The Most Helpful Directory of Social Action Platforms Ever

Comment by Tori Tuncan on February 27, 2009 at 10:54pm

As a non-techie, and pretty new to the "social actions" world too, I must say that I *love* how you included a definition of platform and API. I know that is a new goal of yours/Social Actions' and I must say it is much appreciated. :) Keep up the awesome work, and thanks for including Lend4Health -- we will be an official platform soon I hope! :)

Comment by Christine Egger on February 27, 2009 at 11:00pm

Tori, thanks for the thumbs up, and we're pretty thrilled that Lend4Health is on the list: thank YOU for creating it! We're equally looking forward to Lend4Health being a part of the Social Actions API soon, too :)

Comment by Beth Kanter on February 27, 2009 at 11:09pm

I need to take some more time to think about your thoughtful question re: details.

My question: Who will use this directory for what purpose? You might have that answer already, but heck it's Friday night.

Comment by Christine Egger on February 27, 2009 at 11:25pm

From Will Robinson via Twitter (@willrobinsoniii):

(still pending) I keep envisioning a way to show how all the actions are connected somehow. visually is best, if possible.

Sort by constituency, geography, who they're helping, specific actions (donate, microfinance, volunteer), tags, etc

Comment by Andreas Kopp on February 28, 2009 at 4:04am

Great job christine. I already new some of the plattforms but this collection is unique. Maybe to difference the plattforms a little bit more you could include what "social action" they are offering. There are some where you give money some where you can do something online, somewhere can find a project and volunteer and some where jobs are offered. A visual way to show what you can do with the plattform as you mention would be great. Maybe the extent of envolvement would be a good axis. From donation to microfinance to online volunteer to volunteer to full time job. What do you think?

Comment by Christine Egger on March 2, 2009 at 7:09am

Andreas, thanks so much for the suggestions. A matrix of involvement is a great idea -- let's see if we can build that in.

Beth, about "who will use the directory for what purpose" (important question) I can picture several possible audiences:

1. People thinking about creating an online action/campaign, looking for info to help them figure out which platforms are out there and which would be good options for what they have in mind.

2. Nonprofits and other organizations looking for platforms to include in their social media strategy, and

3. People thinking about creating a social action platform: is the idea they have in mind already in play? How would their idea make a unique contribution to the field? Who's doing something similar that they could learn from and/or collaborate with?

What others come to mind?

Comment by Christine Egger on March 4, 2009 at 8:25am

Some additional thoughts about the directory's content, specifically where the data would come from and how it would be maintained:

Like all Social Actions projects, the data would be open source, meaning it would be available for any website or individual to search, widgetize, syndicate and republish. We'll clearly need to develop a process for easily collecting the data and keeping it current -- easy for the platforms and for ongoing maintenance. That's a conversation we'll be building as the directory project moves forward: where are the open source datasets where some of this content already exists and what else would the platforms be willing to provide in an RSS or XML feed? How much of the content would need to be collected and updated manually, and what would be the best way to do that?

Comment by Teleri on March 6, 2009 at 9:06am

I've found a couple of Social Action and collaboration platforms since this directory went up. Christine Egger asked me to please post them here.

The first is called ChangeThis.com (http://www.changethis.com/content/faq). On ChangeThis, community members have the opportunity to post Manifestos, which are described as "an argument, a reasoned, rational call to action, supported by logic and facts." They are posted in PDF format, but only after readers have voted on 300 word project proposals describing the project and its relevance. After 30 days, top proposals are given the go-ahead.

Another excellent resource omitted from the list is an old one that many networking people may be familiar with. I've been on Meetups.com (http://www.meetup.com) since September 2004, and actually once was administrator for a couple of different groups. The site is very much improved from earlier incarnations, and has social networking media functionality now, whereas the old system was entirely reliant on interested individuals finding and requesting to join your groups. While I hated working with older versions of the system, which were cumbersome and had a very low impact, I am eager to pick a topic and start a meetup just so I can get in the system as an administrator again and see how it works now!

There's one final online tool which I discovered that I think can help any organization forward its mission. Check out OpenZine (http://www.openzine.com/aspx/). This souped up blog editor allows users to "Quickly create an online magazine and collaborate with friends." You can create or clip content, and the platform features a simple graphics editor which allows creation of a fairly slick looking cover page for the project. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd sure be a happier, better networked camper if I could go to one attractive, concise and well edited place for my news on non-profits and social networking rather than an hourly check of my twitter feed to track tinyurl after tinyurl! I also like this idea because it might serve as a happy medium between old-school direct mail mags and cutting edge social media apps. Such a compromise could prove important to financially discombobulated NPO's seeking ways to bridge divides in their contact lists and still cut costs to a managable level.

I'm sure I'll run into more web tools that are conducive to social action before too long. I'll post comments detailing what I find. In the meantime, watch for my first blog entry (coming soon) offering user review of the 40+ Social Action Platforms featured above. I'll get to it soon, Christine, I promise...just as soon as I finish scouring twitterdom for possible links to more cool stuff!

Comment by Christine Egger on March 6, 2009 at 1:00pm

You're amazing! Cannot wait for your user review post(s). It might be best, actually, to post about just a few at a time, creating a series out of it.

FYI Social Actions has been in touch with Meetup.com and is excited about bringing their offline-connection opportunities into the API. ChangeThis and OpenZine are new to us (me, anyway!) and I'll be promptly adding them to the list above, so that continues to be a quick reference point for all of the social action platforms we're aware of.

Thanks so much for sharing all of this info. Your experience with these groups will be invaluable to the Social Actions community.

Comment by Teleri on March 8, 2009 at 2:56am

Thanks, Christine! For offline connections, you might want to talk to the people at HandsOn Network as well. They have connect volunteers to local initiatives after training. I'm going through their Volunteer training next week (Tuesday), so I'll have more ideas about how to integrate their program with platforms after that, I hope.

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