As non-profits continue to seek new and relevant means of reaching constituents, several recent studies have confirmed that they are increasingly turning to social media to do so. So where might Google Buzz fit in?

A 2009 report from the Center for Media Research reports that 89% of the 200 biggest charitable organizations, as identified by Forbes Magazine — such as the Salvation Army, American Red Cross, and Habitat for Humanity — are using at least one form of social media. Social networking and video blogging are the most popular types of social applications, with 79% of organizations making use of them, followed by blogging (57%), podcasting (36%), and wikis (16%).

And a 2010 report from Idealware, a non-profit that provides research and information about software to non-profits, affirms this data trend, here.

Non-profits are turning to social media because they are beginning to see the value of the outlets. Social Impact, a brand building agency for non-profits, conducted a survey in 2009, polling 200 non-profit and foundation executive directors and senior communication officials who expressed an understanding of the importance of having a web presence: 92% stated that having an online identity helps raise awareness about the organization, 86% noted that it helps keep external audiences engaged, and 77% cited reduced costs as compared to traditional media strategies. This data suggests that non-profits who are not involved with social media, may soon invest in these technologies. Idealware also collected data about whether respondents not currently utilizing social media tools intended to adopt social media strategies within the coming six months, and found that approximately half indicated a willingness to try certain tools, such asFacebook, blogs, and video-sharing. The sites that topped the list generally have a large built-in user base and makes sharing information easy.

This bodes well for Google Buzz, a newcomer to a social networking scene. Despite being immersed in controversy surrounding privacy concerns, and reports of low traffic, Buzz is not dead.Google continues to make adjustments in response to user concerns, indicating that Buzz intends to be a long-term participant in the social media scene.Chris Messina,open web advocate at Google, and Elizabeth Ricca, strategist at Big Duck, a communications firm specifically for non-profits, share their insights below.

The Vision: Buzz for Non-Profits

Buzz launched with much fanfare heralding the ways it would encourage sharing and open discussion. According toopen source advocateChris Messina, Buzz began life as an internal Google tool that grew out of a desire to encourage and permit people to be more conversational in a natural way on the web. Why not just use email? Digital lives are rapidly evolving beyond the bandwidth threshold of such Web 1.0 technologies. In other words, we have high turn-around expectations and as Messina states, Buzz set out to make use of real time technologies to enable people to have conversation about things that are happening online or just start a conversation in general without having to navigate through the email interface.

Buzz’s main criticism was thus actually meant to be one of its stronger points: the application’s integration into Gmail brought it under fire from the general public, but it was supposed to make it convenient for people to engage in dialogues they were interested in without having to actively search for those conversations. So then, how could this work for a non-profit in terms of helping the organization connect to the greater public? Messina sees two experiences that need to be considered: that of the organization, and that of the constituents. For example, using Activity Streams a non-profit could monitor several unique campaign and communications initiatives occurring around the web internally as a group to gain some understanding on what’s going on  what’s working and what’s not, while being able to demonstrate what other people are actually doing so then you can model behaviors for people to discover and try out in their own contexts.

In terms of the user experience, Messina directed the discussion back to the original vision for Buzz as a tool that makes it easy for data to flow between networks and different places and contexts, while allowing users to consume and receive this information using familiar tools. The user experience is therefore actually connected to the organizations experience because the organization is in the position to help set the users expectations about the types of interactions they can have via Buzz. Though Messina admits that right now Buzz is definitely more oriented toward the individual user than to a brand or group, he believes that the development of independent web tools through the Buzz interface will allow organizations to build new and specific types of experiences suited to the needs of the organization and the feedback from the users. And web tools that can be integrated into Buzz are already beginning to emerge as a recent Mashable article indicates: Buzz can integrate with Twitter and Facebook via HomePuzz, which speaks to Messinas data flow observation, it offers robust search capability with Buzzzy.com, and with buzzstats and Buzz-Charts users can share statistics about their Buzz presence.

These types of applications, when integrated into Buzz, can help non-profits craft a public image and contend with issues of digital authenticity. Non-profits want to engage people, but also want people towant to be engaged. Messina suggested that this can be accomplished by establishing consistency and creating a voice  either a voice or a narrative  that comes through in any number of the streams you might participate in. He emphasized that organizations interested in Buzz  and other types of social media  need to find a balance between transmitting and receiving messages, and actually participating in conversations on the web in response to the information trickling in: So going to blogs and things like that and talking about whats going on  just replying to people and actually have interactions, as opposed to just broadcasting information.

