [video] to promote inspiration,” she says.

That led to Storytellers for Good, a group of video producers and journalists who tell the stories of people and organizations making a positive difference in the world. The organization, which launched in March and has filed for nonprofit status, has already created an impressive catalog of short works that combines a documentarian’s flair with a storyteller’s passion.

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

To kick off the organization, Storytellers for Good focused on a handful of mostly Bay Area-based nonprofits with inspiring stories to tell:

• Each One Reach One, which offers playwriting and mentoring programs for incarcerated youths (see video on Vimeo)
• Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors (see video on Vimeo)
• and Mama Hope in Kenya, founded by a woman who lost her mother to cancer (see video on Vimeo)

Says Cara: “Our expertise is in helping nonprofits identify the personal stories that will speak to people’s hearts” and move people to join, volunteer or contribute a donation.

The organization’s fees depend on the length of the shoot, generally a day but sometimes stretching into a second or third day, she says.

“We pitch it not just as a tool of inspiration but as a fundraising tool to tell a story with emotional resonance.”

Watch the stories they’ve produced and be impressed — and moved.

Continue reading »

Note from Beth Kanter: Jumo, the long anticipated social network site for social change, launched this week. Many of us have been up early playing with Jumo, setting up our individual profiles and finding issues and organizations or setting up profiles for organizations. It is still clearly in beta, with the usual tech glitches and 500 errors, which will smooth out as more people play with it and give them feedback. As the platform matures,  we’ll get a better sense of the power and potential of this network that lets people find, connect, and support social change organizations and issues. 

The platform was seeded with some initial organization profiles and a focused set of issues. The organizations are  a combination of  smaller, progressive organizations like Ushahidi and the Sunlight Foundation and large venerable institutions like NPR and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Anyone can set up a profile for an organization (it prompts for an  EIN number (but not required) and Facebook account url) and you can opt to be the administrator. Charities outside the US can set up a profile. To generate a robust profile, your organization should be able to plug in existing social media presences (Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, blog RSS feed, etc.) so it seems to favor organizations that have already established a social media content strategy.

My colleague Steve MacLaughlin offers his  first take on Jumo. If you have had a change to play with Jumo and have some insights, please share in the comments.

Guest post by Steve MacLaughlin

What is Jumo?

Jumo means “together in concert” in Yoruba, a West African language. But it’s also the latest online creation of Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook and director of online organizing for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. Details about the project have been hard to come by over the past few months, but here’s what we know:

Connecting individuals and organizations

Since the beginning, Hughes has said that Jumo is “an online platform to connect individuals and organizations working to change the world.” GuideStar does have Jumo International listed as a nonprofit organization but very little information is shown and likely won’t be until they file their first 990 with the IRS.

Chris Hughes: “We’ll be matching people based on their skills and interests with organizations around the world that need their input. It’s a discovery process that first matches, then helps people build relationships, then let’s people share their resources.”

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