CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World [Paperback]

It probably happens to you once or twice a year.

A well known charity knocks at your door during its annual fund raising appeal. You make a donation and in return get a receipt. This brief encounter speeds your money off somewhere to help someone somehow. Or you might donate regularly to an aid agency that sends out an annual letter about a sponsored child in the third world.

This remote control philanthropy - where your donation helps someone but you're unsure who or how - is set to change according to US author Tom Watson. In his book Cause Wired he argues that Web2.0 technology is arming not for profit organizations with "weapons of mass collaboration" and transforming how people support good causes.

Watson believes that social networking applications like Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin etc are evolving from personal promotion into important fund raising, activist and political tools. And it seems internet users of all generations are welcoming the change. Members of Generation Y find that digitally supporting the issues they believe in is a natural extension of living their lives in public, online. And Baby Boomers are attracted because the new ways of online giving allow them to be personally involved and see results for themselves.

Watson explains how pioneer charities are beginning to use the power of Web 2.0 to gather, sort and distribute information to donors in a way once reserved for only their very wealthiest supporters. kiva.org is probably Cause Wired's best example of online fund raising. This digital not for profit allows small scale donors to use their credit cards and laptops to help struggling entrepreneurs in developing countries. For a $25 upwards you can join with others to loan money to specific individuals in specific countries such as a group of women needing sewing machines for their garment start-up or impoverished taxi drivers urgently after car repairs. Kiva works through established non government organizations (NGOs) and the web to provide the loans, monitor repayments and continually report back to donors through reports and images from the field.

Watson also cites other cases where digital philanthropy is achieving equally impressive results but he tempers his enthusiasm. While a campaign on a social networking site like Facebook may raise awareness of an important environmental, human rights or other issue, the actual fund raising figures for many charities still remain modest.
Cause Wired also explores how Web2.0 can empower political organizations and community movements to connect with citizens and consumers. Perhaps Barack Obama's Presidential election campaign is among the most powerful example of new media technologies helping to win a cause.

While Watson's 236 page book is enthusiastic about the new possibilities it acknowledges its limits. Online causes can get tens of thousands even millions of people talking. But they still need online leaders. Just like the bricks and mortar world committed individuals who can organize, coordinate, administer and generally keep things moving are still at a premium. And transitioning this digital attention to real world results is still the acid test. Once you have raised awareness you still need to motivate people to take out their cheque books and man the barricades.

Cause Wired is a very good, easy to read book.

It is a must for marketers in not for profit and community organizations who want their fund raising efforts to remain competitive in the coming year.

It is a very well written and researched look at how these tools have been are being leveraged for social change in way that is new and will continue have major implications. The book is a cogent analysis of the past, current, and future of online activism and fundraising using social networking tools. It's the perfect book to hand an executive director or board member or Communications VP who may not be as hands on with these tools as we are - and needs to understand the big picture.

Beth Kanter
Beth's Blog
http://beth.typepad.com

CauseWired by Tom Watson describes an ongoing revolution in philanthropy sparked by the Internet's social networks. Sites like Kiva, DonorsChoose, and Change.org allow people to choose the global or local causes that matter most to them, to donate even small sums according to their preferences and passions, and often to see how their efforts benefit those causes.

A fluid and engaging writer, Watson, who knows the entrepreneurs behind these sites, and has participated in charitable and online start-ups from the Web's early years, describes how even Facebook and My Space allow people to add causes to their profile pages, making causes like AIDS/HIV awareness or cancer research part of their "identity." By advocating these causes with badges and inviting their "friends" to join, they raise awareness and passion even if they're not contributing money, because of youth or (temporarily) insufficient means. While major philanthropists like Warren Buffet will always play the biggest roles, a multitude of friends can make a big impact on any number of causes, from stopping genocide in Darfur to promoting women's health to education or cancer research--whatever issue hits closest to one's heart.

Watson also describes "Flash Causes," where millions of people blog, petition, and phone politicians and bureaucracies, such as insurance company Cigna, which denied Nataline Sarkisyan a liver transplant until she died; or Mukhtaran Bibi placed under house arrest by her native Pakistan for speaking out about human rights; and even the victims of hurricane Katrina. Using the Internet's social networks, people can call up virtual storms of outrage. These can, and have, pressed higher powers into action.

In the wake of the online groundswell that helped to elect Barack Obama, this book is timely and inspirational. Causewired is a phenomenon that is still in its infancy, but is already changing the world.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 19 reviews  4.8 out of 5 stars