GoodGuide, Find Green, Give Work make Socialbrite’s Top 10 list

By Kim Bale
Socialbrite staff

Mobile applications are flooding the market at a dizzying rate — more than 150,000 now for the iPhone and tens of thousands for Android and Blackberry. And it’s important to keep in mind that only 18 percent of the phones in the United States are smart phones, as reported at yesterday’s Where 2.0 conference, so text-only SMS plays an important part in many of the campaigns run by nonprofits, NGOs and anyone interested in doing good.

In the past few months, though, a host of very cool smart phone apps have been released, making it easier for people and volunteers to carry their top-of-mind social causes in their pockets. And, take note, all of the iPhone apps listed here also work on the iPod Touch and the new iPad.

Here are 10 of our favorite mobile apps, from nonprofits and social change organizations, that are contributing to a sustainable economy of social good. This is by no means a definitive list, so please add your own favorites in the comments below.

Download the handout here (also at bit.ly/10mobileapps)

GoodGuide: Scan products for social responsibility

1Available in the iTunes App Store, the GoodGuide iPhone app allows you to scan the barcode of a product while you’re shopping and immediately receive ratings regarding health, environment and social responsibility. How cool is that? Other mobile users can text product information to 41411 to access ratings for more than 70,000 companies and toys, foods, health and beauty products — including an API that lets any website operator create a custom product directory that pulls from its database. GoodGuide on iTunes

Find Green: Locate nearby green businesses

2Locate green and sustainable businesses via the Find Green app for iPhone and Android from 3rd Whale. Looking for a farmer’s market within walking distance? Find Green will note your location and search their database of more than 60,000 businesses to help you find one. Submit your favorite locations, rate existing businesses and reap the benefits of sustainability living tips in the palm of your hand. Find Green on iTunes

The Extraordinaries: A way to ‘micro-volunteer’

3The Extraordinaries app for the iPhone allows anyone to spend just a few minutes of spare time completing missions for causes they’re passionate about. They even coined a term for it: micro-volunteering. On your commute to work, or waiting in line at the DMV, rate tweets from SXSW or tag photos for the Brooklyn Museum instead of racking up points in Solitaire. (Disclosure: I recently worked for The Extraordinaries as community outreach specialist.) The Extraordinaries on iTunes

Give Work: Crowdsourcing for good

4Created by CrowdFlower and Samasource, the Give Work iPhone app asks users to complete simple tasks that check the work done by Samasource’s refugee workforce. It provides a sort of quality assurance while increasing the quality of life for Kenyan refugee workers. To date, Give Work has been downloaded in more than 76 countries. Give Work on iTunes

Causeworld: Rack up donations through shopping

5Check in at your favorite stores via your iPhone or Android and rack up Karma points to spend on causes you’re passionate about. CauseWorld lets you offset carbon and donate to Chile earthquake relief without spending a dime, all while earning badges to represent your good deeds. Corporate sponsors provide the necessary funding that you give in the form of virtual Karma points to causes and organizations that matter to you. CauseWorld on iTunes

mGive: Donate to causes via SMS

6mGive puts the power to donate in the hands of anyone with an SMS plan. For a fee, nonprofits can register with mGive and then ask supporters to text donations in increments of $5 or $10 to a designated number. The donation is charged to the user’s cell phone bill and distributed to the organization. In just three weeks, mGive processed more than $37 million for Haiti, proving the costs associated with starting a campaign may be well worth it. mGive on iTunes

Frontline SMS: Help & engagement through text

7Another text messaging option, FrontlineSMS makes it easy for nonprofits and NGOs to keep in touch and engage with their community. Available to anyone with a cell phone, the service helps organizations share information with their community via text message. Uses can include sending daily notes of encouragement to disseminating calls to action to anyone with a mobile signal.

SnapImpact: Connecting volunteers with local opportunities

8SnapImpact is an app for the iPhone designed to connect potential volunteers with opportunities in their area. The app searches All For Good’s database of volunteer opportunities by location, providing users with a variety of options to give back to their local community. Applications for Android and Windows Mobile are in the works. SnapImpact on iTunes

Ushahidi: A platform for collective action

9This platform for crowdsourced crisis information can now be accessed via Ushahidi’s Apps for Android, Java Phones and Windows Mobile. Users can view real-time maps for crisis areas around the world and contribute crucial information regarding disaster relief. An iPhone App is still in development, and other mobile users can send SMS reports with crisis information.

