CauseWired E-Book

Tom Watson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 354

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

Now in paperback, an eye-opening guide to the massive societal impact of online social networks For today's super-wired, always-on, live-life-in-public young Americans, the causes they support define who they are. Societal aspirations have so permeated the "net native" population that causes have become like musical tastes. CauseWired illustrates wired causes in action, bringing real-world stories to readers. * Tracks the massive societal impact on causes of online social networks-from blogs, to video, to the rise of social networks * Reveals the extraordinary influence of online social networks-in raising money for charity, in changing the political climate and electing candidates, and in raising consciousness for causes From Facebook causes and campaigns on MySpace, to a raft of new startups and innovative projects like Kiva, Change.org and DonorsChoose, this immensely relevant book delivers actionable research and recommendations to help readers launch their own successful wired social campaigns.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

About the Author

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Lost in the Flood: Wired Causes Rise

Chapter 2 - Friending for Good: The Facebook Philanthropists

Chapter 3 - Signing up to Fight Evil: The Network Acts

Chapter 4 - Portfolios for Change: Peer-to-Peer Philanthropy

Chapter 5 - Defined by Causes: The Public Lives of Millennials

Chapter 6 - From the Bottom Up:“The Order Is Rapidly Fading”

Chapter 7 - Spare the Paperwork:The Quick Rise of Flash Causes

Chapter 8 - Heralds of Change: Giving Goes Open Source

Chapter 9 - Aspiration and Activism: Armies of Online Leaders

Chapter 10 - Distributing the Cause Wired Future

Websites

Further Reading

Notes

Index

Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax [phone], or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty:While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials.The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation.You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services, or technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at 800-762-2974, outside the United States at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

eISBN : 978-0-470-46010-8

To Mom and Dad,for the work, the wisdom, and the words

About the Author

Tom Watson is a journalist, media critic, entrepreneur, and consultant who has worked at the confluence of media technology and social change for more than a decade. During his long career as journalist and blogger, Tom has written for the New York Times, Huffington Post, Industry Standard, Inside, Worth, and Contribute, among many other publications. He writes about politics and media on his own popular blog, My Dirty Life & Times, and is the founder and editor of Newcritics.com, a group blog on popular culture. Tom is chief strategy officer of Changing Our World Inc., an international philanthropic services company that provides a wide range of consulting services to nonprofits, corporations, foundations, and individuals in philanthropy. Tom is the publisher of onPhilanthropy.com, Changing Our World’s extensive online resource for philanthropy professionals. Before joining Changing Our World, Tom was co-founder and co-editor of @NY, the pioneering Internet news and information service that chronicled the rise of New York’s Silicon Alley new media in the mid- 1990s. Early in his career, Tom was executive editor of the Riverdale Press, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper in the Bronx, where he covered politics and won more than a dozen state and national awards for excellence in journalism.Tom is a member of the board of directors of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a progressive think-tank based in New York. He holds a degree in English literature from Columbia University, where he served as adjunct professor of new media at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in Mount Vernon, New York, with his wife, artist Beryl Watson, and their three children,Veronica, Kelsey, and Devon.

Foreword

By Jean Case

Way back in the 1970s, when causes were still causes but wired referred to a college student pulling an all-nighter, a TV commercial for an add-water-and-stir cup-of-noodles product had as its tag line the famous question: “Is it soup yet?”

Today, in the worlds of philanthropy, social activism, business, and even politics and policy making, this question is especially ripe for asking. We are at a juncture where blended forms of civic engagement and business activity—supported and spurred by new social web technologies—are being used by both individuals and organizations to create and expand a rising culture of giving and a coming together of ingredients that can create powerful opportunities for positive change.

CauseWired is so timely in its arrival and spot-on in its focus. A new generation of givers—the Net-native millennials—is emerging, and a fresh generation of nonprofit, foundation, and business leaders is already taking the helm. But do we understand what these changes will mean? Do we know as donors, foundations, nonprofit and business leaders, policymakers, and volunteers how we should participate in this change? What more do we need to know in order to capture this opportunity to motivate and engage more people and increase giving of every kind, everywhere?

