Social networking tools on the internet are providing new ways of giving and getting involved.
From the Wall Street Journal’s “Young Money” series:
Some of the newer Web-based nonprofits, such as DonorsChoose and Kiva, are attractive because contributors say they allow them to connect directly with their recipients. Donors or lenders can hand over money directly to, respectively, teachers and students in urban public schools or individual entrepreneurs in developing countries, rather than sending a check that ends up with an abstract recipient.
“You can donate money to a charity, but it seems like it just goes into a pile and you never know what really goes on there,” says Mr. Alamo, the Kiva lender. “With Kiva, you just pick someone out and lend to them directly and watch what they do and how they succeed. That was the main appeal.”
Kiva, which started in the fall of 2005, has already drawn more than 89,600 lenders who have lent $10 million. Mr. Alamo’s Kivafriends.org Web site has attracted about 600 members since it was launched in March.
Some older charities are grappling with how to best take advantage of social-networking sites. The Salvation Army, for instance, has had a MySpace profile for “Red Kettle,” its online persona, since last year. But the site has only roughly 80 online “friends,” or people who have linked to it. (By contrast, Kiva has some 7,000 online friends on MySpace.)
Read it all here.
Other networks mentioned in the article: