Social Actions and the Microphilanthropy Movement

Google Tech Talks September 16, 2008 ABSTRACT Presented by Peter Deitz and Christine D. Egger In late September Social Actions will launch a search interface and open API that aggregates actionable opportunities from 20 social action platforms including DonorsChoose.org, Kiva, Idealist, and Change.org. In anticipation of that launch, and to demonstrate the potential of the open API, Social Actions recently launched a web application called Related Ways to Take Action. This is an AdWords-style widget that automatically scans the content of the web page on which it appears and identifies the top three keywords for that page. The widget then searches for related campaigns across the 20 social action platforms and automatically recommends opportunities to take action related to the content of the site. Social Actions Founder Peter Deitz and Lead Platform Liaison Christine Egger will describe these initiatives, placing them within the context of a growing microphilanthropic sector, and will explore the implications of Web 2.0 applications that accelerate and amplify an individual's ability to create and contribute to social change campaigns of every kind. Social Actions was selected as a 2008 Stockholm Challenge finalist, won two prizes at this year's NetSquared conference, and has been mentioned in several leading news media including PBS Online, The San Francisco Chronicle Online, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, and TechCrunch. Social Actions is an award-winning nonprofit initiative closing in on its first year of operations. Our mission is to connect people with opportunities to take action in an effort to increase the scope and impact of the citizen sector. Towards that end we develop technology that helps individuals find opportunities to take action and maintain a blog devoted to conversations on how people can use social media to create social change. http://www.socialactions.com/ http://www.socialactions.com/related-ways-to-take-action/ Peter Deitz is a micro-philanthropy consultant and founder of Social Actions based in Montreal, Canada. Christine D. Egger, MSc, has 15 years experience in the nonprofit and corporate sectors and a masters in international development that included research on quantum theory and chaos theory implications for grassroots-level social and economic development initiatives.