Launched into public beta in Febraury, 2008, SocialVibe has partnered with numerous charitable organizations, including Stand Up To Cancer and actress Holly Robinson Peete and NFL quarterback Rodney Peete's hollyrod4kids initiative which focuses on activism and advocacy surrounding issues affecting children. In addition, SocialVibe has supported causes that include: charity:water, Direct Relief International, Children's Miracle Network, Donors Choose, Invisible Children, One Laptop Per Child, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Surfrider Foundation, and World Wildlife Fund, and others. In total, there are 27 charities that have benefited from this application.

Now, with over $100,000 raised, there's proof that this concept does work and there's really no reason not to sign up unless you just shun advertising in all forms. But when the simple act of adding a widget to your profile page can help saves lives or save our planet, it's hard to find much fault with the app. You can sign up for SocialVibe here.

RFLofSL was a huge success last year, raking in over $100,000 dollars and attracting more than 1,700 participates in the virtual walkathon event. This year RFLofSL is looking to top themselves with their relay today. This year, the fundraising goal is $125,000. RFLofSL is also expecting to attract more than 2,000 participants.

Exceeding Expectations

So far, the event has raised over L$43,408,587 in Linden™ dollar donations, which is the currency used in Second Life. In American dollars, that's over $180,000! They've also raised over $4500 in donations outside of Second Life in the first few hours of starting. There's still more than 20 hours left on the clock and it looks like this event will exceed all expectations.

Get Involved

In the web relay,

The main difference is location. SL residents set up and decorate campsites, and sell small items to help raise Relay money just like at your local relay. However, since this is a virtual environment you may see some teams offering blimp rides, or holding sailboat races inside the park.

Show your support for the Virtual Relay and find out more information on how to get involved at the official Relay for Life in Second Life site.

Help China & Mynmar

Starting today, customers of Verizon Wireless in the U.S. can donate to a charity called "Save the Children," who has mobilized in this time of crisis to provide lifesaving assistance in these two affected regions. Verizon customers can text to the address 4SAVE (47283) with the keyword "quake" to contribute to earthquake relief or the key word "cyclone" to contribute to cyclone relief. They will then receive a reply asking them to confirm their donation of $5.00, which will appear on their next monthly bill.

In China, they're doing the same thing - China Mobile customers can text the number '10699988', and write the amount they would like to donate (from 1RMB to 30RMB) in the body of the text. The money will is deducted from either their phone bill or prepaid card.

Text to Give

PayPal has had a section of their web site devoted to charities that you can donate via text. Currently, the charities you can donate to this way include Amnesty International, UNICEF, and Starbright.

Anytime you see an ad that says "Text To Give," it's simply a matter of texting the code to the number provided. PayPal calls you back to confirm your donation and then you'll receive your receipt by email.

To use PayPal mobile, you must first activate your phone. Then, select one of these current codes:

• Text AMNESTY to 78787 to donate $10.00 to Amnesty International
• Text WATER to 78787 to donate $10.00 to UNICEF's program to help supply those in need with clean drinking water.
• For the Starlight Starbright foundation, you can donate one of three different amounts to help seriously ill children: Donate $5: Text 5 to 78787
  Donate $15: Text 15 to 78787
  Donate $30: Text 30 to 78787

Of course, once your phone is registered, you can send money to anyone via PayPal's SMS commands.

Mobile Giving/Social Giving

There's also a new site that's involved in allowing people to donate to charities via text. The site is called mGive, and here, non-profits can register themselves and the keyword they want in order to receive a short code for mobile donations. The texters pay the donation amount on their mobile bill and mGive collects that from the cell companies and distributes it back to the non-profit.