The Reality: Following the User-Base

Elizabeth Ricca,strategist at Big Duck, agrees that Buzz has immense potential as an open forum tool, where longer discussions can take place that arent able to happen on mediums like Facebook where you have to have a mutual voluntary connection to engage, and Twitter, where the character limit can create communication challenges. However, she expressed some reservations about the early adopter model with regard to non-profit use of Buzz. Big Duck uses a model of four concentric circles to describe non-profit capacity to be involved in social media. The core consists of websites, email strategy, and SEO tactics. As a non-profit looking to enter into the online world, Ricca stressed that this is where it starts  making sure you have a firm grasp of these Web 1.0 basics. The second circle involves some initial steps into social media: integrating online and offline campaign elements and possibly beginning to dabble in Facebook or Twitter. As the organization moves into the third circle, more social media applications come into play, including Twitter or Buzz, photo-sharing, and video-sharing. The fourth circle entails organizations creating their own social network and mobile strategies and possibly including location-based services, like FourSquare.

The issue that arises for Ricca when discussing non-profits and Buzz is that most non-profits fall within the first two circles, while Buzz is actually in the third or fourth circle simply because it requires so much from the non-profit to shape its presence. Data from Social Impact indicates that whilenon-profitsunderstand the importance of social media, most non-profits (52%) lack the infrastructure, staff, and expertise necessary to take full advantage of social medias potential.Ricca added, the standard non-profit communicator has so many things on their plate that charging into the wilderness of Buzz for many of them is low on the priority list. In terms of resources, it is far more likely that non-profits will seek out ready-made models of social media outlets that allow for easier adoption and less investment.

Primarily for this reason, Facebook appears to be the most popular social media outlet for non-profits seeking a social web presence. It has a tremendous built-in user base that non-profits can tap into, though Ricca notes that this is one of the ways Buzz can potentially compete with Facebook as it also has a large built-in user base,”every Gmail user is potentially a Buzz user.”And whileFacebook is a more guided and structured experience, Buzz does seem to be better prepared to handle conversations. The interface of Buzz is just sort of better designed for making those conversations center point as opposed to Facebook where its more about connecting with your network, Ricca said. For example, non-profits on Facebook can make use of the Causes application, which allows users to donate their birthday to fundraising efforts for the organization. Users can ask friends to donate to a cause or organization and the application shares this message via wall posts so that it filters through the users network. So tapping into the individuals network, and using the individuals connections is already kind of structured through this particular application. Theres no real dialogue that occurs, however; the message just gets passed along, whereas in Buzz, users and non-profits could potentially engage in a longer forum. Buzzs drawback is that the non-profit essentially has to piece it together to make it work for them and their constituents. Its an early adopter type tool, but it launched itself into a mainstream community of users, Ricca said. These are not people who are used to being the first to sign up for a Twitter, who are struggling to make sense of what this is and how it fits into their social networking world, if it fits into their social networking world. And so for non-profits, until the user base of Buzz has sorted out for itself what role Buzz has in the social universe, its going to be hard for non-profits to define their role relative to that.

Despite these concerns, Ricca does believe that early adopter model of Buzz has potential for the non-profits willing to take it on and help shape the tool into something that allows non-profits to better define their social space online. The Facebook model, Ricca explained, has grown from a very individual-focused standpoint, and grants the individual user a lot of power. It isnt very conducive to functioning as a group  an individual at the non-profit must claim the Facebook page if an organization is interested in setting one up; the organization cannot exist asits ownentity. And though, Ricca noted, that the integration of Buzz with Gmail sort of echoes this model, as Buzz is kind of new, there is potential [for non-profits] to try and preempt that dynamic and start forming their own communities.

Next Steps: To Buzz or Not to Buzz?

