For the Social Good

A few weeks ago I had the privilege to attend the Mashable Media Summit in NYC with Jessy Yancey. During the conference there was definitely a lot of talk of using social media for the social good. There was one particular company that I wanted to highlight:

EDWARD NORTON'S CROWDRISE.COM

Norton observed:
• Organizations were not effectively using contemporary web-based social networking tools to enhance their fundraising efforts in a meaningful way or to engage people who were supporting them.
• Organizations were not using dynamic, cutting-edge technology to reach a new generation of people in a productive way. Younger people were adopting these tools, but struggling to find a way to use them productively.

So he and a group of other partners created Crowdrise. The basic goals of Crowdrise:
• To provide a platform that works in complementary ways in multiple directions
• To develop a way to create team efforts in fund-raising for corporations and organizations involved in social responsibility

"Our conviction is that a lot of social networking is in essence about personal narrative ... people take pride in what they are doing, their personal narrative matters, and they want to share it with other people. Our extension of that is simply to encourage people to plant a flag, raise a fist, take pride in what they care about, what they are engaged in and engage other people in it."

– Edward Norton

What makes Crowdrise a great solution? They have found a way to incorporate the things that people love about social media ... the connection, the competition, the fun, the humor ... into a way to help support a good cause. Better yet, into a way to help support a lot of good causes. And according to Norton ... it only takes about 15 minutes to setup a project.

I definitely encourage you to take a look at the site and learn more about it.