One of mGive's current campaigns involves Alicia Keys' efforts with the Keep a Child Alive Foundation, which is a response to the AIDS pandemic in Africa. U.S. users can text "ALIVE" to "90999" to donate $5 towards this cause. This service works on AT&T, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

mGive

mGive works with a group called the Mobile Giving Foundation, a newly launched effort with a large amount of support from Qualcomm. The Mobile Giving Foundation was set up to help move the money from the cell phone carriers to the charities. This organization is currently working with over 20 large charities, like Keep a Child Alive (mentioned above), and more. Since the foundation has just launched, there are only a limited number of campaigns running, but its current roster that includes ASPCA (text Give to 27722), Alicia Keys Keep a Child Alive Campaign (text ALIVE to 90999), and FIT to UNITED (864833). In the future, there will be campaigns with PBS, IFAW, and others.

More Soon

Mobile Giving is certainly a growing trend meant to capitalize on the ubiquity of cell phones and their heavy use by members of the younger generation. We'll definitely start seeing more of these "text to give" campaigns in the future, but it seems that, today, only Verizon seems to offer a campaign for China and Myanmar aid, which is disappointing.

A rise in mobile giving will also give rise to mobile charity scammers - in fact, it already has, both in China and in the U.S., so be on guard against unsolicated SMS text messages asking for donations.

Do you know of any good text-to-give campaigns? Let us know in the comments.

But, Microsoft has found some success with this type of program in the past. We reported on their i'm initiative last September, which pays charities when people use Windows Live Messenger. At the time, i'm had raised just $92,000 but Microsoft was touting new user acquisition percentage gains for Windows Live Messenger that were double the average of its three main competitors (AOL IM, Yahoo! IM, and Google GTalk).

Despite its slow start, at the end of April this year Microsoft donated $1.3 million to the i'm charities for the first year of charitable instant messaging. (Of course, each of the 10 charities participating had a $100,000 guarantee, from Microsoft -- so it is unclear how much of the total was raised by instant messenger usage -- it's possible all of it was, and it's also possible that just a small portion was.) A month ago, Microsoft added Windows Live Mail to the US-only i'm initiative, and another $200,000 has already been raised. Search and Give is also US-only right now.

Regardless of how much was or wasn't raised for charity directly by i'm, the user growth rates of 4-6% per month that Microsoft was experiencing on Live Messenger last year would certainly be welcome for Live search. It's a little odd that Microsoft's Search and Give isn't just part of i'm -- a program that already has a lot of brand recognition and has already proven successful. But then, Microsoft is known for brand confusion.

The bottom line here is that even though Americans are known for their charitable donations, it seems like a longshot that it will make much of a dent in Google's market share. That said, as we concluded about i'm last fall, the cost to charities is zero, the cost to users is zero, and the benefit to everyone involved is major, so in our opinion Search and Give is a great idea.

When giving online, you have to be careful that the charity you're giving to is reputable. With so many charities springing up it can be difficult to know which are legit. Fortunately, the Internet offers some great resources for determining how reputable a charity is. These are some of the best.

• GuideStar - Information on over 1.7 million not-for-profit organizations. Also offers for-pay premium services for researchers.
• Charity Navigator - Uses a four-star rating system to assess the financial health and responsibility of over 5,000 American charities.
• Give.org - The charity rating arm of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
• CharityWatch.org - Non-profit organization ratings from the American Institute of Philanthropy.

Social Networks

Seems like everyone has a social network these days. And yes, there are even niche social networks for do-gooders out there. Below are some of the most prominent.

• Network for Good - Network for Good isn't so much a social network than it is a charity aggregator. They make it easier to donate to a large number of groups and keep an online record of your charitable giving. Since launching in 2001, they've helped people give over $160 million to charitable causes. Plus, they power some nifty widgets, such as those used by Yahoo! For Good or Kevin Bacon's Six Degrees, that facilitate giving in a distributed manner across the long tail of the web.
• Change.org - We were impressed when we reviewed Change.org in February 2007, and the site appears to be doing quite well (i.e., the 60 people who wanted to stop global warming last February is now a few thousand). Change.org is a social network in which people are encouraged to organize with one another around social issues to effect positive change and fundraise.
• Care2 - With over 8.2 million members, Care2 might be the largest charity-focused social network. Users (and non-profits) are encouraged to create groups on the site to organize around socially progressive causes.
• Facebook Causes - Okay, this one isn't a social network, but rather an application on one of the largest social networks in the world. Founded by serial entrepreneur and investor Sean Parker (co-founder of Napster, Plaxo, and Facebook), and Joseph Green, Causes is the first project from venture-backed Project Agape. It allows users of Facebook to turn their profiles into charitable giving hubs and solicit their friends for donations to causes they support.

