News

$50,000 for Invisible People TV

I critized the Pepsi Refresh campaign last month but today I’m thrilled to hear that Mark Horvath won the contest. Mark known as HardlyNormal on Twitter is a tireless advocate for the cause of homelessness. In a way he is my hero in the social change landscape. He is doing an amazing job with Invisible People TV where he portraits homeless people. Gary Vaynerchuk, a social media celebrity champion, helped this cause win the contest and receive a grant of $50,000 for Invisible People TV.

Congrats Mark!

Creative minds from Arnhem put in overtime

On March 26th, ‘8 Uur Overwerken voor het goede doel’ (8 Hours Overtime for charity) will start in the city of Arnhem (NL). In eight hours time, five teams – consisting of five creative minds and a coach, will work on different projects for five charities. These creative teams will come up corporate identities, communication strategies, logos, merchandise, websites, ad campaigns and other immediately applicable concepts.

Two birds, one stone
Initiator Gerjanne Tiemens explains: ‘We kills two birds with one stone. Charities get beautiful designs and wonderful ideas; young creative minds get the opportunity to add products to their portfolio and make an important contribution to society. Besides that, everyone connects with interesting people and finds inspiration!’ 
 


SocialDesignSite launched their Ning community

SocialDesignSite, the non-profit organisation aimed to create awareness on social design, recently launched a community platform on Ning. This platform was created in response to the valuable feedback of their participating projects. Through this platform they seek to offer a convenient and lively communication environment, enhance connections between the members of the community and provide opportunities for sharing, participation and collaboration.
Members can share any kind of information, network with the people you like, provide content, engage in discussions, join and create groups.

Check the SocialDesignSite Ning

This is my badge:

Visit SocialDesignSite Community

DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards open for entries

See3 Communications and YouTube announced today the launch of the 4th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards. The contest will award a total of $10,000 in grants, funded by the Case Foundation, to the best videos of 2009 found in the YouTube Nonprofit Program—a special program that YouTube designed to help nonprofits achieve their missions. The winners will be featured on the YouTube homepage, and receive prizes from Flip Video and Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN).

Webdesigner depot has 8 tips to design a Charity website

Lee Munroe published last week at Webdesigner depot a useful post on webdesign for non-profits.

Do check the article for more about the 8 tips that make a good charity website:

1. A mission
2. How sponsors will be helping
3. Photos of people the sponsors will be helping
4. Donate button
5. Donations to date
6. A funding goal
7. Keep in touch
8. How can people help

Drop a few comments if you know of any more tips on how to create a sucessful non-profit website.

Beth Kanter, Kami Huyse and Geoff Livingston: Zoetica

Nonprofit blogger Beth Kanter, PR expert Kami Huyse, and author Geoff Livingston started a new Communications Consultancy last week named Zoetica.

Zoetica serves nonprofits and socially conscious companies with top-tier, word-of-mouth communication services. A social enterprise, Zoetica provides communication consulting, training, and strategy to help mindful organizations affect social change. The company will provide its clients market and assessment research, marketing communications strategy, communications training, formulation of guidelines and structure for campaigns, and implementation support for word-of-mouth campaigns. The focus will be on assisting clients with building solid relationships with their online communities. 

Read more at zoeticamedia.com.

Canada shut down parody websites

In the last week of December the Canadian government has shut down two parody Web sites criticizing the Great White North’s glacial policy on global warming.
The two sites, developed by Yes Men, announced that Canada would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 40 percent from 1990 levels, and 80 percent by the year 2050.

The websites, enviro-canada.ca and ec-gc.ca, are “directly connected to a hoax which misleads people into believing that the Government of Canada will take certain actions in relation to environmental matters,” wrote Mike Landreville from Environment Canada in an email to the German Internet Service Provider (ISP) Serverloft.  “We trust you appreciate the importance of avoiding confusion among the public concerning Canadian governmental affairs and that you will assist us in preventing this hoax from spreading further.”

