Today my Socialbrite partner Shonali Burke and I are giving a presentation to NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) at the United Nations.

Back in November, an invitation flew into our laps from Amine Lamrabat of the Civil Society and Outreach Unit (CSOU), Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD), Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). By gosh, when it comes to acronyms, nobody beats the UN!

The department is focusing in the new year on marshalling resources to combat poverty — quite a challenge, considering up to 80 percent of the world’s 7 billion people live in poverty or near-poverty conditions. (See stats from the World Bank.) So we tailored our presentation to highlight the work of some international nonprofits that are making an impact, especially in the developing world (or Global South, as some call it), including:

• Send a Cow, a UK-based nonprofit that is helping African farmers create a sustainable ecosystem and a process of paying it forward. Farmers who are helped, with training on how to grow crops in harsh climates, agree to pass that knowledge on to other farmers — along with a first-born calf. Send a Cow helps African farmers grow enough food to feed their families, sell their produce, start small businesses and rise out of poverty. They do a nice job with their website, produce high-quality videos and are growing a fan base on Twitter and Facebook, though we couldn’t spot any online fundraising or mobile efforts.

• USA for UNHCR’s Blue Key campaign, which Shonali is overseeing, has built a nice community over the past year, with occasional tweet-a-thons to raise funds, $5 per key, and awareness about the plight of refugees.

• In my view, charity: water has made the most astonishing use of social media and new media, with breathtakingly good videos, multimedia, photography and smart ways to mobilize social networks. Check out the story of charity: water video they did for their 5-year anniversary as well as the new WaterForward campaign. Also, see the video How charity: water changes lives through multimedia and find your charity: water project on a map — I’ve been using on that in my presentations for years.

We’ll also be discussing:

• Epic Change and its annual To Mama With Love campaign

• 1-to-1 micro-giving and micro-fundraising platforms, including Vittana, give2gether, Razoo, Causevox, Kiva (for loans) and DonorsChoose.

• We’re proud that Socialbrite strategist Ken Banks has created a mobile NewsWatch series for National Geographic online, focusing on use of SMS for social and economic good in the developing world. Also see Frontline SMS mobile case studies.

We’ll be tweeting about our UN appearance on our @socialbrite Twitter channel.

The post How NGOs can use social media to combat poverty appeared first on Socialbrite.

Perhaps you’ve started celebrating Hannukah, or you’re counting down the hours until Christmas Day. In the midst of your holiday cheer, which is well-deserved and much needed, would you take a moment to give a really great gift to nonprofits worldwide?

All it will take is one click. I’m serious.

Here are the deets:

Next year, thousands of new Internet domains will be up for grabs. One that is important to the nonprofit community is the .ngo domain (pretty obvious why, right?). So it’s equally important that the right organization be chosen to run this new domain.

Public Interest Registry (PIR) is the nonprofit organization that currently manages .org, the domain that has served the nonprofit community for more than 25 years. So it’s the natural choice for managing the .ngo domain.

They are up against venture capital and other for-profit groups that would like to gain control of the .ngo domain. However, the nonprofit community can make sure that doesn’t happen by signing this petition supporting PIR’s bid. Note: Only nonprofits should sign this form.

Why you should sign the petition

Under the management of PIR, the .ngo domain will only be available to nonprofit organizations. This means that there will never be doubt over whether your organization (or client) is legitimately a nonprofit – you can simply point to the fact that you were able to acquire an extension that’s not available to for-profit companies.

Please, if you work for a nonprofit organization, sign this quick and easy online letter of support and pass it on to other nonprofits in your community. If you don’t work for a nonprofit but with one, ask them to sign it and pass it on.

And by signing the petition, it doesn’t mean that you’re committing to buy the .ngo domain once it’s out; you’re simply showing support for the fact that a domain that should be used exclusively by nonprofits should be administered by a nonprofit.

Together we can show ICANN, the International body that regulates domain extensions, that the nonprofit community is a unified force. And we’ll give a terrific New Year’s gift to nonprofits around the world.

Thank you – and Merry Christmas!

The post Say ‘Happy New Year’ to nonprofits worldwide with one click appeared first on Socialbrite.

A little over a year ago I found myself sitting in the San Francisco offices of an international humanitarian NGO. Their main focus at the time was a major human-rights treaty, and they wanted advice about mobilizing rural communities to lobby their governments to ratify it. There was clearly great potential for a mobile phone-based solution, and they wanted me to help them understand how text messaging – and FrontlineSMS in particular – could be of use.

So, it came as something of a surprise when I recommended they look more closely at rural radio instead. Although I’m a great fan of mobile phone technology, it isn’t by default the best tool for reaching out to rural communities. Radio – far from being outdated and irrelevant – remains a powerful, relevant and far-reaching medium. Unrivalled, in fact.

Radio stations existed in Africa long before many of its countries reached independence. Over the last twenty to thirty years, however, liberation of the airwaves in many of these countries has opened the door to a new wave of broadcasters including commercial, private, community and public radio stations. This expansion has created some new and exciting opportunities.”

kiwanja’s latest PC World article looks at the potential of mobile phones and rural radio stations to jointly deliver relevant, timely and useful information to rural populations in developing countries, and allow listeners to engage with radio programmes in a new way. Projects highlighted include initiatives in Africa by Farm Radio International and Developing Radio Partners.

Head on over to the PC World website for the full article.

This post originally appeared at Kiwanja.net.

The post Mobile phones join the rural radio mix appeared first on Socialbrite.