Whether or not non-profits ultimately use Buzz as a part of their social media strategy will ultimately depend on the individual organizations needs. One lesson non-profits can take away from Buzzs recent struggles, Messina offered, is the importance of finding the right way of inviting people to participate, to making it easy for them to participate in a way that they understand. Giving the user a sense of control over the interaction is important, he stressed. For example, allowing users to determine how they will interact with you  whether its via Twitter or Facebook or Buzz and what elements they want to integrate into your platform are important. Ricca also stated that the first step for non-profits interested in any social media platform is to begin listening for any mention of the organization or the issue. So setting up Google or Twitter alerts, and using Buzz to monitor RSS feeds, for example, are good places to start.

The Center for Media Research reported that 81% of those studied felt that social media is somewhat important to future communications strategies. In light of the generational shift that will reflect new standards and expectations for online interactions, now is certainly the time to begin listening. As Messina notes, Its very hard to do it wrong right now. I think theres more forgiveness now that theres going to be in the future.

Many deserving charities never get off the ground because they lack the network to find and solicit donations for their cause. The time and cost of fundraising greatly diminishes a charitable organization’s resources. But social media — when leveraged well — can be an efficient fundraising tool.

Social media enables people to find, donate to, and spread the word about charitable causes with a few clicks.

Charities can inexpensively create engaging social media campaigns, giving them the ability to foster an engaging community. On the ASPCA’s fan page, Facebook users can browse photos of adorable animals up for adoption, learn pet care tips, communicate with other animal lovers, find volunteer opportunities, and donate. The Facebook fundraising application Causes allows charities to quickly create fundraising campaigns. The app allows users to raise money on the site through status updates and posting badges on their profiles. Over 100 million users have donated more than $21 million to over 390,000 individual causes through the app. Causes raised about $400,000 for Haiti relief efforts in the week after the earthquake.

Online efforts raising money and awareness for DonorsChoose.org are a prime example of social media’s potential for fundraising purposes. DonorsChoose is organization is a fundraising platform for schools with specific project needs. (We’ve previously written about DonorsChoose as a nominee for the 2009 Think Social Awards,here.) Teachers can easily post pictures and information about their class. Donors can be directed to a specific page, or can search the site for projects that specifically appeal to them. Donors receive a thank you package from the class if the campaign is successful.

Venture capitalist and DonorsChoose board member Fred Wilson found a class in Los Angeles on the site that needed $1,289 for an LCD projector. After posting on his blog before going to bed, he woke the next morning happy to find the project had been fully funded. Fred’s readers are mostly in the tech startup and investment space, many of whom use LCD projectors in their everyday lives. While Fred directed his readers to the site, the community was quick to act because they personally connected with the cause. Already an investor in social media startups like Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare, Fred is excited about social media’s potential for the public good. You can leverage social tools to create awareness and raise money (for charitable causes).

A fundraising campaign of that scale previously would have consisted of local efforts like a bake sale or car wash. Customized fundraising materials and promotional efforts would prove too costly, especially when raising small amounts of money. DonorsChoose solves this problem by providing teachers the tools to easily create a customized fundraising page, giving a human face to their fundraising efforts. The site also acts a portal for people looking to give to educational causes, making it easy for them to donate a cause and share it with their network.

DonorsChoose makes it easy for users to share fundraising efforts on Twitter, Facebook, and a number of other social sites. Fred pointed out to me that Craigslist’s Craig Newmark had raised over $12,000 for DonorsChoose on Twitter. DonorsChoose is the infrastructure, but the contributions of teachers and donors in the community create a compelling experience. Users donate and actively promote DonorsChoose, and as more hear about the site, the organization can easily scale to serve their needs. Just like with e-commerce, if you create an engaging experience, first time donors become repeat donors,” Wilson said. “And they’ll tell their friends about it.

• If we are going to look at institutions like state and federal governments, corporations and transnational networks, a positive sign of what could be next is the United States government’s transparency initiatives like data.gov, which provides information on government spending. When this tech dashboard launched earlier this summer, it came with an open invitation to developers, asking them to create tools and applications using the datasets. Said President Obama’s Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra at the time, data.gov represents a “democratizing of information.”

• Pressuring the government to be more transparent are organizations like the Sunlight Foundation. The Sunlight Foundation helps citizens, bloggers and journalists “be there own best watchdogs” (as its website reads) but creating tools and websites, and relaying information on how to foster greater transparency in the U.S. Its best known websites and initiatives include OpenSecrets.org, which collects political data with a particular focus on spending; and Apps for America, a contest where users use data from Sunlight and its partners to help Congress be more accountable.

