Open Source Giving

Hey everyone, I look forward to the discussion - please feel free to share links, hashtags, blog posts and stories about the changing world of peer-to-peer - or "open source" - philanthropy.

Bravo, Tom on open sourcing the panel agenda! A question that I'm very curious about is who we think are in regarding open source giving

and who are we leaving out? Does it divide by income, generation, social media savvy? Wonder what the panelists are seeing on their platforms. Good luck!

Allison

Thanks Allison - this is a great question, especially as we look toward a more inclusive, global, non-patriarchial "cause web."

My own feeling is that it's wide open - and that there will be some real surprises from the developing world in the coming years, especially using mobile technology.

Right now, let's face it - places like Twitter are dominated by geeks (social sector, politics, technology especially) and Facebook by middle class Americans (though the average age rises every day).

I see the "social media savvy" boundaries eventually coming down, and we certainly help with that.

Hi Tom:

1) I think it would interesting to explore how funders and social entrepreneurs are learning about their effectiveness--or lack of--and whether they are in sharing what they learn through social networks, thus promoting openness and transparency.

2) What happens when MISinformation or inaccurate information is passed along and rapidly disseminated through social networks? Is this a risk to be considered by nonprofits and social entrepreneurs?

Edith - great questions and I want to put them to the panel - especially the one about effectiveness, which means what's working in the field (or not) and how we get beyond pure promotion in social media for causes - toward real collaboration.

As for risk: yes, there is risk - but I don't think it's greater than the rest of the information-based risk pool for nonprofits and social enterprises. And it's just as clear that we should be listening for that kind of thing, so we can respond quickly, accurately, and effectively!

Hi Tom, I'd like to second Edith's points. I'd love to see you ask questions about collaborative opportunities, 'data on impacts / outcomes, and strategies for routing around the bad nodes.

At the Giving Markets conference at Stanford and the Social Capital Markets conference in October, I was dismayed that questions to the online giving platforms focused on more superficial topics like, driving traffic to the platform, converting traffic into transactions, and sustainability models. The answers to these more superficial topics can be found in a heartbeat with a simple Google search.

Let's take this opportunity to pose the tough questions to Kiva, Global Giving, and MYC4. Are they collaborating with other platforms, and could the be collaborating more? Are they sharing as much donor / project / web analytics data as possible with an eye toward accountability and helping the Movement grow? What is their strategy when it comes to open APIs, and permitting transactions to happen anywhere and everywhere?

The attendees at The Skoll World Forum will expect nothing less than these tough questions.

Peter - I agree the collaboration question is central - I don't think driving traffic to the platform can ever be the answer in an age when what is the platform? changes all the time. So there's a real structural, business reason - outside of the ethical call to share for the greater good - that drives the need for collaboration in my view. As we move to the network (and to the cloud) the portal for giving becomes part of the feature set, a single tool among many others, rather than the central business model.

I'd love to hear what others have to say about this...

Hi Tom! I'll chime in here with something I've noticed during the development of Lend4Health (http://www.lend4health.org). Inspired by Kiva.org, Lend4Health was created entirely as a "cause wired." It was not the online extension of an "on the ground" organization, but it was created as an online "tool" to serve an established community - a loose, constantly flowing online community of parents trying to improve their kids' health (specifically, autism).

What I have noticed is that the community is key. It is not enough to have a unique way for people to give and help others online. These donors (lenders) want to connect. When I started using ChipIn to have some more automation on the site, I got a comment from a lender that she missed seeing "the community"

the names of the others who had made a loan. I also frequently get emails from loan recipients and lenders asking me to pass messages along to other users. And just last week I had a request from a loan recipient who said she wanted to make loans for other families but, since she couldn't afford it, she wondered if there was a way that all the families could connect so that she could offer her words of encouragement in lieu of her dollars. I also have received several comments from lenders that they greatly appreciate and enjoy reading the updates about their loan recipients that are emailed out.

In response to this apparent demand for more human connection, we are currently evaluating two possible network tools that could bring that "community" aspect to Lend4Health. This will mean that a family receiving a loan in Michigan could connect with a family receiving a loan in Florida, AND a family in California can interact directly with one of their lenders in Amsterdam to update him on the impact of his loan on their child's health. [Note: We are aware of the privacy issues involved since we are talking about children's health and will keep that at the forefront during development.]

I have seen similar urges to connect on Kiva.org, where Lending Groups have been created, and even the amazing Kiva Friends site was created by the lenders themselves.

