Make it easy to participate, make it mobile — and don’t forget the fun!

One of the great success stories of online advocacy has been DoSomething.org, a not-for-profit that encourages young people to use the power of online to “do good stuff offline.”

Last fall I moderated a panel at BlogWorld Expo with DoSomething chief technology officer George Weiner, and last month I co-presented a Social Media for Social Good bootcamp at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service with George.

So during a brief break in the action I got him to talk about how DoSomething spurs 1.2 million young people a year to take action on behalf of a social cause they care about.

“Young people have this amazing thing they can do that doesn’t require car, money or an adult,” he says. Simply put, any young person — 25 or younger, with a sweet spot of 16- to 17-year-olds — can launch a social cause campaign about any cause they feel passionately about.

The nation’s largest cause site for young people, DoSomething has about 30,000 cause projects started by young people.

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

Success comes down to a combination of factors

The annual DoSomething Awards airs on VH1 in August.

The site’s success comes down to these factors:

• They make it easy to participate by lowering the barriers to entry.

• They’re laser-focused on catering to young people.

• They make it easy to take part in campaigns via mobile devices.

• They try to make causes fun by emphasizing use of participants’ social networks.

“This generation is far more engaged than anyone can possibly understand or measure due to the amount of conversations going on in social media,” George says.

For instance, DoSomething partnered with Better World Books on the Epic Book Drive, a campaign that collected more than 250,000 books to benefit the Recovery School District in New Orleans.

Head to DoSomething to find a cause that resonates with you. And don’t forget to look for the DoSomething Awards on VH1 in August. Have a question or need help? Text HELPME to 30644.

The post How DoSomething engages young people appeared first on Socialbrite.

It only works when it’s connected to the real world

At the National Conference on Volunteering and Service — which some folks call “the Super Bowl of nonprofit conferences” — George Weiner and I teamed up on one of the most successful Social Media for Social Good Bootcamps that Socialbrite has put on to date. (Socialbrite has put on camps in New York, San Francisco, Miami, London and elsewhere.)

For those of us who live and breathe tech and social media — me in Silicon Valley and George, CTO of DoSomething.org, in New York and Washington, DC — it’s always a good reality check to come to gatherings like this and see how the non-early adopters are faring.

The three-hour session we led yesterday offered a range of tips on how to use social media strategically for campaigns, for collaboration, for building community, and I invite you to browse through the presentation above, since the attendees found it useful: “AMAZING session” (thanks, Volunteer Centre) … “awesome, fantastic session” (thanks, NCVS) … “Great session!” (thanks, Groupon).

But there were more beginners in the crowd than I expected. For instance, only about five out of 50 particpants were using Google Analytics (the free tool every website and blog ought to have). None had heard of the Grassrootsmapping.org effort to document the Gulf oil spill, even though we’re right here in New Orleans. And only one out of 80 people (not counting me) at today’s session on data had ever used Tumblr, an easy way to post blog entries and photos.

These are good, smart, motivated people — we need to break through the barriers and connect the tools and strategies with the organizations and causes that need them, starting with the basics.

So let’s take a deep breath and remember: We still have a lot of work before us, and there’s a lot of education yet to be done.

The post A reality check on social media appeared first on Socialbrite.

The e Pack spotlights organizations & initiatives making a difference

Alot of us have a hard time keeping up with organizations and initiatives that are advancing the social good. The e Pack makes it easier.

I met the impressive founder and director of The e Pack (the “e” stands for enlightenment and Earth), Alejandra Torres of Venezuela, two weeks ago at Sustainatopia in Miami.

The e Pack is a Web portal that promotes organizations and individuals who are helping to improve our world from the inside out. It offers information and resources that “help people engage take action for a more sustainable, peaceful world,” she says.

Importantly, the site lets you create a list of My Contributions outlining the actions that you’ve taken, such as attending an event, volunteering or signing a petition.

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

Some of the spotlighted organizations on the site include Ashoka, The Story of Stuff, Carrotmob, the Global Oneness Project, Repower America, Cooler Planet, Green Energy, Suzlon, Green Exchange and Green Jobs — some of which I’ll bet you’re not familiar with. There’s a lot here beneath the surface.

Alejandra says she’s looking for other organizations in the areas of sustainability and corporate social responsibililty to get involved.

The post Help enhance sustainability in the world appeared first on Socialbrite.

At the conclusion of Socialbrite’s 3-hour Move the Needle bootcamp at Sustainatopia in Miami to help organizations — social enterprises and nonprofits — use social media for social good, I chatted with my partner Sloane Berrent about some of the tips we discussed with participants, including how to find the influencers in your sector and Sloane’s suggestion to create real-world meet-ups from your organization’s online connections.

Couldn’t be in Miami? Today I’m giving a 90-minute version of the Move the Needle presentation at 1 pm ET in my first CharityHowTo webinar. (It’s not too late to sign up!)

“You can’t be everywhere all the time,” she says in our talk — especially when social media demands conversation and interaction. So organizations should identify evangelists, influencers and brand ambassadors and seek to enlist them in your cause or organization’s mission.

Make sure you identify metrics and tie them into goals so that you can tie it into larger programs or ongoing campaigns, Sloane adds in this 6-minute interview. You have to do the homework — the hard stuff — but it gets you to the great outcomes.