• Indie activists and innovators are creating and spreading around new tools. Jim Gilliam, a self-described “geeky activist with big ideas,” has created online platforms (White House 2, NationBuilder) that allow people to demonstrate how truly representative democracy would work—voting on initiatives that they would like their governments to institute. Gilliam has also harnessed the potential of Twitter for civic engagement purposes with projects like Tweet Progress (a directory of progressives), GovLuv (connecting citizens and leaders via Twitter) and act.ly (activism tools for Twitter, such as petitions and retweets).

VOTE

Name: Google Earth Outreach Program

Nominated Category: Organization

URL: http://www.earth.google.com/outreach/index.html

Area: Technology, Outreach

About:

Don’t be evil, as everyone knows, is Google’s unofficial company motto. The web and tech giant actively pursues the opposite of evil in a rather official, large-scale way with its philanthropic and development programs, including the very recently expanded Google Earth Outreach.

Description:

Since 2007, Google Earth Outreach has enabled non-profits and public benefit organizations to tell their stories with Google Earth & Maps. Google Earth provides a suite of tools that help organizations better illustrate their cause, such as a gadget that helps a user create layers of placemarks using Google Docs, and another that lets users embed Google Earth KML map files directly in their blogs or web sites; and, even more useful, there are video tutorials that explain how to use them.

The Outreach program site links to third-party resources as well, including free software for using geo-tagged photos in Google Earth. Google-awarded grants enable organizations to use premier version of these technologies, and the program even encourages organizations to apply for other companies’ grants for satellite imagery and other similar products. One example of an early (and ambitious) project was the United Nations refugee agency s mapping of different refugee situations.

This week Google announced that Google Earth Outreach is now available in Africa, making it possible for organizations to take advantage of the pro-version software grants and other opportunities. The launch was also a way for Google to show off what some non-profits have already been doing to visualize their work in Africa with Google Earth.

Save the Elephants uses Google Earth KML touring to show viewers a narrated tour illustrating efforts to protect Mali Desert elephants. And the United Nations Environment Programme’s recently released Uganda Atlas of Our Changing Environment traces environmental change in 11 different sites in Uganda using historical imagery. This UN effort also includes narrated tours of four of the sites featured, including the Mabira Forest Reserve and Mount Elgon.

Another of the program is a workshop/tutorial element. Coming up later this week is a free workshop Google is hosting in Kampala, Uganda for non-profits interested in using the Google Earth technology. There’ll be another such workshop in Nairobi, Kenya November 5.

The Basics:

WHO: Google Inc.

WHAT: Google Earth Outreach Program now available in Africa: a grant program that enables non-profits and other public-benefit organizations to better use Google Earth & Maps technology to tell their story.

WHERE: Recently expanded to Africa.

HOW to get involved: Visit earth.google.com/outreach for information on the program and for how your organization can better use Google tools and resources.

What other people are saying:

CNET

Webpro News

Washington Post

L’Atelier

• Comment on this entry and tell us what you think. Who else should we be highlighting in this category?
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Learn more about ThinkSocial Awards here.

Thanks for your support and participation.

VOTE

Name: TED Open-Translation Project

Nominated Category: Collaboration

URL: http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/287

Area: Non-profit, Service, Volunteerism, Language

About Open Translation:

TED — the non-profit first dedicated to “ideas worth spreading” in Technology, Entertainment and Design when established in 1984, and has since expanded to cover many more topics — is perhaps most famous for its TED conferences, and thanks to the Internet, its TED Talks.

Description:

For the past few years, selected talks, which feature everyone from Bill Gates to Bill Clinton, have been posted on TED.com for free–and captioned in English. Now the TED Open-Translation Project aims to translate and subtitle TED Talks for the people of the world who don’t speak English.

Released in May 2009, version 1.0 of the Open-Translation Project launched with 300 translations in 40 languages, and 200 volunteer translators. To start, a handful of talks were translated professionally into 20 languages, but going on the project will be completely reliant on volunteers from Beijing to Beirut, who use a platform created by TED and technology partner dotSUB.