It appears, then, that even though the internet gives us the ability to contribute collectively to causes with people we would have never known otherwise, human nature still dictates a certain need to connect on a deeper level than just clicking the same "donate" (or "lend") button.

Tori Tuncan

Tori - thanks for the perspective! (Note to Social Edge readers - what Tori's doing with Lend4health is spectacular - you should check it out and learn from her).

I'd only add the word "real" to your call for community. The authenticity factor is so crucial in building real support for causes/ventures online. You're right, people want to feel like they're truly connected. It's not just clicking on a link in an email or no a blog.

Hi Tom. I think that we're on the verge of making huge shifts in how social benefit organizations are funded, thus, how well they do their work. So far what I've seen is a variety of hubs that list lots of causes and try to draw traffic through those portals to those causes. www.networkforgood.org was one of the first, and is one of the biggest, to my knowledge. I'm one of more than 700,000 non profits listed, and the number of people who have found me and donated because I'm on this site is probably less than a dozen, if that many.

Thus, the first question is "how do these portals draw meaningful dollars and volunteers or other needed resources to a larger number of their members, or to all of them?" So far, it seems that the rich, brand name, or high profile, orgs just get richer because of how these portals draw more attention to them. A second part of this question would be where can we see facts on what percent of orgs listed do get funds, and what is the level of funding achieved?

The bigger question is "how can we use these portals to create a distribution of needed resources to all of the places in the world where the same types of services are needed?" For instance, I work with urban kids who would benefit from tutoring/mentoring. While I operate a single program serving 70 teens, there are close to 200,000 kids living in poverty in Chicago alone who might benefit from similar programs. I've created a database over about 300 of these and post links to them on my http://www.tutormentorconnection.org site. I've create poverty maps at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com to show where they are most needed, based on poverty and poor schools. If I can draw a million potential donors through my portal every year, who shop my maps and choose what zip code, and what program(s) in each zip code, they want to help, I think I can build a better distribution of dollars to all of the programs in all of the neighborhoods of Chicago where they are most needed.

Thus, I'm modeling a vertical channel of support for programs doing similar work in different parts of the same city. I've not yet figured how to get a million donors a year, but I do get about 100,000 site visitors a year, with virtually no advertising.

I think that instead of generic portals the change that is coming will be the growth of issue specific portals, focusing on a single problem in one city, or in every city of the world. Such portals will be able to provide daily focus on why people should get involved in that cause, and where and how they can get involved. Generic portals can't give this daily focus to a single issue.

There will certainly be variations of this, but I think the only thing that will slow progress toward this goal will be access to capital to help such portals grow, and access to advertising to help them draw traffic and donors.

Is this a model that you are seeing anywhere else?

Hi Daniel, Great points. I'm anticipating the same trend you're anticipating.. Keep an eye on Ning.com. They permit anyone to create a branded social network (a.k.a. a specific portal) and will soon be rolling out full Open Social integration, which means that the niche portals will be able to provide the same advanced functionality as Network for Good, DonorsChoose.org, Kiva, and others. This shift will significantly transform the online social activism sector. The niche portals provide what Tori was referring to as real community and will keep the attention focused on a specific cause in a specific location. I don't play favorites in the online social activism space, and yet I do feel that Ning is building out infrastructure that few people in the social entrepreneurship / nonprofit technology space are paying sufficient attention to. All the best, Peter

I've been building a community at http://tutormentor.ning.com and participate in a few others. The Classroom2.0 has quite a large number of participants who share ideas and probably do a lot of back-end connections, which I also do, but I don't see an effort that mobilizes that group to specific actions.

In the end, causes need leaders and catalysts, and they need followers and resources. As people learn to use these networking tools to not only build interest in a cause, but to keep people involved and growing in their involvement for many years, the impact will be dramatic on what we understand as "leadership" in today's perspective.

Daniel - you raise a central question in the causewired world - traffic is still a currency with tremendous value, and always will be. The "attention market" is not infinite: it consists of every minute of every current life on earth - that's a set quantity, and every bit of media or experience or involvement completes for some fraction of that number, whether its for watching goofy YouTube videos or trying to liberalize immigration rights in the United States (a favorite cause of mine). And, of course, nonprofits are competing more fiercely than ever for funds.

So I really like what you said about a "vertical channel of support" - to me, that makes the most sense for many causes, where it's not about building the biggest, widest pool of potential supporters, but about building an active, involved base that can carry an organization to the next level.

Re: Ning - it's a real success story - I think the more it opens up design/layout/community options, the more successful it will be, especially to the social sector.