There isn’t one tool out there as the complete solution to identifying influencers, but Social Mention, Klout and other tools should be part of the mix. Sloane and I suggested setting up a shared Google doc where you track influencers and your interactions with them.

Real-world meetups are important as well. “People really want to be offline” and meet up in person, she said. “Create a program online but have an event offline that brings people together to talk about your organization.”

Watch, download or embed the video on Vimeo

Since our last chat, Sloane has joined Lippe Taylor, an agency in New York, to head up digital marketing and she’s launched Help a Woman Out, helping women and girls around the world.

The post How to activate your organization’s supporters appeared first on Socialbrite.

Moving movie audiences to take action from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

I‘ll confess: I was excited to see The Cove take home the Academy Award for best feature documentary last night. While all the entrants were worthy, “The Cove” is among the handful of movies pushing the idea of Hollywood productions as the fulcrum for social change.

A few weeks ago I caught up with Christopher Gebhardt, general manager and executive vice president of TakePart, the Beverly Hills-based digital arm of Participant Media, which marketed and helped bring “The Cove” to theaters nationwide. Participant Media (formerly Participant Productions) — Jeff Skoll’s social entrepreneurial film production company — has an incredible track record in bringing socially relevant films to screens nationwide, including “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Charlie Wilson’s War,” “The Kite Runner,” “The Soloist,” “Syriana,” “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “The Visitor,” “Food, Inc.,” “North Country” and now “The Cove.”

A breath-taking string of success.

“The Cove” is remarkable for its guerrilla filmmaking tactics in chronicling the grisly business of dolphin hunting in rural fishing villages in Japan, where as many as 20,000 dolphins are slaughtered annually. It won the Audience Award at Sundance last year. Participant didn’t fund the film but funded its marketing.

“We’ve spent the last five years at Participant figuring out how to take the film and really use it to … really get people involved with an issue,” said Gebhardt, speaking after a conversation on stage at Social Capital Markets 2009.

You may have noticed one fellow on stage at the Oscars — film subject and animal activist Ric O’Barry — holding up a sign that said, “Text DOLPHIN to 44144.” (The camera cut away after only one second — the academy has a long tradition of not acknowledging or encouraging overly activist sentiments.)

What’s cool about “The Cove” is that, just as the movie ends, theatergoers are met with the same message: Text DOLPHIN to 44144. When you text the short code, Gebhardt explains, you’re given ways to connect, including the option to sign online petitions to protest the brutal practice, send letters to President Obama, the US ambassador to Japan or Japan’s ambassador to the United States, or you can take other actions.

Watch, download or embed the video on Vimeo. (I’ve started producing these in a higher resolution 3800 kbps bitrate at 720 pixels wide.)

I should mention that I was in the first group of bloggers in 2005 who signed on to guest-post on Participant’s first such effort: the “Good Night and Good Luck” site to discuss press reform and how changes in corporate ownership of the media have affected our democracy since the days of Edward R. Murrow.

Actions you can take

I’ve been a fan of TakePart for months now — it’s the mechanism that connects Participant Media films with taking action. “Every film [we produce or market] has a social action campaign wrapped around it,” Gebhardt says. One aspect of “The Cove’s” marketing campagn was to reach out to NGOs to see what kind of campaign makes most sense with the topic that the film addresses. My own view is that Participant Media could use a bit more guidance in running social cause campaigns.

The TakePart site has a section on The Cove where users can take the following actions:

• Write to our leaders and help get the word out in Japan
• Learn more about dolphins in captivity
• Calculate your mercury exposure
• Help Save Japan Dolphins’ efforts on the frontlines
• Support the filmmakers with your donation

I’ll post an interview with TakePart editor Adriana Dunn soon.

The post ‘The Cove’: Will movies usher in a new era of social change? appeared first on Socialbrite.

Following is a transcript of the inaugural podcast of the new Social Causes Show on BlogTalkRadio with host JD Lasica, founder of Socialmedia.biz and Socialbrite.org, and guest Pamela Hawley, founder and CEO of UniversalGiving. See JD’s blog post on Socialbrite.

JD: Today we have Pamela Hawley, founder of UniversalGiving to talk about some of the corporations making a big splash, a big impact through their CSR efforts.  But first we’ll begin by talking about the situation in Haiti. … Pamela, thanks for joining us.

PH: Good morning, JD. Thanks for having me.

JD: Why don’t we start with your background? I believe you co-founded VolunteerMatch in 1996 and more recently UniversalGiving, is that right?

PH: Yes that is. Right out of college, I had the opportunity to be involved in the web and using the web to help make it easier for people to get involved in our communities. And so, that’s the whole point. How can we create these websites and marketplaces that help people know where are the most effective ways to get involved. And I think particularly if you noted what’s going on in Haiti – it’s just absolutely devastating with the 7.1 earthquake on Tuesday – and what we’re really striving to do, just for people who want to be aware, there are some very key ways to help the earthquake victims in Haiti that are noted on the UniversalGiving homepage, on our website underneath the spotlight.

One that I really like to point to is there’s an emergency response team with an international corps that provides supplies to the earthquake survivors that need that immediate relief. And second, there’s another one that provides educational resources and aid. So a lot of people need to know how to actually get their kids eventually back to school. And so that’s something that you know we don’t think about immediately, that we have first of all the immediate needs of people needing to watch out for their lives and to take care of themselves. And then there’s the other side when people start to normalize, they need to know how to start to get their lives back in order: where they can live; where they can get clothes; where they can send their kids to school. So we want to think in a crisis like this about both short and long-term needs. So if you’re interested in helping out that way, we have both short-term and long-term development projects that are on the UniversalGiving.org homepage.

