Charity CHAMPS’ mission is to get more people doing good in small ways. The small actions all add up, after all, to big things, and if you follow this blog, you will have seen the staggering growth numbers of organizations doing “microphilanthropy”.
I’m not one for big words, but I do like the word “microphilanthropy”. It makes natural sense to me – “small good”. And with others like Peter Deitz from Social Actions also using the word, I thought it would be appropriate to throw Charity CHAMPS behind it as well. From as far back as 2006 people have been blogging and saying that “microphilanthropy” is the next up-and-coming word. But if I had a penny for every time when I get a blank look for using the word, Charity CHAMPS might not need to apply to the Aviva Community Fund for funding. It seems that “philanthropy” on its own isn’t widely understood, let alone with “micro” in front of it.
It is a word though, I swear! It even has a wikipedia entry. I’m just not sure that it’s the right word to associate Charity CHAMPS with. While discussing with an SEO expert on what keywords we want to be aligned with, this question came up, and the unfortunate fact is, if we don’t use this word, the other options are slim pickings. “Micro-actions”? “Micro-giving”, at the obvious risk of sounding just like microgiving.com? Industry standards like “volunteer” just don’t sound sexy to me by comparison, but maybe that’s just what we need.
Thoughts?
Filed under: CHAMPs News | Tags: aviva, community, fund, micro philanthropy, Microphilanthropy, vote, youth
Today is day 3 of Round 2 of the Aviva Community Fund up in Canada. The slogan of the competition is “Supporting what’s important to you”. Charity CHAMPS is promoting microphilanthropy amongst youth, the most important, but least engaged demographic in philanthropy. That’s important to us!
Also unlike a lot of the other ideas competing for votes, ours has a fundamental online and micro-action foundation which we think there needs to be more of. Philanthropy needs to benefit from the huge changes in technology like every other industry!
If any of these things are important to you (and we hope they are), please vote for us. The money is going to be critical for us hitting targets we’ve set for ourselves!
Vote here:
http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf2300
Check out the new video on our site:
http://www.charitychamps.org/
Filed under: CHAMPs News, Microphilanthropy | Tags: facebook app, shop causes, shop for good, shopcauses
A few weeks ago I was comparing the various shop for good sites out there and I realized that they all look very much alike and need some differentiation. Well here’s one that I’ve tried out that’s definitely different – Shop Causes. Unlike the other sites, Shop Causes is a Facebook application, making it super easy for you to help spread the word about an idea that I think has a lot of merit. You can also see which of your friends have used the application, and see which causes are the most popular – 2 things that you can’t do with the other sites.
Shop Causes also has 2 cool promotions going on right now. When friends you refer in Facebook raise $20, your cause receives an additional $5. And if you Tweet about your Shop Causes purchase (with @shopcauses or #shopcauses), $0.25 will be added to your cause automatically AND you’ll be entered into a draw for a $200 Apple gift certificate. It doesn’t get easier or more fun than this!
Shop Causes was started by Michael Levitt of Cyperplex and is based in Toronto. I think it’d be great to partner with them for Charity CHAMPS. So try it out and let me know what you think!
Filed under: CHAMPs News, Microphilanthropy | Tags: care2, change.org, CSGVP, donorschoose, kiva, microgiving, Microphilanthropy, quantcast, youth and giving
At Charity CHAMPS we’ve been thinking for a while about who our target “market” should be. While we would love to encourage the whole world to be involved with microphilanthropy, we have to face reality: we can only reach certain segments of people with our website, and we would probably be more successful having a focus rather than not. So just who is participating in online microphilanthropy right now? Our rough market research would suggest that a main segment of online givers are middle-aged women, possibly stay-at-home moms who have some spare income as well as time to be involved with social networks and therefore charity using social media.
Some traffic statistics gathered from Quantcast today (June 10 2009):
| Site | % Female | % Aged 3-17 | % Aged 18-34 | % Aged 35-49 | % Aged 50+ |
| Donorschoose.org | 60% | 12% | 49% | 25% | 14% |
| Microgiving.com | 63% | 37% | 14% | 31% | 18% |
| Kiva.org | 57% | 1% | 21% | 48% | 30% |
| Change.org | 55% | 9% | 19% | 36% | 36% |
| Care2.com | 66% | 1% | 31% | 29% | 39% |
Of course, these are only estimates so you have to take the data with a grain of salt. But even if the data is only directional, there’s a definite difference in % of youth on various sites; Donorschoose and Microgiving both have lots more youth traffic than Kiva or Change. On some level I think it’s fairly obvious why this is the case – Donorschoose afterall is raising money for students and if you just visit Microgiving you can see why it appeals to youngsters more than Kiva and Change.