Daniel, I tried to access your "tutor mentor" link, but Ning says it doesn't exist.

I've been building a community at http://tutormentor.ning.com and participate in a few others. The Classroom2.0 has quite a large number of participants who share ideas and probably do a lot of back-end connections, which I also do, but I don't see an effort that mobilizes that group to specific actions.

In the end, causes need leaders and catalysts, and they need followers and resources. As people learn to use these networking tools to not only build interest in a cause, but to keep people involved and growing in their involvement for many years, the impact will be dramatic on what we understand as "leadership" in today's perspective.

I m just not sure what do you mean by open source giving. I think you mean sharing and opening information and data. And probably you talk about decentralized giving, by empowering people to choose, find and networks on causes using social networks. However I think open source goes beyond that ( I refer to the software development concept ). In some way, what many entrepreneurs are doing on this website, sharing ideas, problems and solutions is already part of an open source giving process. I think an open and transparent global organisation is needed. Maybe in the futur this kind of organisation will become standard. People who bring change in society, who participate who not be called activists any more because it will be a normal activity, part of a trully open and democratic process that would be so easy.

Cedric,

I agree that the way we share is already part of an open source giving process. I think it needs to go further. At http://www.learningtofinish.org/doku.php?id=act_now is a wiki hosted by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change. It focuses on the high school drop out issue in the US. Because it's a wiki others, such as myself can add our own ideas.

So far I don't see any "donor-focused" groups joining this wiki with the goal of educating other donors of the issues being discussed, or of the groups who are contributing ideas to the wiki, with a goal of drawing donors directly to these groups, or of innovating new ways to provide the dollars and talent needed in many locations to solve the drop out problems.

However, the wiki demonstrates how such platforms can be meeting places where all of the needed stakeholders connect with each other. As new ideas are added, and new models for funding these programs are added, that creates a better "operating system" to solve the drop-out crisis.

I'm not sure a single organization can do this, or should try to do this. I think there can be lots of different groups using the same tools, the same ideas, and the same resources to focus on the same problems that are located in different places.

Hi Tom,

Thank you for putting this discussion together. As the founder of Social Actions, I'm flattered that you've mentioned our Change the Web Challenge in the context of your panel at the Skoll World Forum. I'm also incredibly grateful that you're proposing to ask the likes of Premal Shah of Kiva, Mari Kuraishi of GlobalGiving, and Mads Kjaer of MyC4 how their social ventures can help change the web.

It's a tricky question. The distinguished people on your panel are more accustomed to answering the question, how does their social venture transform a specific practice (Kiva -> lending to entrepreneurs; Global Giving -> Donations to nonprofits overseas; MYC4 -> investing in small businesses overseas), and what are the lessons for other practices of that transformation?

I suspect that Premal, Mari, and Mads are less accustomed to answering your question, which I'll rephrase as, "how does it feel and what are the opportunities associated with being part of a movement that's rewiring the web for social change, and how can that transformation advance social entrepreneurship in general?"

It's a provocative question. I'm looking forward to twittering and blogging their responses.

--

As for the golden age for causes phrase, it may be worthwhile to find alternative language. For me, Golden Age is associated with a momentary and exceptional situation that eventually reverts to the status quo. With the advent of social media, mobile technology, and peer-to-peer networks, I feel we're witnessing something more disruptive and persistent than the arrival (and subsequent departure) of a golden age. As long as networks persist, and they will, the positive and negative effects on how good deeds get carried out will be felt.

My two cents: let's call it a paradigm shift for the social sector.

Great idea Peter, it's always good to use alternative language.

I see the golden age as a broad term for changes taking place in humanity, brought on by the information age. Just like the software developed necessary to collaboratively link social media, mobile technology, and peer-to peer networks, the golden age is a transformative shift in access to information.

As Tori put it, " community is key." The traits of a community, social trust and empathy, are not novel evolutionary developments so the status quo can't touch them, hence the movement toward the golden age -of community collaboration as opposed to me myself and I living- is as natural as evolution itself.

To the question, how can the web transformation (socially wired for the future) advance social entrepreneurship - the answer no doubt lies with connecting communities. And since people love to watch their digital footprint and be part of networks that connect them, a golden age for causes is only a matter of time.

To my mind, this golden age is more like the founding of the republic - a potentially spectacular beginning of a more open, better-grounded, and more widely-networked basis for working on social change.

I really like Peter's re-phrase: "How does it feel and what are the opportunities associated with being part of a movement that's rewiring the web for social change, and how can that transformation advance social entrepreneurship in general?"