These questions have occupied a great deal of recent effort at the Case Foundation (as graciously noted in this book), and will consume more of our efforts and resources in the future. In 2007, we launched several projects to better understand how people were engaging using Web 2.0 and social web tools. First, we watched with great interest as more than 5,000 people applied to earn four $25,000 grants from us, and then observed in near amazement as more than 15,000 online voters decided who would get those grants. Later, we launched twin “giving challenges” with our partners Parade magazine and Causes on Facebook, asking people to use online tools, including widgets and social networks, to spread the word of their cause and encourage online donations through Network for Good and Global Giving. More than 80,000 people gave more than $1,750,000 in the six weeks the challenges ran.

These efforts, and our observation of the many others noted in this book, help confirm our hunch, which underlies CauseWired’s well-explored premise: Giving has in fact changed. It is still changing, right before our eyes and in ways that will forever alter the relationships between people and the causes that motivate them.

Tom Watson has been there all along, exploring the nuances of what these new approaches might mean to the philanthropic sector, commenting on efforts to harness their power, and helping the sector make sense of it all.

From every direction, new opportunities to get involved are being presented and developed by a new breed of civic leaders and entrepreneurs. And though the debate over how best to blend business models and nonprofit missions continues, the integration of entrepreneurial thinking and online tools into philanthropic ventures and the equally important integration of giving and nonprofit sensibility into corporate cultures is well underway.

CauseWired does a wonderful job chronicling exactly that—the imaginative and bold ways people have chosen to make their voices and their causes heard using new tools, new technologies, and new social relationships. What is more, it provides an instructional narrative for anyone who wants to play a role in building this new culture of giving. Finally, it makes clear that it is time to get moving because it’s soup and it’s now.

Jean Case is the CEO of the Case Foundation (www.casefoundation.org).The Case Foundation was created by Steve and Jean Case in 1997. The Foundation invests in individuals, nonprofits, and social enterprises that aim to connect people, increase giving, and catalyze civic action.

Acknowledgments

Several key events led directly to the beginning of this project, and it is by way of thanking those involved that I acknowledge an author’s debt to the people who encouraged its completion. Two of those events were conversations: Susan Carey Dempsey, my partner in building and running onPhilanthropy.com these past eight years, used her singularly strong brand of persuasion to get me to “make the call” that got this book under way. Almost a year earlier, our boss at Changing Our World, Mike Hoffman, urged me during a visit to the racetrack, his favorite place, to pursue a bigger writing project. My entire experience at Changing Our World has nourished the ideas that went into this book, and provided the perspective on fundraising and philanthropy needed to see the larger picture. Our company, created as a small consultancy by Mike and my brother Chris Watson nearly a decade ago, has grown into one of the world’s leading firms working in philanthropy and nonprofit management—and it has always pursued ideas and innovation. I cannot name everyone from the company here, but I would like to thank longtime colleagues Joann Zafonte, Tony Smith, Steve Manzi, Mary Beth Martin, and Kieran McTague for their encouragement. Our interactive services group, led by Jenn Thompson, Garth Moore, and Bob Carter, was enthusiastic and generous with ideas. And I must acknowledge a debt to Dr. Susan Raymond for helping me to understand the changes afoot in international philanthropy.

The outline for the book came from a speech I was honored to give at the annual Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Symposium in New York in September 2007, an invitation that came from the generous Judy Miller and Jean-Marc Moorghen and the Hilton Foundation. Another event that month also sharpened some of the ideas for the book: Hacking Philanthropy was a private roundtable discussion organized by my friends at Union Square Ventures, Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham. The perspectives shared that day at Columbia are sprinkled like insightful little flowers throughout this book. I would also like to recognize the organizers and staff of the Clinton Global Initiative, the Milken Institute Global Conference, and the Skoll World Forum. I have felt most welcome at all of these important conferences and benefited mightily from the ideas shared in those venues.The staff at Contribute magazine, led by editor Marcia Stepanek, gave me the title CauseWired by cleverly placing it over an article I penned for them a year ago—and it stuck.

