The power of online communities

I am a strong believer that donations are not a sustainable way to address social issues, but rather through social business.

However, donations, if obtained in a low cost, low effort manner, can still be a valuable supplement to your income stream whilst operating as a social business.

The continuing evolution of the world-wide web is providing ways to do this.

Recently an organisation called Epic Change launched a 48 hour fund raising initiative that raised $10,000. The funds were raised in typically $5 and $10 donations, mostly from people who found out about the cause at the time of donating. They found out through Twitter, the ever growing social media website.

The initiative was called TweetGiving and was a remarkable success.

There are a number of online tools that are available to do this sort of fund raising. Unfortunately most rely on PayPal and Google Checkout for the actual payments, which at the moment do not accept transactions in South African Rands. Hopefully this will change soon, but if anyone is aware of ways to make this work in South Africa, please let me know.

Read more about TweetGiving here: http://tweetsgiving.org


Mike.