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The Burden

Just a thought: I was reading through a post about the new Change.org App and Petitions Application on FaceBook and my mind wandered to the questions of effectiveness and impact and youth engagement.

I've read a variety of journalists, pundits and even activists questioning the utility of FaceBook organizing . . . is it effective . . . are young people gaining a false sense of participation, believing they are changing something when all they are doing is building their "friend" list, etc.?

This strikes me as rather the wrong way to think of it. Young people - or really FaceBook users - have shown a willingness to do things online for the issues they believe in. Don't the burdens of effectiveness, utility, and social impact rest with the organizations creating those applications? The growth of the Causes App shows that young people will use these tools, it's up to the organizations to actually put some thought into what functionality will help accomplish their policy goals and then incorporate that FaceBook activism into a larger strategy.

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July 20th, 2007 10:07am
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Making a difference with Facebook

Submitted by Brittany (not verified) on Fri, 2007-07-20 12:02.

That is a question that many group funding (non-profit philanthropy) applications face on Facebook. We have been working on our Facebook application and have since decided that (for the moment) our application will only show donations made. This is a way for us to show that people will "put their money where their mouth is" when they are really inspired by what their friends are doing.

I don't think showing "support" is ineffective, it basically one degree away from fully committing (via donation) and that is definitely closer than some Facebookers were before the Causes application came out.

Support vs Donation vs something else

Submitted by Michael Connery on Fri, 2007-07-20 12:42.

Brittany,

I agree that you can't discount the importance of showing support. That's the first step towards greater participation, and I'm a full believer in its significance. I was really mouthing the criticisms of others, not my own.

That said, Donations is the exact opposite type of activity. It's a very hard metric that everyone understands, but it's also leaps and bounds ahead of showing support in terms of the intensity of commitment it requires.

My thought is that there needs to be a middle step between the two that is both useful for the organization and less intense than a donation. You need to work people up that ladder of participation, and the only way you are going to get them to lay down that cash is to:

  1. Give them a successful activist experience where they believe that your organization did something and that they made an important personal contribution to that success.
  2. Have a rationale for why they need to donate. General operating support - while I know how important that is - just won't cut it. There needs to be a highly specific and timely ask involved, which I don't yet see in any applications.