JD: Right. It seems like the news coming out of Haiti is getting worse and worse every day. There’s a shortage of medical supplies, a shortage of water, a lack of just basic human needs. Now the latest figures suggest more than 200,000 people have died so far. I’m you know, I think I’m like a lot of people I’ve got a lot of messages coming at me, bombarding me all the time through e-mail, through Twitter, even on my text phone asking for donations. What would you recommend as far as where’s the best place for people to start? What do they have to keep in mind when they want to have the most impact with their dollar?

PH: You know what, such a good question, JD. I think one of the key points is that sometimes we have sort of this go-to, default of going through a maybe larger organization, or well- known brand; and what we need to actually look at is what are the organizations that can be the most helpful locally, on the ground, who know the local relationships, know how the local country operates. And so what we strive to do at UniversalGiving and what we encourage you to look for is try to find organizations that are either very focused on serving in a crisis; they know to how to respond to a crisis. They’re used to working in very tough pressure situations; they are used to responding and understanding how to best meet the local needs. They know the landscape; they know the geography. They know where the local resources were or did exist. So there’s not just a large organization coming in blindly. So we really try to gear towards local organizations who have those relationships.

An example — one of our partners is called Hope Alliance, which works with worldwide communities and helping them with their lives across numerous areas of basic human needs. So that’s number one. And the second is that you want to look for sites that talk about quality and trust. You know there’s a lot of organizations that jump on the bandwagon that say, “Okay, I can increase all these donations to help get funds to these nonprofits, but have they really vetted the organizations? And I think it’s something that’s critical that you talk about – both someone who wants to give during a crisis as well as for companies.

So here to give you an example for UniversalGiving, we have a QualityModel^TM whereby we vet all the organizations by a 20-stage QualityModel. So in advance, any partner on our site is one that’s already been vetted, that has been vetted for finances, for terrorist activities, for project results and success. Also with management and leadership review so that we know we’ve got strong leadership in place. So what you’re really looking for is that long-term perspective that the group you’re with has indeed been vetted, and that’s an important cardinal rule for any type of giving, crisis or not.

JD: You mentioned vetting and the credibility of these organizations, but there’s also always concern about overhead involved with donating to even major relief organizations like the Red Cross. And I know a lot of my friends say that, you know, they want to make sure that every dollar that they give actually goes to the victims, to the people that are going to get the most impacted by that. So is there also something on your site, or is there a way for people to find out how much of their dollars actually go to the intended recipients?

PH: Absolutely. Overhead is certainly an important part of one of the criteria that we look at. And we do have to be honest, however, JD, that, you know, organizations take funds to run. You know we love it that all of the money goes directly to the victims of the crisis, and that certainly is important. But you know, we need to also pay for people to strategize about the best way to get the resources there and pay for them to be able to have the trucks and the gas and the resources, so that they can get the food available the victims. So certainly your front line is definitely going to be to look at overhead, and we put that on our site. And donors are different. Some want 10% overhead or less, which is very rigorous. Other ones are willing to go up to 25%. We don’t recommend more than 25% overhead. In fact, in general we say staying within the 15-18% range is very reasonable.

But every organization is different, so I think you definitely want to take a look at that as far as overhead. And then also what you want to do is again make sure that the organization’s been vetted; and that’s one of the things we do at UniversalGiving to make sure the most money possible is going to these organizations. One way to really help secure that is going with a small or medium organization. There’s less administration; there’s less layers of personnel because they have to be scrappy. They have to be nimble, and they have to be focused and quick with their resources. They don’t have a lot to rely on. So you know another one that we look at, that we promote that is very strong is Action Against Hunger, which you’ll also see on our website, that helps with the long-term and short-term sustainable solutions to hunger. And they operate in 40 countries across the world, including Haiti. So that’s another I think great opportunity that maybe not everyone has heard of them. They may not have the Red Cross brand but they’re extremely accomplished because they’re so focused in one area, which is combating hunger and doing that in 40 countries across the world. You also want to look at an organization that isn’t one thing to everyone. You know they’re not too spread thin across too many different areas. So that’s another reason to go with a smaller organization that’s in one focus area.

JD: You know the last major global crisis that I remember similar to this scale is the tsunami in South Asia. And back then, years ago, social media was really in its infancy. Twitter didn’t even exist and Facebook certainly not the amount of it that it is. You know off the top of your head, do you think that social media, social networking is having an impact on relief efforts in Haiti? And can people do things more by networking together that they wouldn’t just be able to do by donating to some organization for instance?

PH: Absolutely. I mean I think it makes it more accessible to people and a lot of people to take action more quickly because you don’t necessarily have to be at your computer to take action. You can actually take action on your phone. One of the examples is AT&T. And as we talk about companies, they actually facilitated text messages that allow people to give donations of $10. And so you’re seeing a company, you’re seeing a company that knows its system well, knows its business well, and they’re thinking, “How can I help leverage what we do well as a business, phone services, and help allow people to get involved.” Now the only caveat on that is just that because of social media, we have a greater rapidity to get involved. And the key there is we have got to be really, really sure we’re not sacrificing quality because what happens is we get so excited, we get involved in the momentum, but then as we look at it, we don’t know: “Is this making an impact?” And, “Is this organization trusted?” So the rapidity of getting involved is great but we need to marry that with the long-term vetting and trust of the partners who are involved.