On its web site, TED calls the project, “one of the most comprehensive attempts by a major media platform to subtitle and index online video content. It’s also a groundbreaking effort in the public, professional use of volunteer translation.” While the folks at TED are the ones who push the final “publish” button, it’s the volunteer participants translating and subtitling in Greek, Hausa, Persian and Basque around the world that make this project actually work.

Currently, what’s available with the 1.0 version are subtitles on every talk (available in English and any translated language); interactive transcript (in English and any translated language); personalized pages within each translator’s member profiles that shows the translations to which a translator has contributed; and more.

Anyone can become a translator for TED – though your translation will ultimately be vetted and reviewed by TED before it’s accepted and published. You’re required to translate an entire talk, and within a month of assignment. And even if you’re not a translator, if you see a mistake in a translation or want to make a suggestion or comment, information on how to contact the translator and reviewer of a TEDTalk is listed in the “About this talk” section of each video. In version 1.1., TED.com will also allow members to post open comments that everyone can see.

Volunteerism isn’t always glamorous. You certainly don’t get paid – though translators are credited, recognized on the TED Translators page, and have special pages on their TED member profiles, listing translations to which they contributed. But, as TED puts it, “every translator will be taking part in our global effort to spread ideas and engage in global dialogue. We know from our current translators that there’s a huge satisfaction in bringing inspired talks to speakers of their own language worldwide.”

The Basics:

WHO: TED.com and volunteer translators

WHAT: Translating TEDTalks into the world’s languages

WHERE: All over the world, currently in 40+ languages

HOW to get involved: If you’re bilingually fluent, you may qualify to translate. All members can comment and make suggestions on translations, by directly contacting the translator. Having the TED Open-Translation Project means you can watch “an English talk, with Korean subtitles and an Urdu transcript.” Just think about what that would look like.

WHAT other people are saying:

Worldchanging magazine

Newsweek magazine

Sobel Media Post

Africa Unchained blog

VOTE

Name: TED Open-Translation Project

Nominated Category: Collaboration

URL: http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/287

Area: Non-profit, Service, Volunteerism, Language

About Open Translation:

TED — the non-profit first dedicated to “ideas worth spreading” in Technology, Entertainment and Design when established in 1984, and has since expanded to cover many more topics — is perhaps most famous for its TED conferences, and thanks to the Internet, its TED Talks.

Description:

For the past few years, selected talks, which feature everyone from Bill Gates to Bill Clinton, have been posted on TED.com for free–and captioned in English. Now the TED Open-Translation Project aims to translate and subtitle TED Talks for the people of the world who don’t speak English.

Released in May 2009, version 1.0 of the Open-Translation Project launched with 300 translations in 40 languages, and 200 volunteer translators. To start, a handful of talks were translated professionally into 20 languages, but going on the project will be completely reliant on volunteers from Beijing to Beirut, who use a platform created by TED and technology partner dotSUB.

On its web site, TED calls the project, “one of the most comprehensive attempts by a major media platform to subtitle and index online video content. It’s also a groundbreaking effort in the public, professional use of volunteer translation.” While the folks at TED are the ones who push the final “publish” button, it’s the volunteer participants translating and subtitling in Greek, Hausa, Persian and Basque around the world that make this project actually work.

Currently, what’s available with the 1.0 version are subtitles on every talk (available in English and any translated language); interactive transcript (in English and any translated language); personalized pages within each translator’s member profiles that shows the translations to which a translator has contributed; and more.

Anyone can become a translator for TED – though your translation will ultimately be vetted and reviewed by TED before it’s accepted and published. You’re required to translate an entire talk, and within a month of assignment. And even if you’re not a translator, if you see a mistake in a translation or want to make a suggestion or comment, information on how to contact the translator and reviewer of a TEDTalk is listed in the “About this talk” section of each video. In version 1.1., TED.com will also allow members to post open comments that everyone can see.

Volunteerism isn’t always glamorous. You certainly don’t get paid – though translators are credited, recognized on the TED Translators page, and have special pages on their TED member profiles, listing translations to which they contributed. But, as TED puts it, “every translator will be taking part in our global effort to spread ideas and engage in global dialogue. We know from our current translators that there’s a huge satisfaction in bringing inspired talks to speakers of their own language worldwide.”