So just what market does Charity CHAMPS want to focus on? Well for now we’re thinking the youth. Why? Because good kids grow up to be good adults. The Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering, and Participating (CSVP) has a bunch of information on the connection between early life experiences and the rate of donating in later life. Not surprisingly, the survey found that those who were involved with community activities as youth donated more than their peers as adults. Not only that, but young volunteers (particularly 15 to 19 year olds), are more likely than other age groups to report that they don’t volunteer because they were not asked (45% of 15 to 19 year olds vs. 39% of 20 to 24 year olds and 27% of those 25 and over), or because they don’t know how to become involved (35% vs. 21% and 11%). And both those things we can potentially have an impact on.
Not to mention, our general concept was always meant to be a fun and even a bit frivolous. So watch out youth, here we come!
Filed under: CHAMPs News, Microphilanthropy | Tags: amazee, ammado, cagora, community of action, microactions, Microphilanthropy, wiserearth
If you’ve been following this blog you’ll know that Charity CHAMPS’ mission is to encourage microphilanthropy (I’m almost sounding like a broken record with this line, but hey, a mission should be communicated, right?). As our great team of volunteer graphic artists are working on the beta site, we’ve been brainstorming the micro-actions we want to focus on encouraging. So far our thoughts have revolved around very concrete things: micro-donations, micro-lending, click-to-donate, etc. But there’s a whole slew of actions that aren’t as concrete, such as educating yourself on an issue, or joining a community of activists. These actions don’t bring a direct charitable return, but are arguably just as important as concrete ones. Most importantly, it’s these actions that get you to give more of yourself to the community; it’s through consuming media, participating in chats, and reading blogs and Twitter feeds that you get INSPIRED.
There are a lot of communities out there that gather people around specific causes so that discussions, knowledge sharing, and mutual support can happen. Some examples:
- WiserEarth: online community that gathers people around specific issues like global warming and poverty. You can create and join groups, and gain visibility for the work that you’re doing. And of course, you can network and share ideas with others of similar interests.
- Cagora: an “alternative to search engines and social networks”, where you get to create content and profit from it as any web author would on their own site through ads. What’s different about Cagora is that you can put the money towards your causes, the main point of the site being to pursue your hobbies and interests while doing good. The content created by individuals become “interest worlds” where passer-bys can land to find products, information, and services on a particular subject.
- Amazee: “empowers individuals and organizations to initiate and promote their ideas and plans in projects, to find like-minded people and raise funds”; tools supplied by the website to help a project succeed include polls, calendars, and event planning modules. All the content created around a project can easily be published to an iPhone or Facebook using Amazee’s interface.
- Ammado: a community that brings together nonprofits and people who care. Upload photos and videos, support your favourite non-profits through donations, and help spread the word on the causes you care about.
That’s just a few that I’ve been to, and there are a lot more. Like real world communities each online community has a different flavour and have different demographics of people in it. I would suggest that you shop around and see which ones you like the most. And the next time you feel blah about your day-to-day activities, just log-on! When you see all the good going on you’re bound to feel bubbly, and hopefully it will get you jumping into some new exciting project.
Filed under: CHAMPs News, General Charity Musings | Tags: non-profit graphic design, volunteer graphics
Charity CHAMPS so far has been run by a group of volunteers, of professionals who believe in the cause and are more than willing to donate some time to make things happen. To build the team we’ve posted for volunteers on several sites, including Charityvillage, Kijiji, Idealist, and Craigslist. What’s interesting is that while we’ve gotten a ton of responses for our business / accounting posts, we have yet to get anything for our graphics design posts. And the posts were all written by me so I can tell you that they all describe Charity CHAMPS with the same text.
So where are the volunteer graphic designers?? I’ve connected with a few designers through friends and I had a very enlightening conversation with a soon-to-be Sheridan grad yesterday. She had volunteered for a big institution last year, and was forced into such slave labour with them that she’s entirely jaded. But what’s more, she told me that the industry as a whole frowns upon volunteerism – anything done for free is seen as degrading the value of all artists’ work! Apparently instances where the Olympics runs contests to get logos for free is making artists feel ripped-off, especially when a company like IBM would easily pay in the tens of thousands for logo development. So her word of caution, which seems in-line with everything that I’ve experienced so far, is that unless I can dangle some money in front of freelancers, they won’t bite.
This is all news to me, and although I’m very happy to get this context, it’s making me feel a bit depressed. How did the graphics industry become like that, to the point where even the students who haven’t graduated yet are already jaded? What’s so different between that industry and the software development one where there are contests galore and even open-source development? Perhaps it’s just the people I know, but it seems developers have much less aversion to volunteering than graphic artists. Not that there haven’t been very nice designers who have offered their help so far, but in general it’s been harder finding graphics help than help for other things.
I’d welcome any thoughts on this topic. And if you know of any graphic designers who may be interested in volunteering, surprise me and let me know. It will certainly brighten up my day. In the meantime, a contact at Sheridan informs me that it’s possible to get students to work on Charity CHAMPS as a school project. We’ll see if that pans out.
