(platform collaborations) Platform collaborations summary for your review/reference, and conference call scheduled

[Christine Egger]

Hi everyone,

The Lead Platform Liaison consulting position, created with support
from the Peery Foundation, is officially coming to a close. That
doesn't mean the work of liaisoning between Social Actions and the
platforms is stopping (or slowing down, for that matter; it's actually
ramping up!). But it does mean that it's time to present a summary of
the work that's been done over the past three months in that role,
with implications and lessons learned for the Social Actions
initiative and community going forward.

We've scheduled a conference call this Thursday at noon Eastern as a
first step in presenting that summary. It's very short notice, but I
hope you'll be able to attend and share some preliminary feedback. To
RSVP:

http://blog.socialactions.com/events/event/show?id=2062983:Event:7814

Also, for a quantitative overview at all of the platforms we're
working with or know about, together with the status of our
collaboration with each of them, please take a look at "Platform
collaboration summary as of 101308.xls" posted in the Google Group
Files:

http://groups.google.com/group/social-actions/files?hl=en

Note the numbers at the bottom of the table, too, which translate the
activity into how well we're doing at keeping up with this growing
sector.

Lots more information to come. As with the other documents and
summaries that will follow, these are works in progress that belong to
the entire Social Actions community -- feedback, questions, input, and
insights all welcome!

Christine

[Christine Egger]

Hi everybody,

The spreadsheet now includes a one-liner description of each of the
platforms we've created profiles for on the Social Actions site, also
cut-and-pasted below for easy reference. The idea is to add these
descriptions to the Meet the Platforms section of the website,
eventually creating a directory that really helps users figure out
what distinguishes each platform from another.

(Spreadsheet name is now just Platforms Summary as of 101508, posted
at
http://groups.google.com/group/social-actions/files?hl=en)

So far, we tell people when the platform was founded, whether it's
for- or non-profit, their fees, and their URL. Additional
characteristics to post could include the type of campaign (posted by
individuals, groups, or organizations), type of feedback provided on
those campaigns, etc.

Please share suggestions for what Social Actions should be adding
next, and in the meantime I'd love your feedback on how well the one-
liners posted below contribute to the directory, too.

Thanks!
Christine


Amazee: Combines fundraising, project management, and networking
resources, with no fee other than what PayPal assesses

Bring Light: Fundraising pages for individuals and groups to collect
donations for U.S. registered nonprofits

CanadaHelps: Fundraising pages for, and direct donations to, Canadian
registered nonprofits

Care2 Petition Site: One of the largest online petition communities,
9.8 million and counting

Cause Caller: Unique free service for creating or connecting to a
cause, and contacting politicians with your message

Change.org: Fundraising and petition pages, within a community of
bloggers and others committed to your cause

ChangingthePresent: Fundraising pages, gift registries, and other
tools for giving charitable donations in place of other gifts.

CharityFocus: Inspiration and services for individuals and nonprofits,
from fundraising and volunteering, to news-sharing and web development

ChipIn: Create a widget, to post anywhere on the internet, to collect
money for any purpose

ChristmasFuture: Promoting donations to select grassroots
international projects as an alternative to traditional gift-giving

Delicious:

DemocracyInAction: Provides a suite of online organizing tools for
nonprofits, to build awareness and mobilize members and supporters and
keep them engaged

DonorsChoose.org: Fundraising pages for classroom projects proposed by
public school teachers

DreamBank: Fundraising pages to fund someone's dream, whatever that
might be

DropCash: Create a page or widget, to post anywhere on the internet,
to collect money for any purpose

Firstgiving: Fundraising pages for individuals and groups to collect
donations for U.S. registered nonprofits

Five Minute Action Network: Action-commitment pages for individuals,
prompting an action that only takes 5 minutes to complete, and sharing
photos and stories about that action

Fundable: Fundraising pages for individuals and groups to pool funds
for any purpose. The pledged funds are only collected when a pre-set
minimum number of funds has been committed.

GiveForward: Fundraising pages for individuals and groups to collect
as little as $1 for any project, any purpose

GiveMeaning: Fundraising pages for US and Canadian registered
nonprofits. Votes of support for your project must be collected before
fundraising begins, and fundraising must be completed within 90 days.
No fees are taken -- 100% of the donations are passed through to your
project.

GlobalGiving: Fundraising pages posted by vetted registered nonprofits
for grassroots-level projects in developing countries

GlobalGiving UK: Fundraising pages posted by vetted registered
nonprofits for grassroots-level projects in developing countries

Helpalot: Fundraising pages for individuals to collect donations,
votes, and news on projects sponsored by registered nonprofits

Idealist: Post and find nonprofit-related volunteer opportunitites,
consultants, jobs, materials, events, and information

JustGive: Donations, gift certificates, wedding registry, and wish
list giving for Guidestart-listed US nonprofits.

Justgiving: Fundraising pages for select U.K. registered nonprofits

Justmeans: Jobs, news, and networks for people who create change.