The Basics:

WHO: TED.com and volunteer translators

WHAT: Translating TEDTalks into the world’s languages

WHERE: All over the world, currently in 40+ languages

HOW to get involved: If you’re bilingually fluent, you may qualify to translate. All members can comment and make suggestions on translations, by directly contacting the translator. Having the TED Open-Translation Project means you can watch “an English talk, with Korean subtitles and an Urdu transcript.” Just think about what that would look like.

WHAT other people are saying:

Worldchanging magazine

Newsweek magazine

Sobel Media Post

Africa Unchained blog

VOTE

Name: Design 21: Social Design Network

Nominated Category: Collaboration

Area: Social networking, social action networks

URL: http://www.design21sdn.com

About:

DESIGN 21 a collaboration between charitably inclined lifestyle corporation Felissimo and non-profit UNESCO — is dedicated to work that looks good and does good.

Description:

As a social network, it keeps members looped in on how people around the world are using design to make a difference. Online, you can connect with other socially conscious folks, designers, non-profit organizations, interest groups and others.

Central to DESIGN 21 are design competitions geared toward specific, tangible goals ones in which, once completed, you can actually see results if the winning design is implemented. One early challenge asked DESIGN 21 designers to create temporary emergency shelter for deployment in a natural disaster; DESIGN 21 partner UNESCO has sponsored several competitions, asking for logo ideas and other elements for campaigns. In the challenges, the public votes online after designers submit applications; the entire process can be tracked on the web site.

As part of the DESIGN 21 community, members can participate in the site’s “Interview Series,” online events where you can post questions for design leaders like Design 21 director Haruko Smith and environment-motivated designer/Designers Accord founder Valerie Casey. Under the site’s “SHARE” section, members can also blog — or search for others’ blog posts by design or by social theme — and share resources with each other.

Members can also directly help non-profits that request work via the Web site, i.e. help with web site development or technical renderings, by answering calls through design21′s ACT section. There, individuals or companies with some need post requests for everything from web programming help to designs for an HIV/AIDS-education toolkit. Also through the site, DESIGN 21 sells what they call the Allumonde ring, a Richard Hutten design that ranges from a set of $25 colorful acrylic rings to $2,500 for an 18-karat gold ring. Twenty-one percent of the proceeds give back directly 19% to a non-profit of your choice, and 2% to UNESCO DREAM centers, which provide arts and culture opportunities to kids in post-conflict regions of the world.

Felissimo also runs clothing-and-accessories site Social Designer, which works like a socially-motivated Threadless Tees: one can submit designs, vote on them, and purchase them, with proceeds for different designs going to organizations like microfinance powerhouse Kiva, the American Cancer Society and 826National, a children’s reading and creative writing center.

The Basics:

WHO: DESIGN 21, a collaboration between Felissimo and UNESCO

WHAT: A social network for socially conscious people and designers who want to work toward social good, DESIGN 21 runs competitions to create products to help people and uses social networking tools to connect its members

WHERE: Worldwide

HOW to get involved: Join up membership is free, though corporations and non-profits must apply first. If you’re a design savvy, you can participate in design competitions; or help out the non-profit requests under ACT.

What other people are saying:

Via Good magazine

VOTE

Name: Design 21: Social Design Network

Nominated Category: Collaboration

Area: Social networking, social action networks

URL: http://www.design21sdn.com

About:

DESIGN 21 a collaboration between charitably inclined lifestyle corporation Felissimo and non-profit UNESCO — is dedicated to work that looks good and does good.

Description:

As a social network, it keeps members looped in on how people around the world are using design to make a difference. Online, you can connect with other socially conscious folks, designers, non-profit organizations, interest groups and others.

Central to DESIGN 21 are design competitions geared toward specific, tangible goals ones in which, once completed, you can actually see results if the winning design is implemented. One early challenge asked DESIGN 21 designers to create temporary emergency shelter for deployment in a natural disaster; DESIGN 21 partner UNESCO has sponsored several competitions, asking for logo ideas and other elements for campaigns. In the challenges, the public votes online after designers submit applications; the entire process can be tracked on the web site.

