I earlier posted a video and post about The Girl Effect. I found out about it through socialactions.com, an incredible organization which makes online philanpthropy easy. The Girl Effect is supported by one of a multitude of incredible online philanthropy sites. This one is called globalgiving.com. At sites like this, you can chose specific projects covering a huge range of issues. Many of the projects support one specific individual or one small community–guaranteeing that your dollars go to the people whose pictures you see, whose stories you learn, and whose lives you can change. I know this works, because my friend Christine Egger put together a project last year to help put a homeless Nepali boy in school (http://www.givemeaning.com/project/yubaraj). I went with her to Nepal to meet the boy and the adults who were helping him and I have seen the dedication and responsibility that one-to-one giving generates. I am a true convert to this type of online helping.
From this experience, Christine partnered in the development of a google-like search engine that compiles projects from over thirty websites like globalgiving.com called socialactions.com. This website serves as the portal to accessing thousands, if not more, ways to make the world a better place and is funded completly independently of donations to the websites. The projects can be searched and sorted according to your personal preferences, and you can put notices about them on websites, blogs, in e-mails, etc. Again, your money goes directly to the people and organizations listed in the proposal, no middle-men, no skimming off the top.
But Social Actions is more than the database, it’s an online community for microphilanthropy (also called peer-to-peer giving). The blog site is designed to be a completely open and transparent community–anyone can join and have a profile, write blogs, etc. They are also developing ways for both “experts” and “lay people” to rank or rate individual projects on a variety of criteria. They have used Twitter to compile updates around specific actions (like the poverty and water actions list I have in my side bar on the left) and ANYONE can create their own twitter group using their tool! Plus, they are expanding every day, building on ideas from members and making the site more responsive, more interactive, and more exciting.
I have been watching the development of socialactions.com for almost a year now and I am no longer content to sit on the sidelines. This is an INCREDIBLE tool!!! As the economy struggles, rather than listing more consumer crap you don’t need on your holiday gift list, why not list the social actions you’d like your friends and family to support in your name? Just a thought.