• Would the wired world benefit if sites like Kiva.org, GlobalGiving.org, and MyC4 were open-source? What would that look like? (Spot.us is open-source, and if more people knew, my guess is this would be game-changing)
• How can the platforms like Kiva.org, GlobalGiving, and MyC4 support each other and move each other forward? For example, What would it look like if the Kiva.org API also included a way to query MyC4 opportunities?
• What do web portals look like that let anyone fund and support social entrepeneurs in our own backyard. For example, What if, for $25, you could help fund the next electric car? ( http://tinyurl.com/greenloans ) How will Kiva.org and MyC4 contribute and collaborate in this conversation rather than compete. Is there a place to bridge online collabortion sites like Amazee?

I'm 100% down with cooperation and collaboration, especially in emerging social markets - because we're all trying to do something that changes something for the better, in the widest terms. Right?

But a lot of these companies and NGOs will still have to compete for attention in the early-going, when the big "audience" consists of fairly wired, geeky do-gooders. And, frankly, not every platform will survive - a "weeding" that affects capital, people's jobs, opportunities etc.

So how can we collaborate AND still compete for our models/platforms/audiences?

Once we realize we're trying to get eyeballs focused on what we do, and that we don't have ad dollars to get that attention, more and more people are going to be looking for innovative ways to collaborate to create this face time.

Here's a graphic that I use to illustrate this: http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=1215092965858_379195929_14793&partName=actualhtmltext

If all of the people in the groups described on this chart use their five minutes of fame, or their brief bits of face time, to pull people to hubs that focus on the issue or geography, or ning.com page that relates to what their self interest resides, then thousands of people can be each contributing to this rising tide of attention that supports the efforts of each individual in his/her own efforts.

When you go to your event, if you point to this forum, you point the people you meet to all of us who have met you in the past week.

Daniel, as you said earlier: "I think it needs to go further."

Time is limited, as is opportunity - but a wider, more open process for philanthropy (not discounting the importance of some large-scale, top-down, centrally-funded enterprises) may indeed lead more people to use their five minutes wisely and increase the reach of social causes - and the results as well.

Hi Tom,

Good question, first it's a common misconception that innovation is a driver of market competition. It's interesting that most innovation comes from collaboration. A competitive world offers two possibilities. You can lose, or if you want to win, you can change.

Collaboration could well be needed to compete in a globalized world. In competition people close up, in collaboration they open up. In fact collaboration chases away the scarcity mindset that competition sets up, and since we're in a universe of polarized opposites, I think they need to be able to coexist peacefully. In pulling them together for societal benefit, I agree with Hildy ( in issue fatigue) that "the answer is not outside us but within us." It's in shifting the thinking.

Using networks hubs and portals in the simple analogy of a spider's web,- creating a home as well as catching food - with each thread uniquely positioned, so the more the threads interact the more they impact. Like "swarms" "flash causes" and " smart mobs" it's human nature to want the opportunity to participate. I agree a golden age for causes could be around the corner as open source philanthropy and web technology has the collective pull to move mountains. As a consequence, a more inclusive society at large is created, especially if the primary motivator of positive behavior is not incentives, rewards, rules or punishment but inspired cooperation.

Competition works best when there is limited resources, which creates lots of losers. Collaboration is win-win for all (if business, govt and the social sector partner together as a development model working to create valve for society.) Because as we all know the world needs mutual understanding and cooperation to survive and thrive.

When open source developers expose the tools they use, (the source code) and to knowledge-share, they are creating trust as a business value. Collaboration can also be seen as pre-competitive as well as creating a more efficient product. There's a saying- if you want to be incrementally better be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better, be cooperative.

The wiring of self-interest changes through emotion. So the driver of change ( to allow collaboration within competition ) is to create an emotional shift, that's why story-telling works so well.

Jo - yeah! That's exactly right and I liked the way you put it.

So it's not about the pipes (though you can do some interesting things through rewiring), but it's about the stories of real people that travel through them...we all have to keep that in mind.

Hi--sorry to be so late to the discussion, have finally overcome my technical difficulties. It's been so great seeing all the questions and comments and nailbiting not being able to respond! I've got a huge backlog of things to respond to, so will try to make it brief:

Peter Deitz, you asked: Are they collaborating with other platforms, and could the be collaborating more? Are they sharing as much donor / project / web analytics data as possible with an eye toward accountability and helping the Movement grow? What is their strategy when it comes to open APIs, and permitting transactions to happen anywhere and everywhere?