Make sharing your public service at My Ad Council

The Ad Council recently change it’s Ad Council Creative into My Ad Council.
Utilizing the most popular social networking tools, the site enables visitors to easily share and comment on Ad Council PSAs Visitors can learn about campaigns and the people who bring them to life and view “Bonus Feature” videos to get a behind-the-scenes look into campaign development.
My Ad Council highlights the pro bono efforts of their ad agency partners and gives passionate Ad Council supporters another opportunity to join Ad Council’s mission. By simply emailing a link to a friend or sharing a favorite PSA on a social network, vistors can make a difference!

SheSpotter.com Blog Launched

The “She Spot” is the sweet spot for organizations working for the public good, according to a new blog launched today by veteran public interest communications strategists Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen.

Shespotter.com is devoted to the art and science of marketing effectively to women. According to Witter and Chen, co-authors of the book, The She Spot: Why Women are the Market for Changing the World and How to Reach Them, women are the not-so-secret-secret to making political and cultural change because they give, vote and volunteer more than men do. Witter and Chen are also senior strategists at Fenton Communications, the largest full-service public interest communications firm in the country.

“In these tough economic times, it’s more important than ever to be intentional about your outreach, whether you’re fundraising or growing a movement to support your cause,” said Lisa Witter, Fenton’s Chief Operating Officer.  “We created this blog to continue the conversation we started in our book and to encourage others to become ‘Shespotters.’ Because the smarter we are about connecting with women, the more effective we’ll be at creating the change we want to see in the world.”

World’s first mobile in-game social advertising

Cellufun, the mobile social gaming community known as “The World’s Mobile Playground,” announced it is launching the world’s first mobile public service announcement campaign with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals® (ASPCA®) and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.
The campaign will feature free in-game advertising, as well as mobile donation opportunities in which users can donate money to the charities over their mobile phones.

Call to Action: new feature on YouTube for non-profits

This week, YouTube launched a new “Call to Action” feature for nonprofit partners, which allows them to use InVideo overlays to drive traffic to an off-YouTube web page, where they can collect signatures, email addresses, or even donations.
To pilot test the feature, YouTube placed a video supporting charity:water on its homepage last Sunday, featuring an overlay encouraging YouTube users to donate money to the cause. In that one day, charity:water received a whopping $10,000 from YouTube viewers. Granted, the fact that the video was featured on the homepage clearly had a huge impact on the turnout, but the success of the new Call-to-Action ads is likely going to be a boon for many non-profits.

Design Ignites Change: student program channels the power of design thinking to ignite social change

Worldstudio, together with the Adobe Foundation’s signature program Adobe Youth Voices, announced Design Ignites Change, a program that encourages talented high school and college students to use the power of design to address social issues in their local communities through substantive public projects. Students are encouraged to develop projects that will stimulate thought, dialogue, action and ultimately change.

To date, Design Ignites Change has engaged 17 colleges and universities who are now hard at work on responses to such pressing global issues as racism, economic inequality and climate change.

Change.org Launches 7 New Blogs

Change.org launched seven new blogs to expand their network to 19 blogs covering the most important issues facing te world.
The new sites include Autism, Education, Global Health, Health Care, Human Trafficking, Poverty in America, and Sustainable Food. They have hired an amazing team of experts/activists to lead each community, selected from more than 1500 applicants.

You can find the full list of the blogs on the Causes page.

Social advertising wins at Dutch Gouden Loekie

The provocative video from the Dutch Socialist Party (SP) about the bad situation in the homecare have won the first price at the Gouden Loekie contest. At the Gouden Loekie the Dutch audience vote for their favourite commercial.
The SP spend only €10.000 for mediatime and got a lot of free publicity. It is the first time a social advertising campaign wins gold at this contest.
Second price is for the Dutch World Wildlife Fund (WNF) with the video Miracles.

More about the campaign from the SP in our post It’s homecare, no market.

The Trevor Project achieves accreditation from the American Association of Suicidology

The Trevor Project, the non-profit organization that operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, became the only crisis and suicide prevention service delivery program specifically serving the LGBTQ community to be officially accredited by the American Association of Suicidology (AAS) this week. The Trevor Project is now considered an exemplary crisis and suicide prevention program performing according to nationally recognized standards.