MobileRice: Donate grains of rice to hungry

10The MobileRice app for the iPhone, powered by Free Rice, tests your vocabulary skills while donating grains of rice through the World Hunger Programme. Match words with their definitions or synonyms and help diminish hunger worldwide. The app is connected to the website, which has collected 77 billion grains in 2 1/2 years — enough rice to feed millions. MobileRice on iTunes

What are some of your favorite mobile apps for social good?

Related

• Net2 Think Tank: Apps for Good (NetSquared)

• Helping Haitians via mobile, crowdsourcing & social media (Socialbrite)

• The Extraordinaries: Building the ‘micro-volunteering’ movement (Socialbrite)

• All for Good: A Craigslist for Service (Socialbrite)

The post 10 mobile apps for social good appeared first on Socialbrite.

This month’s Net2 Think Tank asks: How do real-world (offline) events fit into social media conversations and campaigns?

I think that my reflections about Tweetcamp are an excellent fit to answer this question!  And I hope they help you think about the way your organization uses opportunities online and offline to create community.

What worked?

Cross-section of participants: It was great to turn up to an event and have every person I talked to have a different line a work, a different reason for using social media tools, and a unique goal for what they wanted to get out of the day.  One way to accomplish this is to ensure you have a diverse set of organizers – you will tap into networks that do, eventually, overlap, but the influencers you target will push a great diversity of participants toward the event.

Space: This is both online and offline.  If you are targeting your online network, you need to have an online space for interested participants to sign up, learn more, and connect with each other. Tweetup used a blog to keep people updated, a Facebook group to gather interested participants, and a Twitter account for communications.  All three outlets linked to each other so people never hit a “dead-end.”  Offline, the space at Gumtree.com’s office in Richmond was terrific for people to gather as a full group, in small groups, and everything in between. Finding an offline space that really creates the right environment for such a loose-flowing day is crucial to not “losing” people to the outskirts.

Food: It’s true.  Your participants will get hungry with all that connecting and talking and excitement.  The Tweetup organizers did a tremendous job of finding sponsors to supply or cover the cost of enough good food to keep all the bellies full.  And in a very tasty way!

What didn’t work?

Timing: It is always the hardest thing to plan out, especially when you are doing something entirely new.  The organizers decided to meld a bit of facilitation with complete open space organizing.  The start of the day had participants in small groups (just puddles of chairs) and asked a question for the small groups to then answer to themselves.  There was some paper to capture notes and then a group representative reported back to the full room.  After every group had a chance to share, people moved about the room to form new groups.  A new question was asked and again the small groups answered internally, then shared to the larger room.  This happened three times and was intended to start conversations with many people so that once the room broke for open space conversations, people had an idea of who they might talk to, what kinds of things others had come to talk about, and so on.  It did accomplish this goal, though often times would feel too slow – groups finishing ahead of time and then moving on to talk about other things that could have been better in open space created groups where people could self select to participate, etc.

What’s next?

This is the part I’m most interested to discuss with those who attended and the organizers who created the event.  Here are some of my ideas:

1. How is Tweetcamp going to move the community? Moving from an online network of Twitter users to an offline community was a big step! It meant people had a chance to be real life friends with their online friends, collaborate in real time about new ideas, and more.  So, what will the ripple effects of this be and how can the Tweetcamp organizers faciliate it?  (Or, if it had been an event organized by a nonprofit organization as a chance for those who found the organization online to come together offline to learn more, get involved, and so on, how can the organization move those particpants and network members up the ladder of engagement as part of the community?)
2. How is Tweetcamp going to empower dissemination? Barcamps and Tweetups happen all around the world.  I think the event struck a great balance between the two and would love to see it replicated in other cities or by other groups.  Documentation is always the key to dissemination and replication; encouraging participants to share their thoughts and stories, but also the organizers sharing the discussions they had that helped create the event and their planning strategies will all help Tweetcamps sprout elsewhere.
3. How will the network maintain the community? Those of us that came together offline on Saturday had seen each other before online, maybe followed on Twitter, or had seen a name here or there.  But for the most part, we had never actually met in the “real world.”  Now that we have, how will we keep it going?  Is there a role for Tweetcamp organizers in assisting in this process? Perhaps by maintaining conversations or other exchanges on the Facebook group and Twitter so users can find each other again.  I know I already have a few coffee dates with people from Tweetcamp and am looking forward to contributing to the community as I can!

What do you think?

Did you attend the London Tweetcamp – what did you think?  If you didn’t, how do you think your organization could move it’s online network to an offline community?  What do you think that network would want in order to participate?

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