Kiva: Interest-free micro-loan pages for select entrepreneurs in
developing countries

LinkedIn:

Microgiving: Fundraising pages for vetted individuals and registered
nonprofits

MicroPlace: Interest-earning micro-loan pages for select entrepreneurs
in developing countries

Modest Needs: Fundraising pages for individuals requesting support for
a one-time expense, so they can continue to make ends meet

MyCause: Fundraising pages for Australian registered nonprofits

NABUUR: Online volunteer opportunities to support grassroots projects
in developing countries

OneWorld.net: Take-action and news pages for 100 U.S. registered
nonprofits and 2500 organizations worldwide

PincGiving: Fundraising pages, and direct donations to, North
American, Australian, and U.K. registered nonprofits in any one of 14
currencies

PledgeBank: Pledge pages for individuals to encourage others to make
the same pledge

Prax: Action pages Canadian individuals, groups, and registered
nonprofits

Project/Agape:

Razoo: Action-taking and goal-setting pages for individuals to create
and join around any cause/topic of interest

SixDegrees: Fundraising badges for individuals to collect donations
for U.S. registered nonprofits

Spot.Us: Fundraising pages for individuals and groups to collect
donations to commission freelance journalists

TakingITGlobal: The world's most popular online community for young
people interested in making a difference, with hundreds of thousands
of unique visitors each month.

The Point: Fundraising and petition pages with "tipping points"
embedded. The pledged action is only taken when the tipping point is
reached.

uPlej: Fundraising pages for select U.S. registered nonprofits, where
donations of $4.79 per month are distributed to nonprofits selected by
your uPlej social network.

VolunteerMatch: A leader in volunteer matchmaking: 3 million
referrals; 55,000 current opportunities; 60,000 member organizations

Zazengo: Tools to track your impact, organize activities, and match
your skills and interests to people, projects, and organizations.

[Christine Egger]

Hi everyone,

Content for today's 12:00 conference call. Please dial in if you're
available and would like to hear a preliminary review of platform
liaison activity and lessons learned:

616 597-8000
1002410#

Feedback, comments, questions welcome here, too!

Christine

Partner Relations, Lead Platform Liaison
Christine Egger
Update, October 16, 2008

Reminder of responsibilities and deliverables
The Lead Platform Liaison will establish a set of guiding principles
and procedures that define Social Actions' relationship to social
action platforms and will serve as Social Actions' liaison to the
platforms.

Responsibilities
1. Establish a set of guiding principles and procedures for Social
Actions' engagement with the social action platforms
2. Develop relationships with emerging and established platforms
3. Prepare six-month agreements for participating platforms for the
period October 2008 to March 2009
4. Recruit platforms to participate in the Social Actions open API and
Working Groups
5. Create opportunities, including scheduled events, for platforms to
showcase their work
6. Encourage participating platforms to feature the work of Social
Actions
Deliverables
1. Signed agreements with 15-25 platforms
2. Organized inventory of current and prospective platform partners
3. Roadmap -- outgoing Q&A about the status of the platform
relationships and how they can be developed further
Start July 7, 2008; 15 hours per week for a total of 180 hours.

Deliverable 1: Signed agreements with 15-25 platforms

In early September, via an e-Newsletter, 61 platforms were invited to
first comment on and then endorse the following statement of Social
Actions' mission and terms of collaboration. In the four weeks since,
33 platforms have endorsed this statement. Copies of related
correspondence are provided at the end of this document.
Deliverable 2: Organized inventory of current and prospective platform
partners

We're currently actively working with about half of 120+ known
platforms.

There are profiles now on the Social Actions site for 47 platforms.

The spreadsheet "Platform summary 101508," posted to the Google Group
files, provides an inventory of all profiled platforms, as well as all
of the other platforms we're tracking.


Deliverable 3: Roadmap -- outgoing Q&A about the status of the
platform relationships and how they can be developed further

What we know
The first indication that there's a relationship between Social
Actions and the platforms is that we understand them - that they've
been telling us what's important to them, and how we might help them
reach their goals.

Since July 7, we've had one-on-one conversations with about 20
platforms; hosted 17 platforms during multiple-platform conference
calls or meetings, and tracked conversations at several conferences
where multiple platforms have been part of the conversation.

Based on those sources, here's our understanding of what the platforms
are concerned about or challenged by:

Understanding the people who do, or would, take action on their site,
and responding to:

* How passionately they feel about an issue
* Timeliness/urgency of the request
* Technical barriers (incl. subtle ones like no Paypal available)
* Required transition from passive to active mode
* The influence that owing someone a favor, or being owed, has on the
decision to participate
* Their level of civic-mindedness
* Their level of technical expertise
* For NGO's, their reluctance to encourage P2P projects created on
their behalf
* How each online campaign connects to offline activities, creating
bridges to those where possible


Informing the people who do, or would, take action on their site:
* About the platform
o Create a directory w/ detailed, one-liner description of what makes
each platform unique
* About the action/campaign
o Provide sufficient, but not overwhelming, information about the
issue/action
o Relay the action's ability to scale (vs. inherent
decentralization)
o Frame the micro-philanthropic contribution as being equal in meaning
to any macro-philanthropic effort it's a part of.
o Relay the action's "depth" - closeness to what would be seen as a
"root cause" to the issue, or closeness to the "center" of what's
going on in a particular community
o Make it easy for people to see what others think about these
opportunities, ie through crowdsourced or weighted ratings
o Make it easy for people to see where actions are being taken, and
where they're needed (mapping, heatmapping?)
o Provide feedback on each action, each campaign, including
anonymous
o How that campaign has been vetted, if at all