JD: Why don’t we turn to the topic that you and I have been talking about these last few weeks: Corporate Social Responsibility. Pamela, how would you define it – what is CSR?

PH: Well, I think that Corporate Social Responsibility is really a company being able to manage the positive results that are necessary to grow their company and marry that to making an impact within the community. Corporate Social Responsibility is this sense of – it’s not even really necessarily a responsibility. It should be referred to as a business objective. It’s almost “Socially Responsible Business Objectives” rather than a responsibility because it really is an important part of their business and their operations that affects: 1) their bottom line goals and 2) also the community. So “responsibility” can be a little misleading because truly a responsibility is more, “Well you should.” This is really a “You should because it meets the bottom line and also benefits the community. So I almost want to change it to “Corporate Social Bottom Line Objective Which Serves the Community.”

Now of course that’s too much of a mouthful, but the point is that it should meet your bottom line and serve the community. And the ways that most companies go about this is really doing this by defining objectives that help promote their service and their product in an ethical way and too getting their employees involved in a way that can help their bottom line objectives but also serve the community. And I think the three ways we probably see this the most, although it’s not linked to this is in philanthropy, in volunteerism and in product donations. So those are the three that are most readily watched for when you’re getting involved in CSR. But again those aren’t the only ways.

JD: I’m hearing a lot more and more companies that are actually getting involved with Corporate Social Responsibility, and it’s now like a must-have for these companies. So the main components to have a successful program are what?

PH: The components there are, first of all, you do need to have a plan of action. And ideally with your plan of action, it’s tied into the business objectives of product adoption and your profit center. You want it to be tied in there. And so ideally it’s not just something that’s coming from the foundation or the community relations department, but is also something that’s tied into the marketing department and also to the CEO’s office and what their bottom line objectives are as far as product adoption and profit objectives.

You need to make sure that first of all you’ve got a plan in place that: 1) helps meet the profit-minded goals of the organization, of the company; 2) also translates that into community value as well. So you’re looking about how you can: 1) help build the business; and then 2) help build the business through some of the community programs. And so that I think is really the first, to make sure you’ve got a good plan that is accepted by headquarters, accepted by the CEO and that’s accepted by your foundation, community relations and marketing departments. And that synergy is really, really important to achieve when you’re first starting out. So I would say that’s number one.

And number two, once you do get that defined, the second, equally important part of the planning process is to make sure that you include your local offices. You know, it’s such a tough balance when you’ve got certain corporate headquarter objectives but at the same time you’ve got to balance that with what local employees know on the ground. They might see something very different as far as what the community needs are, what the local needs are; and in that case, you want to make sure that you can marry headquarter objectives with local needs as well. Otherwise those employees in 30 countries outside of your headquarters may not feel franchised to really take action to benefit the communities in the way that they see best and they see the most needs as well.

JD: That makes a lot of sense. But it hasn’t always been that way, right? You’ve been involved in this area for more than 15 years now, so can you maybe paint us a picture of how it’s evolved over the years?

PH: Sure. Let’s point to some of the visionaries. GE in 1910: their board made it possible for all of their retirees to be involved in their volunteer program – very, very visionary. They looked at any employee who’s ever been a part of GE. And they said, “You are going to be part of our culture, our family, our business objectives and our business service to the community.” And so very, very smart, they looked at anyone who was involved could continue to stay engaged through a company-supported volunteer program all over the world – very, very revolutionary. And again, getting the board involved. So you know, even though it hasn’t been that way across the board with all companies, we do have to point to some visionaries such as GE that have done a phenomenal job putting a stake in the ground when it was not very popular at all. So that’s really exciting to see models like that.

I will say before, most of it – let’s say 15, 20 years ago – most of it happened to be from some CEOs or foundations that felt it was the right thing to do. A lot of accolades should go to them. For example, Levi’s – late 1960s, they were operating abroad with factories, and they’ve been involved in giving and volunteering since the late 1960’s. Again, another pioneering company that should be recognized not only for doing CSR, but for doing it on a global level. But I don’t think those are the norm. And it is starting to become more the norm, which is most exciting. And I think what we’re starting to see now is not just a few outliers who think it’s the right thing to do; it’s becoming a business objective as the right thing to do for the bottom line and for the community.

JD: When we chatted about this recently, you pointed out something I hadn’t thought about; for a lot of these large companies, Corporate Social Responsibility is used as both a recruitment and retention tool. So that I guess employees have a sort of stake in seeing how their company’s benefiting the local community and the global community. Can you tell us more about that?

PH: Definitely. I think, you know, when you look at the companies, one of the most important aspects of what they’re doing is they don’t realize that part of their bottom line is making sure that they don’t have too many costs as far as turnover with employees. That’s certainly a part of your bottom line. It’s not only getting more people to buy your product or increasing your sales team, but it’s the other side for companies, is cutting down costs. Some ways you can do that is by putting in a strong retention program for employees. And that has definitely been proven, I know from studies done that employees who are allied with companies that are doing good in the world are much more likely to stay with their company.