As part of the DESIGN 21 community, members can participate in the site’s “Interview Series,” online events where you can post questions for design leaders like Design 21 director Haruko Smith and environment-motivated designer/Designers Accord founder Valerie Casey. Under the site’s “SHARE” section, members can also blog — or search for others’ blog posts by design or by social theme — and share resources with each other.

Members can also directly help non-profits that request work via the Web site, i.e. help with web site development or technical renderings, by answering calls through design21′s ACT section. There, individuals or companies with some need post requests for everything from web programming help to designs for an HIV/AIDS-education toolkit. Also through the site, DESIGN 21 sells what they call the Allumonde ring, a Richard Hutten design that ranges from a set of $25 colorful acrylic rings to $2,500 for an 18-karat gold ring. Twenty-one percent of the proceeds give back directly 19% to a non-profit of your choice, and 2% to UNESCO DREAM centers, which provide arts and culture opportunities to kids in post-conflict regions of the world.

Felissimo also runs clothing-and-accessories site Social Designer, which works like a socially-motivated Threadless Tees: one can submit designs, vote on them, and purchase them, with proceeds for different designs going to organizations like microfinance powerhouse Kiva, the American Cancer Society and 826National, a children’s reading and creative writing center.

The Basics:

WHO: DESIGN 21, a collaboration between Felissimo and UNESCO

WHAT: A social network for socially conscious people and designers who want to work toward social good, DESIGN 21 runs competitions to create products to help people and uses social networking tools to connect its members

WHERE: Worldwide

HOW to get involved: Join up membership is free, though corporations and non-profits must apply first. If you re a design savvy, you can participate in design competitions; or help out the non-profit requests under ACT.

What other people are saying:

Via Good magazine

Jonathan Abrams

JONATHAN ABRAMS
CEO and Founder of Socializr

Twitter: http://twitter.com/abrams

Jonathan Abrams is the founder and CEO of Socializr, a new web service offering free online event invitations, and innovative ways to share event and party information with your friends. Jonathan is an award-winning serial entrepreneur who was hailed as “The Social Pioneer” by Vanity Fair in June 2008 for creating the pioneering social networking service Friendster.

TS: What do you think the public interest of social media is?

Jonathan Abrams: It’s hard to think of anything social media hasn’t had an impact on.  Business, entertainment, politics, non-profit. I think that it’s obvious that it has an opportunity to work for the public interest.

TS: And do you think that companies and governments have a responsibility to take that interest into account when they make decisions?

JA: I don’t think they necessarily have a responsibility. I think it’s more of an opportunity.  For government social media is definitely a channel for increased transparency. But they’re so behind in putting things on the internet – even without social aspects. There’s a lot of information that we still don’t even have access to.

TS: What do you think the greatest threats are to the way people use social media in terms of public interest?

JA: There are companies and other people who are simply taking data out of sites like Facebook without Facebook actually agreeing to it or being part of it. There are privacy implications and privacy dangers in that. That leads into identity theft issues – how do you verify that someone is who they say they are on social media sites – it’s very easy to impersonate somebody. There are dangers for young people in overuse – there are a lot of people who have got in trouble or lost jobs because of the use of social media; there may need to be some protection set up for those circumstances.

TS: Would you prefer more accountability in social media?

JA: I’ve been a fan in general of moving away from anonymity so we can see who people are online, just like we do offline. There is a place for anonymity, but I think it’s only needed in certain cases.

TS: When you started Friendster five years ago, did you ever imagine that social networking would help elect a president or enable a charity to raise money?

JA: No  – when I started working on Friendster in 2002, the idea of integrating your offline social context with your online experience was itself pretty weird. We weren’t sure that people were really going to do it – that they would bring their social graph online, and have these social network contexts in their online experiences instead of being isolated and random and anonymous. I was initially just thinking about it in the context of online socializing. The idea was to make the way I used the internet more like the way I interacted with people in real life.  You go to a party and you don’t just walk into a room of random strangers.  Everybody there probably knows somebody who knows somebody who knows you.    There’s a reason you’re there, there’s a reason they’re there, there’s some context. In coming up with these silly new ideas of how the internet might work differently, I wasn’t anticipating all the applications of it. I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, this could be used for politics, this could be used for charity or journalism.” It was more amorphous than that.