My short answer, yes we're collaborating, and we could do more.

Our latest plans/discussions are to explore integration with Guidestar and Great Nonprofits, so that we might share content and giving opportunities and reputational data amongst the 3 of us.

On APIs, our API currently requires that you "register" and be given a key (A to-do is to create an API "home" page, where ANYONE can register for basic project data access. This allows people to use our content, but when it comes to transactional APIs I think we have a ways to go--it's not as open as it cood be because you have to actually start a dialogue with us and sign an actual agreement if you want to actually perform donation transactions via the API – this is an elevated privilege. Also still to be developed is adding our new search infrastructure to the API (making it available).

Our vision is to have companies and organizations create projects, create unique user experiences, and drive donations using GG’s technical and philanthropic platform. Our vision is to have thousands of DIY giving experiences thriving on GG’s basic infrastructure. Our challenge is to open the door as widely as possible without incurring overwhelming support costs and while maintaining the security and confidence that comes with making a donation through GG.

Daniel Bassil, you raised the question of how grassroots do we go--my answer is we go someways, we could go much much further. One experiment we are running as I type is a listening project in Kenya--you can see some of it here: http://www.globalgiving.com/inthefield/

Peter, your second question "how does it feel and what are the opportunities associated with being part of a movement that's rewiring the web for social change, and how can that transformation advance social entrepreneurship in general?" I'm not sure I have a ready answer for, but maybe it's a great question to ask during the panel at the Forum. On the one hand there are days when my nose is so flat up against the grindstone my response would be, "what movement?" and other days I can actually feel the ground shifting. But I guess that's part of the bipolarity of being an entrepreneur ...

Hey Folks -

Great discussion - look forward to the panel in a few weeks. Wanted to chime in and echo Mari's comment that there's some collaboration, but there could be more. It's not a question of interest, it's a question of bandwidth / prioritization.

We just launched http://build.kiva.org - this should allow anyone to use Kiva APIs and hopefully open up a new wave of collaboration that doesn't require Kiva staff bandwidth.

Look forward to discussing more on the panel in a few weeks!

Premal

Mari - great responses - it's clear GlobalGiving is thinking about the big issues. Looking forward to continuing this next week in Oxford!

Tom,

What Chaux says below creates resonance with me. I don't understand open source in this context either unless it really does provide a tool I can tailor to serve a social purpose. For example, I discovered something recently called Octopus, an open source MFI banking product. An API may help me integrate a service in another application but by the same token, that's what Google offers, without yielding access to their search algorithms, for example.

While we see Kiva's resounding success, and I'd classify this as investment rather than giving, there are at the same time thousands of worthy causes which gather no attention. We pick up mixed messages which encourage us to be the change, to find disinterest. Solicited to join in and then disregarded.

We're seeing social networks which once promised great potential, like Omidyar.net, latterly Ned.com, grid to a halt. Filled with passionate and articulate people who have no difficulty turning their hand to apply widgets, the site is near silent.

These widgets are certainly making us industrious, but surely they can only be regarded as a success when the net giving of any population increases. Can we see any evidence of that even before the recession?

Now we may speak of activism and in that context, one article written back in 1995 by Rob Katz conveys how I see it.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.05/paine.html

"He and the massing corporate entities drooling over the Net would be instantly and ferociously at war as he recognized Time Warner, TCI, the Baby Bells, and Viacom as different incarnations of the same elements that scarfed up the press and homogenized it. He'd have lots to say about the so-called information highway and the government's alleged role in shaping it. One of his pamphlets - this may be the only thing he'd have in common with Newt Gingrich - would surely propose means of getting more computers and modems into the hands of people who can't afford them."

"Instead of dying alone and in agony, Paine would spend his last days sending poignant e-mail all over the world from his deathbed via his PowerBook, arranging for his digital wake. He'd call for more humane treatment for the dying. He'd journal online about the shortcomings of medicine and the mystical experience of aging, while digging into his inexhaustible supply of prescriptions for the incalculable injustices that still afflict the world."

While we've been hung up on widgets we're just beginning to realise that getting information technology to those who can't afford it is the enabler. To the extent that Obama includes rural broadband deployment in the stimulus plan and Bill Gates awakens to the fact the poor people DO need computers.

Jeff

Jeff, great post and some very interesting points - I agree on rural connectivity and computers for the poor.

And you're right, there is no evidence that the widgetized world has increased donations - I do think there's some evidence (from the Obama campaign to smaller efforts) that is has increased involvement and awareness, but we'll have to wait and see. One of the things I tried hard to stress in CauseWired was my belief that it's still very, very early in the development of the networked social commons and its effects.