And in fact, what’s starting to happen now with people just graduating and people age, you know, 22 to 30, they’re demanding that of any company that they would join. That’s why the biggest question that they ask in an interview: “What does your company do to serve the community?” Because if they’re going into the for-profit world, they want to know that what they’re doing is tied to a greater good. They’re going to want to know that the company that they’re going to work for, even if their day-to-day isn’t involved in it, has programs that allow them to feel a part of the community, allow them to feel a part of a greater good.

So what we’re seeing here is that CSR absolutely can be used first of all as a retention tool that makes people really feel good about their company, and they want to stay. Second, it makes the employees more motivated, wanting to build whatever business or business unit they’re involved with, because they believe in the company and the company’s values. And third, it is a great recruitment tool. You will certainly find that with people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, they’re really seeking that company that’s doing good in the world. And I think that’s a question that comes up in nearly every interview.

Cisco as an example of great CSR

JD: Great. Let me get down to the specifics here. I think it might be helpful to our listeners to hear some practical examples. Can you give us an example or two of companies that might have different approaches to CSR, but they’re successful in doing it?

PH: Yes. I think one of the companies that has done a really great job with this is Cisco. First of all, let’s point to some of the positives that Cisco has in place that could be emulated by other companies. First of all, they’ve got – and this is hard to do sometimes, JD – but they’ve got strong support from the CEO and from the executive office. So John Chambers supports their CSR efforts. He is often at volunteer opportunities. He actually flew down to Mexico earlier this year to talk about the importance of technology and education, focusing on education and made some speeches to that effect. And Cisco actually put in some very strong resources in Mexico and Latin America. But first of all, of course they do build Cisco’s business, but secondly – and equally important – they help engage Mexico and other Latin American partners by helping them with education and technology in philanthropy and volunteerism.

So first of all, you’ve got this headquarter involvement by a CEO, which is very important. And second, you’ve got business units, the foundation and community relations, backing up John Chambers, which is just wonderful. So there’s actually an execution arm. So at Cisco there’s a very strong community relations department and then public benefit investment that helps disburse grants as well.

Cisco is in more than 30 countries across the world. They also have something called “Civic Council,” and in each country or area, they have a civic council lead who then helps lead and engage the employees. And this is very important because once you get a headquarter directive, you’ve actually got to have the resources to execute on it. These are the individuals, local, on the ground, in-country, who are setting up websites, sending out newsletters, qualifying and identifying nonprofits that employees can get involved with, sending out strong marketing messages.

And to that effect, if you even look at what Cisco did during this crisis for Haiti, one of the things they did, which was very smart but not a lot of other companies did, was provide an employee donation match of up to $1 million. So a lot of companies will point out or give money to an organization, but what Cisco did was really take it to the next level and say, “We’re going to provide an employee donation match.” And I think that really demonstrates the strength of how they’re thinking as well, of not only giving from the foundation, but also encouraging and leveraging their employees to give.

JD: OK, are there any smaller size companies other than huge global companies like Cisco that you would point to as doing a pretty good job with CSR?

PH: Well, I think sometimes what we have to look at as well is: what are the companies that are local that are doing good work as well? I would say sometimes we want to look at the maybe a little bit smaller companies that might not be on the Fortune 500 list. You, as a smaller company, can also be doing a lot to help. And one of the organizations that we’ve seen help do that is the Entrepreneurs Foundation, which was started by Gib Myers, a local venture capitalist here in the Silicon Valley. And what he does is help create a forum for entrepreneurs that are starting companies and really encouraging them very, very early on to get a CSR program in place. Now a lot of startup companies don’t have a lot of money or cash early on, but what they can do is they can provide links for employees to get involved; they can actually help fund a project together as a team. They can actually give. For example, at UniversalGiving, we have something called GiftPackages where you can give a gift of $50 to feed a family in Sudan.

And they actually encourage their managers to give gifts to their employees for the holiday season again kind of showing their care for the community. And the other thing that a smaller company could do is volunteering, put up volunteer opportunities and allow your team to get involved or do a team building event around the volunteer opportunity. So I think we want to look at the great fortune 500 companies such as Cisco, and then we also want to look at groups such as The Entrepreneurs Foundation that are encouraging very, very important startups who well might be the next HPs Ciscos of the world and encourage them to start CSR early. And so it’s never too early to start that and to get that into the system and DNA of your culture.

JD: You want to know my big complaint about CSR? That they still haven’t moved into the social media arena. They see this as OK, they’re going to hand this off to their PR department, maybe they’ll get a write-up in a newspaper or two, or a magazine mention or Business Wire and that’s it; they don’t do anything with their corporate philanthropy or CSR programs with the community, with having conversations, with getting out there and getting people excited about the opportunities out there. Do you see an opportunity for companies to use social media to get the word out about CSR, to get people involved more?

PH: Certainly. I mean, I think everyone can get better at that whether you are a for-profit, nonprofit; there’s lots of different ways that you can get involved. And I think we all need to get better at that. It’s not just companies. I think we also have to give companies a break in the sense that, you know, their business objective is to make money for the shareholders. They need to do that, or they won’t exist. So they’ve got to stay focused on that. So they can’t just pull all their resources to go into CSR when a crisis hits. I respect the companies very, very much who get out there and provide some information about it because we need to remember that this is not their core business. Philanthropy is not necessarily what they know how to do. Their business may be creating routers, or telephone services or grocery stores; so we have to give them a little bit of I think credit that way, first of all in their response.