Click to Give

You don't actually have to pony up cash to give to charity. There are a growing number of sites on the web that raise money for charity by selling advertising.

• The Hunger Site - Founded June 1, 1999, The Hunger Site might be the most famous click to give site, and the results bear out their popularity -- in 2007, visitors viewed enough ads to purchase 49,612,616 cups of food -- the third higest total in the site's history. The Hunger Site also operates sister click to give sites that benefit the fight against breast cancer, the rain forest, children's health, literacy, and animal rescue. Progressive social network Care2 operates their own click to give campaigns that are also worth checking out.
• FreeRice - When we reviewed FreeRice, a word game that promises to donate rice to starving people, in November we were skeptical of its legitimacy. But it turns out the site was founded by John Breen -- who also founded The Hunger Site -- and works directly with the UN's World Food Programme. Since launching on October 7, 2007, FreeRice has donated over 12 billion grains of rice (or, by our math, somewhere in the vicinity of 400,000 pounds).
• Charity Search Engines - Our network blog, AltSearchEngines, put together a great list in September of 10 altruistic search engines that donate to charity with every search. Many of them use top mainstream search engines (like Google or Ask) to power their results, so you don't have to worry about adjusting to a different quality of search results when you use them.
• Changing the Present Facebook Gifts - Changing the Present, a 501c3 non-profit organization that matches people with gift donations, has an application on Facebook that lets users give "meaningful gifts" that contribute $1 each to a progressive cause. We reviewed the app in full this past October.

Other Ways to Give

• FirstGiving - Have a web site or blog of your own? Consider using it as a vehicle for raising money for your favorite charity. Massachusetts-based FirstGiving makes it super easy to do, and as we noted in September, they've already helped over 100,000 people raise $50 million for non-profit organizations.
• Kiva.org - On November 23rd, 2007, Kiva.org crossed the $15 million mark in terms of microfinance loans given out to entrepreneurs in developing nations. That's an amazing number considering that they were at just $11 million in loans when we profiled the site in September. Also consider financing a loan through MicroPlace, a similar microloan site run by eBay, which we wrote up last October.
• DonorsChoose.org - At DonorsChoose.org, teachers with great ideas to help students learn but short on the funds to make it happen post proposals describing their idea and how much they need. Visitors can then choose to help fund the projects that interest them. It's a great idea and rewarding for donors because students are encouraged to reciprocate with personal thank you notes.
• GiveMeaning - This site is similar to DonorsChoose.org, but not restricted to public school education. At GiveMeaning, anyone can submit a proposal to create a fundraising page for their progressive initiative. Users then decide which initiatives they want to donate to.
• BiddingForGood.com - Not everything altruistic has to leave you empty handed. BiddingForGood.com is an online auction site where the proceeds from each item up for bid benefit a charitable cause. There are over 900 items up for bid today.
• GOOD Magazine - GOOD Magazine is true to its name. This socially progressive periodical donates 100% of the $20 annual subscription fee to charity, instead choosing to make money only from the advertising it sells. You get to choose exactly where your money goes from among 12 pre-selected charities. So far the magazine has raised over $522,000 (half way to its million dollar goal), and as a subscriber, I can personally attest to the magazine actually being quite good (no pun intended). You'll like it if you enjoy magazines like Mental Floss or Mother Jones.
• (RED) - Bono's (RED) campaign, which marries charity and consumerism, isn't strictly an Internet-based affair, but it has such a strong web presence we're including it on this list. The way it works is simple: companies make special edition versions of products you might already buy (such as Apple's iPod) and then a portion of the sales from those products benefits The Global Fund, which helps women and children with HIV/AIDS in Africa. However, we also like the parody, BUY (LESS) CRAP, which argues that buying more things is not the answer and encourages people to instead donate directly to a number of worthy charities.