Hi Tom. Excited about this session at Skoll. I'll try and come along and join in.

I recently penned a piece on Social Media for Social Entrepreneurs for a forthcoming handbook by NESTA (innovation types in the UK).

I'm a huge advocate of the power of technology to involve, engage, reach out, communicate, and connect. For the School for Social Entrepreneurs, I blog, twitter, bookmark, run Facebook groups and socialise our content generally. But it is a means to an end for us, as part of our communications strategy.

And that's my key point in the piece. This stuff is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Kiva is nothing without the agencies on the ground. Similarly GlobalGiving. I think their success is encouraging too many other social entrepreneurs to assume that "technology is the answer". It's not, but it can be an incredibly effective means to doing things better, cheaper, more effectively, more engagingly and so on.

Hope to catch up with you in Oxford.

Oops - also forgot to add that not nearly enough web-based / online social projects measure their outcomes and impact. If funding is going to go to web-based work, it needs to prove itself with metrics like the rest of us!

Tom, I agree that we're just in the beginning stages of what can be accomplished using this technology to connect people, ideas and causes. Nick, I agree with you the technology is just a tool, a means to an end.

To me the power of social networking is that it reverses the process of one innovator with an idea trying to reach around the world for all of the people and resources that are needed to make that idea useful in one or more places. With a simple blog an innovator can now share and idea, and others can take on the shared responsibility of increasing the number of people who look at it.

When Nick said that Kiva is nothing without the agencies on the ground, I would agree. It's the other stakeholders who make an idea more well known and successful by what they do to attract support and involvement from members of their own networks. You can see my own coaching of this process in articles at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net.

The key question is "how do we know what members of the network are doing to help achieve the goals of a project?" when many of those members are in different places and may be removed by two or three degrees of separation from the main group.

I've been piloting an online documentation system since 2000, which is intended to enable people to become recorders, documenting actions they take to support the Tutor/Mentor Connection mission. The system I'm using was built, borrowing ideas from a model used at the University of Kansas. At http://www.vattsystems.com/ohats/Metrics.aspx you can view metrics charts that show the number of actions toward specific goals, and describe the types of actions. Each documented action can be reviewed and the list of actions can be sorted by the name of the recorder, date range submitted, or goal. There is a Ning page link for each metric where interested people can learn more about what each metric chart is showing, and about challenges and opportunities of using such a system.

While our documentation system may or may not work for everyone, in the end we won't know what we've accomplished, and who is helping us, until people are documenting actions in some way or another, and until we can see these as actions that need to be repeated by many people over many years for a consistent purpose.

As on line networks begin to define purpose, the vertical track, then I think we'll move to the next stage of growth in social networking.

Hi Tom, Mari, Mads, and Premal, In respect to collaboration and sharing best practices, I think there is something happening in the lending and investing spaces that could and I would argue should be applied to the giving space.

Kiva allows for lending groups (or the creation of new affinity groups ie t-shirt sellers on eBay to get together and lend to clothing makers in developing countries) and Lending Club allows people to leverage real world affinities (ie Berkeley alumni, fellow employees, etc) to facilitate lending.

Angel investors bring together people who want to invest as a group in order to bring significant capital to bear on a start-up (where an individual investment would not be of sufficient size to impact the venture). MyC4 while not leveraging affinity groups, enables small investors to group together to bring capital to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Global Giving enables people to give globally to causes they connect with, but does not leverage affinity groups.

The piece that is missing it seems to me, and a huge opportunity, would be to bring affinity group GIVING to social ventures and social entrepreneurs. Imagine if people could together review various social ventures working on an issue like safe water delivery, and as a group vote/choose a venture that they want to make a significant donor impact upon as a group. Then they could bring their affinity group together to make not one donation for $100 but 20 donations of $100 for a more impactful total donation of $2,000.

This makes donating more engaging and communal, it encourages evaluation of social ventures (like investments) for donations, and helps effective nonprofits earn larger donor "investment"; and it leverages social networking for something more than the twitterific amounts of $0.99 - $5 per person (so with fewer people in a more closely networked group, you can raise more total money than a spam appeal to thousands for spare change).

What are your thoughts on leveraging Kiva-like lending groups for MyC4 investment-type evaluation to achieve Global Giving type donations BUT at a larger scale multiplied by social networks? "Angel Fund Style Donating"?