Now I do think that with social media there’s a lot that managers can do. Managers can send out text going out to the people reporting to them. I think it doesn’t always have to come from the top. So a lot of that can occur from managers and smaller business units taking a lead individually. So my hope really is that it’s not just coming the CEO headquarters; it’s not just only coming from the foundation or community relations but also coming from the individual managers who can have such power and such an amazing impact on our world and our community by simply going to their business units of 10, 20 or 30 or 50 people and providing some ways for them to get involved as a team.

How CSR will evolve in the future

JD: So I’m glad you agree with me on that. Why don’t we talk a little bit about the future and the way you see it going for Corporate Social Responsibility?

PH: I think for the future what is very exciting about it is before it was something, JD, very much of a “nice to have.” You know, “This is something that is nice to have, it’s a good, feel-good thing to do, and we want to be nice.” I think what’s really, really exciting is how do we begin to tie this into the bottom line. And it’s hard. You know when you look at employee retention and recruitment as we talked about earlier today, how do you really tie that in to the fact that it’s due to a CSR program? And I think to some extent, certain surveys are helping us determine that. And we can see that people are excited or more likely to stay at their company – usually 80, 90% bracket – if the company is going something positive. But what’s going to be really hard to determine is what is in the realm of CSR and philanthropy and strategic giving and strategic volunteering. What are really the programs that point, for example, to employee recruitment and retention? Because is it that the foundation gives money, and they just feel good? Or is it really a team event like a volunteer opportunity that allows employees to feel that they are part of a team and giving and involved that way and forging relationships not only within the community but with other team members within their company?

I think that we don’t know; what we have to watch is if in fact CSR is really helping with recruitment and retention, then what factors of CSR are truly driving that? Because that’s going to help companies grow their bottom line in a more productive way, help engage employees in a more productive way and then really help grow their business and their impact on their community.

So today what we have seen on the surveys are, “Is it likely that you would stay in the company longer because they have a CSR program in place? Or is it motivating enough for you to know that the foundation is giving out money? And that you have an employee match? So you’ll see those percentages will be 70, 80, 90% but what we really want to drill down for the future is what part of CSR? What part of those philanthropic programs, what part of them are motivating, so that we can really enhance those to help companies with their bottom line and the community. Now that is just one area JD, we are also looking at how do we increase product adoption and again looking at CSR specifically. Not just the CSR program, what aspects of the CSR program are helping with product adoption? What aspects of CSR are helping with client attraction and client retention? What we need to do is get more specific. How is CSR really a) helping our community and b) helping drive better bottom lines for our companies. And I think with that specificity CSR is going to be less of a responsibility and more of a business and social objective.

JD: If there are any companies or individuals out there listening to this program and want to learn more about CSR, where would you point them?

PH: There’s a couple of services. First, you can definitely go to our homepage, and at the bottom right-hand corner it says “Corporate Services,” and you can find out more about CSR there. The second is that there’s a great organization called CSRWire. And they have a lot of press releases and information about companies. They’ve been around for quite some time and they just do wonderful work, so I would definitely recommend them as well. Another one that I think—two others that I think are very positive, would be The Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthopy, run by Charles Moore, and also the Center for Corporate Citizenship , run by Brad Googins. So those provide some helpful resources to people, and people are also welcome to contact me, if I can provide them with any more resources.

JD: Great. And the Center for Corporate Citizenship, I think, is at Boston College and they’re online at http://bcccc.net. So that’s another good resource. Let’s wrap up by—let me ask you a couple questions here about how you personally, Pamela, what drives you? What’s your passion? How did you get involved in this field?

PH: You know, I’ve always had a very strong balance between wanting to do things efficiently and effectively, but at the same time, I always wanted my product to be something that really, really serves the business community and the—I’m sorry, the social community and our world. So it’s a balance for me, between the bottom line of striving to really accomplish results, balanced with the fact of, I want to serve our communities. And I think that’s always been something that’s been very strong for me. So I went into the for-profit world early on, out of Duke, and worked in sales and marketing and really appreciated it, but I wanted my product to serve the community. So it was exciting for me, with the advent of the web, out of school, to help me see, wow, we can create marketplaces, places that allow people to give and volunteer of their time, and we can make it efficient and effective and easy for them. So that was a huge motivating factor for me. And with UniversalGiving, on the company side, it’s just a no-brainer, because companies already have expanded globally all across the world. So they need that help, not only understanding how to be efficient and effective in philanthropy and CSR across the world, they need to know how to do that domestically and internationally. So for me, that’s a passion in helping companies know how to do that, and I think, second, you know, we all are striving—especially in this tough economic time—we all are striving for meaning. We all want to be effective, but we also want that meaning. And so for me, it balances the both. CSR allows me to balance both the business side and the community side, so that I can use both aspects of myself to serve the community. And I always kind of switch back and forth in a very positive balance. When I was twelve, I went on a family vacation in Mexico—we just saw devastating, devastating poverty as I walked down a cul-de-sac with my dad, and that struck me at a very, very young age, that I wanted to do something. And then, combined with the business skills that I had in sales and marketing and broadcast journalism and helping businesses, it really just started to become a natural growth—out-growth of caring about the community and caring about business, caring about both, which led me to really, truly appreciate CSR and to be committed to it.

JD: I should mention that to follow Pamela or UniversalGiving on Twitter, just go to http://twitter.com/universalgiving or http://twitter.com/pamelahawley. What’s ahead for UniversalGiving, Pamela? Any plans?