Supporting their campaign leaders
* Create a system that keeps campaigns with low likelihood of success
from going "live" (i.e. collect pre-fundraising votes)
* Provide campaign leaders with instructions, templates, and other
tools to increase chances of their success
* Delete projects that don't reach certain benchmarks, i.e. no
donations/pledges within X days
* Contact each campaign leader personally, offer support and
suggestions
* Draw attention to successful campaigns and their leaders: blog
posts, featuring on home page
* Create a reward system for successful campaign leaders
* Organize campaigns by issue, location, etc. to make it easier for
people to find and connect with them
* Create a "tipping point" so donation/pledge etc. isn't acted on
until their sufficient buy-in from others
* Share lessons learned from successful campaign leaders
* Provide opportunities for story-telling

Attracting people to their site
* Syndicate actions (media, widgets) (includes issue of developing RSS
feeds and APIs)
Their own financial sustainability
* Attract institutional investors
* Favorable payment gateway terms
* Policy environment
* Social capital/markets issues (costs/benefits of commodifying
activity for social good)

Platforms have suggested the following roles for Social Actions
* General
* Stay platform-neutral
* Create "safe zones" where platforms can honestly share concerns,
suggestions
* Teach nonprofits how they can get involved in this space
* Specific suggestions for cross-platform resources
* A robust directory of platforms
* Forums
o Webinars
o Password-protected online forum
o 1-2 day workshops, conferences, retreats, etc.
 For all platforms
 For select platforms
* Promotion
* Infrastructure
o "Consolidated online giving database" that tracks who's doing what
across all of the platforms
o Microformat
 Suggestion to build one that's not primarily driven by
microphilanthropy's needs, in other words, start with other popular
microformats and add to that, rather than starting from scratch.
 Omidyar-supported platforms developing one soon, approaching Google
et al for promotion through December giving season
o Shared technology platform
o Shared social media platform
o Shared campaign success stories platform
o Shared reputation system



Here's how we're coming in filling that role
Social Actions aggregation, endorsement, and cross-posting
* We're continuing to improve on the Social Actions search interface
and open API
* Have processes in place for requesting an RSS feed, inviting an
endorsement, and acknowledging an endorsement

Social Actions API applications that drive users to the platform
* The applications that Joe has spearheaded have done a great job in
demonstrating the potential.
* Development underway for a cross-platform application for Kiva
(loans), GlobalGiving (donations), and Idealist (volunteering).

Suggestions:

* Website/blog
o Website copy that includes comprehensive instructions for creating a
good RSS feed
o Website display of the endorsement status directly on each platform
profile, and in a summary listing of all platforms
o A more comprehensive strategy for inviting platforms to participate
in the Social Actions Ning
o More robust "Meet the Platforms" resource (directory)
 Grant/loan, international/US-only, campaign leader (individual,
group, organization), etc.
o Building out the Social Actions blog as a resource for the platforms
 Platforms are starting to cross-post on the Social Actions blog and
post questions for our members
* NABUUR - great example of using the Social Actions blog to ask how
to engage more successfully with its volunteers.
* FirstGiving now cross-posting regularly on our blog
* Participating in, if not driving, the conversation around building a
robust microformat for microphilanthropy
* Forum/conferences/webinars/etc. tailored to platforms' needs
* Do a better job of sharing what we're learning more quickly and to a
broader audience


Templates
Introductions

Customized versions of the following emails were sent to 35-40
platforms:

Endorsement statement: mission and terms of Collaboration

Endorsement request

Endorsement acknowledgement

Endorsement Twitter

[Peter Deitz]

Christine,

These documents and your notes for the conference call this morning are
invaluable. Thank you for being so thorough in your analysis of what
we've accomplished, what the needs are from the perspective of platform
partners, and what remains to be done.

You've been an inspiring platform liaison and a pleasure to work with.

All the best,
Peter

Peter Deitz
Social Actions
Founder and Project Lead
www.socialactions.com
Tel: 718-766-5367

Follow me @ http://twitter.com/peterdeitz
Connect with me @ http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterdeitz
Join the conversation @ http://blog.socialactions.com

PS - Check out our new job board:
http://jobs.socialactions.com

> ? For all platforms
> ? For select platforms

> * Promotion
> * Infrastructure
> o "Consolidated online giving database" that tracks who's doing what
> across all of the platforms
> o Microformat

> ? Suggestion to build one that's not primarily driven by

> microphilanthropy's needs, in other words, start with other popular
> microformats and add to that, rather than starting from scratch.

> ? Omidyar-supported platforms developing one soon, approaching Google

> ? Grant/loan, international/US-only, campaign leader (individual,

> group, organization), etc.
> o Building out the Social Actions blog as a resource for the platforms

> ? Platforms are starting to cross-post on the Social Actions blog and