Anything like this out there? Anyone willing to build this? As Kiva has noticed, people want a personal connection and they want their loan/investment/donation to be impactful. Being repaid is secondary (Kiva folks tend to recirculate the money rather than take it out when repaid, investors in social ventures mostly seek to break even financially but with a high social return on investment). So how can we make open source giving more personal and impactful?

Thanks for the great discussion. At first glance one could say that the open source community could develop applications that compete with high priced options. For example Raiser's Edge is a fund development database with a high cost over 25K depending on your options. If there was an open source option one could assume that those 25K could be used for other purposes, hopefully delivering more services.

More importantly, It would be good to share the mind set and theory of the open source community with other on the ground activities like community organizing. As a culture I feel we need to speed up our collaborative learning, thinking and decision making processes, tech from that perspective could be helpful.

Finally, $$$$ for starting locally owned socially enterprises are needed. I like the angel investor suggestion. However, I would like to find a way raise funds from local residents for locally owned socially enterprises (for profit & nonprofit). In other words could we combine our on the ground community organizing and the Internets ability to raise funds to capitalize local living economy business models that contribute to a livable planet. As some of these ventures are for profit, instead of a donate button, it may be an invest button or pollinate button.

I m just not sure what do you mean by open source giving. I think you mean sharing and opening information and data. And probably you talk about decentralized giving, by empowering people to choose, find and networks on causes using social networks. However I think open source goes beyond that ( I refer to the software development concept ). In some way, what many entrepreneurs are doing on this website, sharing ideas, problems and solutions is already part of an open source giving process. I think an open and transparent global organisation is needed. Maybe in the futur this kind of organisation will become standard. People who bring change in society, who participate who not be called activists any more because it will be a normal activity, part of a trully open and democratic process that would be so easy.

I think that Web 2.0 is going to redefine how we define "giving", because it allows social entrepreneurs to tap into human capital in some very unconventional ways.

Theoretically, it could be possible to create and manage a "virtual NGO" where advocates can participate in research, outreach, and R&D activities without the burdens of overhead and payroll. The team would be connected by a social network and/or web-based CRM, training tools, and software.

In terms of development, there will be a shift in how we use soc nets for fundraising & grassroots organizing. The downside of readily accessible technology is issue fatigue, which we're already beginning to see as anyone with Web access can campaign for their own respective issues. As others have mentioned, we're going to need to focus on one-on-one, highly personal approaches to building support and engaging individual stakeholders. As more and more "worthy" causes and organizations come online, competition for wisibility and support will rise.

The next trend, I think, will be the extension of social media / interactivity to unconventional channels... imagine getting a prompt on your credit card terminal at Whole Foods with an option to contribute to an organization that your purchasing history suggests would be relevant to you.

Hi everyone, i'm new, so bear with me.

Being passionate about collaboration too, i think the forum should address how this new causewired sector can work with the traditional big boys, i.e. the UN, the development banks, the big NGO's. In fact it would be interesting to get some of them on the forum.

There are many synergistic reasons for exploring this area: 1) The big boys have the funding, the established causes, the political clout, the widespreading networks (to areas offline too) that online social activism can kickstart with, tap into as opposed to overlap with or compete against. 2) The Cause-wired sector has the efficiency, crowd-capture, young market segment, community and direct storytelling, as well as young and clean image that the big boys crave to cut costs, become more popular in our age and remain relevant (with better global reach, less sovereign barriers).

There are many other Win-Win points that you guys can think of i'm sure... really hope the forum can address this... Imagine UNICEF putting the kid's stories online, imagine Millenium Villages getting funded directly instead of through all that red tape... it'll whip the governments into place instead of letting them collect toll every time aid flows in.

Tom, awesome panel. Got two questions that are thinking about here at 1Well.org.

The first relates to the collaboration issue. There are all of these phenomenal new philanthropy models and organizations popping up. But the issue goes beyond the basic collaboration question about how to we share data, platforms, tools, etc. How do we actually integrate our work to better serve our customers? 1Well leverages a grants model and addresses basic human needs so barriers to economic growth are removed. Build a sustainable well in a community so women are not walking hours for water. They now have time and start new businesses - we have seen this over and over again. But we don't do loans, so how do we get them connected to Kiva, etc.? It is also true on the other end. Once the business grows, how does Kiva connect them to meso-finance? There is an exciting value chain here that we all can work on building so the sum of our organizations is much greater than the parts.