PH: Yes, we definitely have a lot planned and going on. I think that as we continue to expand our corporate services, I think it’s quite a fascinating time, especially on the vetting front. We have never faced such a time where vetting and third-party accreditation and vetting services are extremely important for any company getting involved with nonprofits. And so what we’re seeing the big trend here is that, companies are saying either, A, help us source nonprofits that meet our objectives and vet them, or B, please vet organizations we currently have, because if you have that third party source and accreditation, if anything happens or there is a debacle regarding a terrorist incident, or anything of that nature, the nice part is that you have a third-party accreditor who can help take and field that responsibility when that occurs. So, I think companies need to be very careful. Especially if we are operating in a very volatile world. Companies are expanding globally; they aren’t stopping. It’s something that we can help them with.

We are expanding our vetting services to really start drill down in to the local level. What are the cultural regulations? What are the legal regulations? What is it about philanthropy on the local level in Japan, in Germany, in Somalia? Is it even possible to go to Somalia? All of these different things that we can look in to as experts to understand how to approach CSR on the local ground. And that is where we have become – experts in helping companies. We see it’s going be even more important as companies expand globally. What do you have in place that is both quality and effective regarding CSR on the local level? And that is what we can really help companies with.

JD: Right. When I started out researching this area of CSR for our new site Socialbrite.org several months ago a lot people did point me your way, Pamela. So you are one of the go-to people in the CSR field. I guess we are going to continue to have discussions about this in the months and weeks ahead: some blog posts, maybe some podcasts. Anything else you want to add while we wrap up here?

PH: “I think what is really critical is making sure that for anyone who wants to be involved with CSR is it’s not a light endeavor. I think that some people think it’s a PR push, and it’s not. PR and Marketing are an important part of CSR, but you really have to have the right intentions and right motives getting involved. You need to make sure that is communicated very, very thoroughly throughout your organization, through marketing and communications channels. It is possible to tie it to your bottom line. Its very possible. It does take some work, and it does take some patience. But I think we are getting better that way.

I guess that I would really emphasize is that as we move forward in exploring this topic of CSR, we have to look at both people and corporate organizations and non-profit organizations. Increasingly the focus is going to be on quality. That is what the focus is going to be on. It’s going to be on quality, on trust of relationships, on appropriate vetting measures that take place because we want our companies to succeed and we want our communities to succeed. So I think trust and quality. Less is more is going to be important both in CSR as well as on the web. So for example, when you come to UniversalGiving, we don’t have a billion non-profits up there and the reason why is because we have trusted relationships with these non-profits that we have cultivated over the years. And we are going to continue to do that. I would say that in CSR as well as our world, some of the things that seem mundane or maybe unexciting are the most important things that we can establish. Integrity, values, trust, long-term relationships, and we will talk about that more in CSR. If people would also want to look on my blog, Living and Giving, which is at wordpress. You can go to pamelahawley.wordpress.com. You’ll see more of what I have written about CSR there, but I think we have to really take a look at that trust and integrity as we move forward in CSR.

JD: Really great insights, Pamela. So thank you so much for being here.

Resources

• Universal Giving

• Living and Giving: The Pamela Hawley Blog

• Center for Corporate Citizenship

• CSRWire

• The Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthopy

• Socialbrite.org

The post Transcript of podcast on corporate social responsibility appeared first on Socialbrite.

A telecom that does good from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Until I met Salem Kimble (who earlier covered GoingGreen for Socialbrite), I had never heard of BetterWorld Telecom. With a tagline of “Change the world. One call at a time,” they’re a socially conscious telecom provider for nonprofits and mission-driven businesses that donates 3 percent of its revenues to social causes.

Salem Kimble, who runs the company’s social media efforts, says BetterWorld is a triple bottom line business that embraces the principles of economic justice, environmental values (“we carbon offset”) and social causes.

You won’t see them advertising on Desperate Housewives or CSI – they chiefly market through word of mouth. What people are mostly talking about is the average 28 percent in cost savings over providers like AT&T and Verizon. Their customers include Greenpeace, Green Mountain Coffee, Patagonia Clothing, Honest Tea, Yes! Magazine, Ode Magazine — chiefly organizations and nonprofits focused on environmental and social justice issues.

Check out my 6-minute chat with Salem at the most recent NetSquared conference:

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

BetterWorld partners with the major telecom providers so it’s available throughout the United States. The company also offers a Virtual PBX, which means you can “transport” your office anywhere to take or make calls. Definitely worth checking out.

The post Save resources & money with Better World Telecom appeared first on Socialbrite.

Last month I made a prediction that we might see fundraisers with Foursquare or some other location-based mobile social network with gaming element. Looks like my observation of fundraising 2.0 trends of 2009 and  my 2010 predictions are on track. TechCrunch just wrote about a new mobile application called CauseWorld.

Here’s how it works:

CauseWorld app users earn “karma points” when they walk into stores and check in with their cell phone. No purchase is required at any store, and karma points can be redeemed nine predefined good causes. Big brands like Kraft Foods and Citi (both are on board) then turn the karmas into real dollar donations to those causes. Food for poor families, water in Sudan, trees in the Amazon, etc. are examples of the causes.