Several bloggers, writers, and analysts were generous with their knowledge, time, and encouragement. First among equals is my longtime collaborator Jason Chervokas, a fine writer and an old friend who knows me to the core, and did not hesitate to push me rather firmly when I needed it. In similar fashion, Andrea Batista Schlesinger gave several friendly shoves and looked over some of the text. The insightful philanthropist Maureen Baehr helped me organize my thoughts at the outset. Howard Greenstein provided instantaneous and generous expertise in social media whenever he was asked, which was often. Lyndsay Reville and Will Schneider were very kind in organizing an ad-hoc focus group on the cause-related values of young professionals and Marie Molese and her team have provided crucial logistical support. Author Allison Fine gave me valued advice on both the book business and the sector, in which she is a leading voice. Tech bloggers and online cause evangelists Beth Kanter and Marnie Webb were inspirational in their day-to-day enthusiasm. Further ideas and plain old encouragement came online and off from (in no order at all) Lance Mannion, Eric Goldberg, James Wolcott, Peter Daou, M.A. Peel, Bruce Bernstein, Elana Levin, Craig Dyer, Lindsay Beyerstein, Tom Watson (the British version), Jon Swift, Robert Tolmach, Joe Green, Ben Rattray, Peter Deitz, Mark Hanis, Phil Cubeta, Tom Kissane, Charles Best, Jason Paez, Peter Watson, Andrew Rasiej, Lucy Bernholz, Scott Edward Anderson, Doug Tween, Mario Morino, Micah Sifry, Jean Case,Tom FitzSimmons, Joe Solomon, Matt Flannery, Dawn Barber, Greg Spradlin, Allan Benamer, Sean Stannard-Stockton, Jed Emerson, Larry Aronson, Premal Shah, Nate Ritter, Jason Calacanis, Vinay Bhagat, Robert Greenwald, Andras Szanto, Nicholas Kristof, Brendan Tween, Blue Girl, and many others.

From the first early-winter conversation at a coffee shop in Hoboken to the completion of this book, Susan McDermott, my editor at John Wiley & Sons, has been the model of encouragement and professionalism—proving that patience is indeed a literary virtue. Her colleague, Dexter Gasque, is a talented production editor who undoubtedly improved this book.

Speaking of patience, my family is the center of this book. They helped me survive five furious months of writing every single weekend in my upstairs lair, and they put up with my moods and occasional outward frustration. My daughter, Veronica, in addition to providing real in-house insight into the role of causes in the lives of millennials, helped with some typing. My boys, Kelsey and Devon, provided great good cheer and the occasional sandwich and coffee delivery. And my dear partner in life, my wife Beryl, was the firm and loving rock I leaned the project on; without her, I could never have attempted this book. They each have my love and affection always.

Introduction

The business pages are filled with stories of startup companies and massive valuations. Google grows ever more rapidly into a global powerhouse. The reach of social networks such as Facebook stretches every day. Americans are living more of their lives in public, creating vast lists of online “friends” and professional colleagues, and sharing their experiences, their taste in music, their political choices, and even their personal lives.

No trend is hotter than the rush to create social networks, the vast, intertwined next generation of the Web that promises real-time connection and communication. Americans of all ages are taking part, but no group is more enthusiastic—and more empowered—than the so-called millennials, that demographic slice of our society that has never known life without the Internet. These young men and women now entering the workforce for the first time have lived much of their lives online, and they bring with them in their introduction to the national economy and our society great expectations for lightning-fast communications, openness and transparency, and the ability to change the landscape quickly.

At the same time, the world is a smaller place. Genocide in remote villages in the east African region of Darfur is covered by Google maps that show the devastation and religious cleansing, while hundreds of bloggers write about the terrible story—not merely passing along links from mainstream media organizations, but urging action and placing a premium on their own opinion. On Facebook, the fastest-growing online social network in the world, hundreds of thousands of people—students, young professionals, political action committees, and even gray-haired CEOs and captains of industry—signal their support for stopping the slaughter and helping the victims by placing badges on their individual profiles.Video sharing brings the story home, and thousands of digital photographs are traded and posted on blogs and social networks. Keywords and tags allow anyone interested in the topic to explore a massive cultural document—the living expansion of the topic in public consciousness—through blog networks and search engines. Darfur becomes more than a yellowing news-clipping down in the backroom of the public library, more than a research report, and more than a news story from far away. It becomes a cause. More accurately, Darfur becomes .