Second question is how to we combine this new exciting model with the more traditional philanthropic players? At the beginning of the Internet days, people spoke of Internet companies (clicks) and traditional companies (bricks). But of course businesses adopted to use the best tools available and integrated the two. What is the future of our space? How will major foundations, groups like CARE, and others adapt and integrate what Kiva, GlobalGiving, MyC4 and others are doing?

Best, Dan Morrison

Tom, thanks for this discussion. And thanks for all the initiatives people have mentioned; it seems like there's constant innovation online.

As for the question at the top: I feel online social ventures bring us back to each other, making the web a tool for finding real inspiration and joy in life (rather than an end in itself).

My favorite example is the personal touch we can have, even when giving small amounts. Discussion boards the old approach; recent sites are doing a better job connecting people with projects and organizations that might excite them.

There are fascinating monetary and also non-monetary projects that allow individuals to share their stories directly; for me, it's a rush when people work together and get the personal rewards of succeeding together. Jonathan Carter above is right on.

Of course, Kiva is a great example. Personally, I love the projects that are working to connect people on small or local projects:

http://delicious.com/trentlarson/person_to_person http://delicious.com/trentlarson/person_to_project

The web is becoming inspirational on a personal level thanks to all of these efforts. Open source is a natural tool being leveraged here because it's programmers giving their talents to projects they love. There are tons of ways we still need to advance the personal touch of our online projects: notifying people about work that interests them; organizing the efforts of people with various constraints of technology, time, and talent; and expressing heartfelt gratitude and other rewards at the end of a task/project.

I'm inspired more and more each day by what I see on the web.

PS: It looks like this topic is longer than you expected, since it's lasted all the way until the start of your conference today! Best of luck. It'll be nice if you can post a follow-up with a link to your panel podcast/video if one is available.

PPS: You asked two very different questions: your first question was about how social ventures change the web, and your second (split into four) was about how web tech affects social ventures. Hopefully this comment is still relevant.

In reply to other comments:

I wholeheartedly agree with Jonathan Carter about creating "unconventional channels" for donating... not only interesting ways with money, but with other time and talents. I know of some very cool genealogy work going on where money is not involved at all; the critical elements are time to extract information and manage mountains of data.

I agree with Jo Davidon that collaboration is most effective toward obtaining specific goals, and the same goes for open-source projects; however, be careful about your judgement, because many times it is valid to start a competitive project even if the originator can't express the difference. As a programmer, I often hear the adage "don't reinvent the wheel", but often it is used as a criticism because the listener is not jumping on the speaker's bandwagon. Sometimes it's a benefit because it's a different set of people; sometimes it gives a different framework that will be more comfortable to future customers; sometimes it has a different foundation that makes it easier to explore new features; and sometimes it just gives someone an education. Thankfully, I think people are learning (because it's much easier now) to search and examine existing efforts before they start their own.

I like the points made in the article referenced by Jeff Mowatt; however, I'm honestly offended about the proposal for Obama to include "rural broadband deployment in the stimulus plan". Yes, education is the great opportunity equalizer, but even if the internet were the ultimate way to learn and gain wisdom, it's wrong to give our federal government the power and responsibility to grant this wish. I could start with the authorities granted by the Constitution and go on and on about political/human rights (eg. life) vs wants (eg. freedom from hunger or ignorance); however, I'll just emphasize how much I'd like to eliminate methods that compel socially good efforts and instead leverage the resources of people who give freely to improve and inspire the world... much like open-source does.

I'll agree with Will Chua that we'd like every institution to join the open-source movement and be as efficient as possible. I've got to admit that I won't spend much time educating those with "political clout". Yes, they've got the money right now, but it's political money and power that is subject to polical whims and legislative mandate. I'd much rather experiment along with all the other social entrepreneurs who are learning to grease the wheels between individuals who act freely out of love and compassion. The more solutions we can find without them, the brighter our future. I look forward to a world where our technology serves to level even more playing fields and make obsolete many of the oppressive institutions that are either outdated (almost immediately), uninformed, lazy, or outright self-serving.

Cheers!

I'm quite blown away by the quality (and quantity) of posts in this forum - just wonderful. I'm meeting with Mari, Premal and Mads over lunch and our panel starts in only 2.5 hours - but I'll be bringing these comments/ideas with me.

And after the panel is over, I'm going to encourage participants - both those here at Skoll and the virtual participants - to keep this discussion going, using some of the panel ideas as a fulcrum to pivot this conversation to the next stage.

So stay tuned!

Hi Tom, another conversation has been launched with follow up comments from the Skoll World Forum. What can you share with us about the responses to the ideas shared on this thread?