Like foursquare and gowalla, you open the application on your phone and see local businesses (instead of showing everything around you, CauseWorld only shows businesses that you can check into for karmas). Enter the store, check in, and get the karma points offered to you. Once you’ve collected enough karmas you can donate them to a variety of causes. And, of course, you get badges for various activities.

The causes that are supported are listed on CauseWorld — it’s a good mix of wildlife conservation, hunger and others. 

This idea is really cool for a couple of reasons. The user doesn’t have to donate, but they’re leveraging a corporate donation. Sort of like embedded giving that Lucy Bernholz talks about, I think. The application is fun and well designed.

It doesn’t have a social element where you can see how many karma points your friends have within the app itself, although it uses Facebook Connect and you could opt to have your good deeds streamed on your wall. It might get more motivated if it had the leaderboard design that Foursquare has.

And it gets you way from your computer — you can get exercise!

And, of course, there is the tradeoff — the fact that you’re trading in your shopping habits data for corporate donors. That doesn’t bother me — it’s for a good cause. There is a scaling system for karma points — for example, supporting a classroom is five points while sending a book to a library in a developing country is 100. It would be interesting to see the data on who saves up versus who gives away their karma points and what the payoff is for the charity. The number of karma points doesn’t necessarily sync up with real-world impact.

I just downloaded and got 10 karma points and was able to support a classroom without doing anything — not even getting up from computer.  

Update: Some quick testing notes:

• The design seems to encourage me to translate my karma to donations every time I earn them. This would take some real discipline to save enough karma if I wanted to help some of the other groups. Without a leaderboard, peer pressure or something else in the game design — I’m tempted to donate as much as possible.
• When you donate, there are cute animations and graphics. It reminds of a pinball machine when you score. Anyway, it might be cool to be able to add on more information about the charity, more ways to engage and educate me.
• Once you visit a place, it gets checked out — so you’re not being rewarded in karma points for repeat visits. Thus, I’m not building a habit of checking myself into the location. I’m not sure why this is part of the design unless it has something to do with the design of research they’re collecting about me.

All in all, this is a lot of fun — and takes some of the ideas of an app like Foursquare to leverage corporate donations. I wonder, though, how much this could be designed to help the organizations build their network of supporters for longer relationships.

Cross-posted to Beth’s Blog.

The post CauseWorld: Support causes on the go appeared first on Socialbrite.

Welcome to all the visitors from Mashable! We were thrilled to be featured in Melissa Rowley‘s article, 4 Social Good Trends of 2009.

For first-timers, we thought now would be a good time to highlight some of our favorite posts on Socialbrite since our launch earlier this year:

Some of our favorite causes

• Tweet for a cure to end SMA

• Global Voices: Lifting up the powerless & voiceless

• An inventive cause campaign to fight malaria

• Tim Ferriss’ method of supporting causes

• Boxee and the promise of open media

• All for Good: A Craigslist for service

• California’s Secretary of State: Come and collaborate!

• How the National Wildlife Federation uses social media

• Socialbrite’s night at NetTuesday

• UniversalGiving: Tailoring an impact just for you

• Samasource enables socially responsible outsourcing

• YouthNoise: Helping young people network a cause

• Kiva: micro-loans to entrepreneurs abroad

• Giving Challenge: Tap your networks to support a cause

Some favorite tools and tactics

• How to make your website more accessible and 7 tips for communicating with people with disabilities

• 20 tips for mobile advocacy

• A user’s guide to mobile activism

• How mobile is empowering consumers

• SEO: 9 tips for optimizing a nonprofit site — Search Engine Optimization isn’t black magic, so get your site to shape up

• 8 tips for raising funds online

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

• Twitter as a tool for activism

• How to build a Facebook community — 14 levers you need to be pulling

• How to add a Facebook Page Fanbox to your site

• How to use Seesmic Desktop

• Carbon footprints, nation by nation

• Foundation Center: a deep resource for philanthropy

• Guide to shooting photos in public

• How to capture great photos on the road

• Fair use in the digital age

• Seven blogging tools reviewed

• Socialbrite releases Creative Commons plug-in

Thanks to everyone for your support this year! (Don’t forget to follow @Socialbrite on Twitter!) We’re now working with a number of nonprofits and educational outfits — TechSoup Global and Scholastic, to name two — and looking forward to helping others with their social media needs in the months ahead.

The post Mashable & our favorite posts of the year appeared first on Socialbrite.

Why even small, resource-constrained nonprofits should be using social media

Guest post by Jordan Viator
Nonprofit Live TV

What are some of the ways in which social media can be used to advance the social good? Nonprofit Live TV put the question to Matt Mahan, Nonprofit and Business Development Director of Causes and Carie Lewis, Director of Emerging Media of the Humane Society of the United States.

The 7-minute interview, conducted at the 2009 Convio Summit conference for nonprofits in Austin, Texas, last month, addresses how smaller, resource-constrained nonprofits can be using social media.

Mahan and Lewis give examples of how outreach on Twitter or Facebook can engage support for a cause or organization. When someone’s birthday rolls around, Mahan says, instead of giving them a Starbucks gift certificate or the like, It’s much more meaningful to receive a gift in the name of someone who’s truly deserving. The Causes site has also recently upgraded its partner center to enable nonprofits to interact more actively with their supporters on Facebook.

See other interviews from the summit’s showroom floor at the Nonprofit Live TV site.

The post Social media for social good appeared first on Socialbrite.