Image credit: Mindful One

Many people argue that the social web is actually destroying offline relationships and that relationships built through online social networking sites are nothing more than "superficial acquaintances." For brothers Hank and John, however, Brotherhood 2.0 has not only strengthened their bond but it has also allowed them to affect the lives of thousands of other less fortunate people through their "Nerdfighter Power Project for Awesome."

We have more to talk about, we know more about eachother. We laugh about our past and share current successes. It's a very unique online relationship, but it's been a very powerful and exciting one.

Opening YouTube's Most Discussed Videos page today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the "secret project" had taken over not only the top 5 spots for the most discussed videos, but as I scrolled through the subsequent 5 pages, the project had effectively taken over most of YouTube.

To help shed some light on the project and how the Nerdfighters took over the 4th most popular destination on the web and the number one site for video hosting and sharing, I had a chat with Hank, one of the orchestrators of the coup.

Hank, could you begin by telling us more about the Nerdfighter Power Project for Awesome?

The Nerdfighter Power Project for Awesome was an attempt to take over the most discussed page of YouTube with videos that all had the same thumbnail image. Each of the videos promotes a different, worthy charity. It worked.

Before I ask you how you pulled this off, can you tell us which charities were promoted as a result of this?

There were more than 400 videos posted, but several people focused on humanitarian organizations in Darfur, UNICEF, Autism Speaks, The Humane Society, Toys for Tots, World Wildlife Fund, I'm proud to say that it's a very long list.

So, how'd you guys pull off this crazy stunt?

The project itself was the result of one crazy idea and a lot of planning. John said to me one day, "Wouldn't it be cool if the thumbnail for every video on the most discussed page of YouTube was the same image," and I agreed that that would, indeed, be cool. The most discussed page is one of the central ways for finding what's happening on YT, and PopURLs pulls from it for it's YouTube section. So, after a lot of discussion with people who are really involved in the YouTube community, and who know how this kind of thing works, we came up with a plan.

We messaged a bunch of high-profile YouTubers that we know (people who's videos regularly get more than 1M views per week), and we asked them if they wanted to be involved in a project that was designed to reduce "world suck" and we got a lot of interested replies. So we then took the idea to our audience and asked folks to sign up for a mailing list if they wanted to be involved in a "secret project." About 4,000 people signed up in the first week. We then designed a thumbnail graphic (thanks to FallofAutumnDistro for that) and distributed it to the top YouTubers and to our fans and asked everyone to spotlight a charity that they believe in because, y'know, it's Christmas, and one of the central themes of Brotherhood 2.0 has always been "reducing world suck." We asked everyone to upload their video exactly at 12 noon EST, and they did, even in Australia, where it was like 4 am!

Then we sent out messages to those 4,000 nerdfighters asking them to comment, rate and favorite the videos that were exceptional. And, in less than 24 hours we'd taken over the whole page.

That's great, because it's all for many good causes. I know it's a little early to tell, but if you can tell us, what effect has this project had on Brotherhood 2.0, and how successful do you think it is (or will be) in spreading awareness about and actually leading to results for the charities that the videos promote?

As far as Brotherhood 2.0 is concerned, our YouTube subscribers have gone from 11,000 to 12,000, which is a big jump for one day. Furthermore, the video that we made is now our second most viewed video ever with 90,000 views. As for the charities, I've received several messages from people saying that they have given to charities profiled. But I imagine I'm not getting an email from every single person who donates. There's no reporting mechanism, but anecdotal evidence is promising.

There you have it. It's Christmas time and the Nerdfighters are doing their part to help the less fortunate. Join the Nerdfighters at Brotherhood 2.0 and spread the love.