Crowdsourcing Social Change

Filed in archive crowd sourcing on December 30, 2009

Ben Rattray, the founder and CEO of Change.org (an online media network for social change), says that we figured out how to give money to causes and charities over the web in 2009. But in 2010 that will change...

While it's hard to argue that this is a bad thing - anytime someone gives money to feed the hungry instead of buying another digital potato seed in Farmville, global karma rises, if even just by a little - this focus on using the web as an ever-more elaborate means of getting people to fork over cash misses the much bigger opportunities just over the horizon.

As we close the books on a decade in which the Internet has been used primarily as a marketing vehicle for fundraising, social change on the web is poised for a shakeup. In 2010, three disruptive trends that ask for your participation rather than your pocketbook will emerge and use the web's unique potential to empower new forms of social change.

Ben says social activism is going to explode this coming year on the web. He says that micro-volunteerism with become more important that micro-giving, and your time will become more important than your money.

The piece is an interesting read. Who knew you could crowdsource karma...