By Sarah Townsend

Are you ready for Halloween yet? We sure are, and this year, it’s time to take the focus away from cavity-creating candy and onto doing good around the world. Today, SocialVibe launched a new program called Click 4 Good, a virtual neighborhood of haunted houses where you can go trick or treating to benefit charity.

- Stand Up 2 Cancer: Aims to urgently move cancer research forward by advancing technology available to scientists and clinicians.
- charity: water: Provides clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
- The Surfrider Foundation: Dedicated to protecting and preserving our world’s oceans, waves and beaches.
- Keep a Child Alive: Provides life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, care and support to children and families whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.

Each visit yields a specific impact, such as 18 gallons of water for people in need through charity: water or 1 hour of HIV/AIDS treatment for a child through KCA. After you earn your impact, you’ll have the opportunity to share it on Twitter or Facebook, encouraging your friends to do the same. Each time that friend goes trick or treating, the impact grows. This has amazing potential to create enormous positive social impact around the world.

Take advantage of your time online and get some trick or treating practice in a little early this year by visiting SocialVibe’s haunted house neighborhood at socialvibe.com/click4good.

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Sarah Townsend
E-mail: theoneinpink[at]gmail[dot]com
Twitter: theoneinpink
Blogs: theoneinpink, The Vibe

3Banana has selected five charities to share in $10,000 in its Share to Win contest. Over 50 non-profits were nominated to the challenge.
Each cause created a note on 3banana describing why people should care about their mission and then shared a link to their note through Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and email. 3banana selected the winners based on the number of unique users who wrote an online comment endorsing the cause.

The winning charities are

• The SENS Foundation Grand prize: $5,000 – Develops and promotes widespread access to regenerative medicine solutions to the disabilities and diseases of aging.
• Los Angeles Habilitation House Second Prize: $2,000 – Helps create and maintain jobs for persons with disabilities and veterans with PTSD or traumatic brain injury.
• Disaster Accountability Project Third Prize, Environment: $1,000 – Improves disaster management systems through public accountability, citizen oversight and empowerment, whistle-blower engagement, and policy research and advocacy.
• Art in All of Us Third Prize, Education: $1,000 – Promotes tolerance and cultural exchanges by creative and art activities in schools around the world.
• Institute of HeartMath Third Prize, Health: $1,000 – Researches stress, emotional physiology, and the heart-brain interaction to improve health, well being and quality of life.

“We are very honored to accept this prize. This contest has really opened our eyes to the possibilities of furthering our cause using social networks,” said Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer for the SENS Foundation. “Thousands of our supporters shared their words of encouragement for our mission, and this effort has created more dialog between our organization and our supporters.”

As someone who teaches social media to non-profits on a regular basis, I’m pretty happy that 3 Banana so easily taught non-profits about new ways to distribute their message and increase awareness. More detailed information on all of the participating non-profits can be found at on the 3 Banana Results page.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

3Banana is donating money to five non-profits who can share a mission that resonates online. It’s easy to spread the word.

Go over to 3Banana and quickly create a note. From there, you can easily spread the word using Twitter, Facebook, and traditional linking.  At the end of September, five winners will be announced: a $5,000 Grand Prize, a $2,000 Runner Up, and three Honorable Mentions of $1,000 each. The Honorable Mentions will include one cause from each category: Health, Education, and Environment. The causes that spread the most — as measured by online comments — can win donations from 3banana.

Entering Share to Win is easy. Just follow these three simple steps:

• Create a free Notebook on 3banana. You can sign up with any valid email address. If you have a Gmail account, Google does the authentication for us and you don’t even need a password!
• Compose a note that answers the question: “Why should people care about our cause?” Be sure to include the organization’s name and the tag #sharetowin on the first line. Your note then will be assigned a secret web address.

3Banana is a pretty nifty and easy to use note-taking tool. You can create an account or, if you already have a Google account of some sort, use your Google credentials. You can create simple notes by typing in the dialog box or fancy up your text by adding HTML and images. You can organize and sort your notes by using hash tags. Your notes can then be shared to Twitter and Facebook. 3Banana is available online and from an application available for Android and iPhone.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

Have you noticed that the people in your Twitter stream seem to be turning green?

It’s not with envy and it’s not eco-conscious. Green is a new meme that shows support for those in Iran, speaking out against the election results. If you look at the trending topics, #IranElection has been hanging out at the top for several days.

I saw someone tweet that turning your avatar green isn’t really going to help anyone or anything, but I respectfully disagree. It’s a small way to help show solidarity with those who are speaking out. It’s good to know you’re not alone.

The Green meme was most likely started by Arik Fraimovich, a “friendly web-geek” in Israel. His HelpIranElection page has several ways you can go green with your avatar.  Many people are also taking their blogs or Facebook photos green as well.

Alternatives to going green? I added a green ribbon to one of my images using Photoshop, and you can also download Show Support avatars. You can show your support in other ways, by following these tips on BoingBoing.

How to Go Green:

Quick One-Click Go Green App from Arik (automatically adds a green tint)

Green Support Avatars

Green Ribbon (I used Photoshop to add the ribbon)

Use Picnik.com to add a “Night Vision” effect to an image

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More information at http://www.rainbowgoode.com

by Michelle Lentz

You can donate your tweets. Or rather, tweet for a cause?

CARE, a global humanitarian organization that aims to fight poverty and empower marginalized women and girls in the world’s poorest countries, is sponsoring a Tweet-a-thon from March 2 – 5.  Twitter users who donate their tweet on those days will secure a 10-cent donation from NCM Fathom for up to 50,000 tweets in support of CARE. The Tweet-a-thon will help promote International Women’s Day and spread the word about the acclaimed Sheila C. Johnson documentary A Powerful Noise Live,  to be broadcast in 450 movie theatres nationwide on March 5.

“NCM Fathom is proud to support CARE with this first-ever Tweet-a-thon,” said Dan Diamond, vice president of NCM Fathom. “We’re excited to bring Twitter users the opportunity to raise funds for CARE simply by Tweeting a specific phrase with no personal donation required. We hope Twitter users actively participate during this campaign to help support girls and women around the world.”

Each donated tweet must include the hash tag #apowerfulnoise to generate the donation. Twitter users are encouraged to craft their own Tweet or use one of the following examples:

• “I support empowerment of women worldwide with this tweet. Each tweet raises 10 cents for CARE. #apowerfulnoise http://shortn.it/tweet-a-thon”
• “First time you can raise money for worthy cause by sending a tweet. Help CARE support women globally: #apowerfulnoise. http://shortn.it/tweet-a-thon“

You can also “donate” your avatar and replace it with an image of the red female sign, available on the Tweet-a-thon web site.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel, Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

Nominee for City Beat’s Best of the City: Vote for My Wine Education under Public Eye > Blog:
http://www.bestofcincinnati.com/

by Michelle Lentz

I run a charity that’s extremely close to my heart. So whenever I hear of another charity doing something like this, I try to promote it. When Brian sent this to my inbox today, I was thrilled.

GasPedal is presenting the BlogWell conference on October 28 in San Jose. This particular 1-day event really dovetails with what I’m doing here in Cincinnati, so I’m interested. However, I’ll be on a plane on my way home from San Francisco on October 28. Timing is everything. In town? I encourage you to go. There will be several case studies presented on how large companies are using, successfully I would assume, social media.

But that’s not actually the really cool part. The cool part is that they are auctioning off several tickets to BlogWell on eBay. They want to raise a lot (A Lot!!) of money for a good cause and are encouraging folks to bid. Not into bidding big? Just buy a standard $200 ticket. But if you can, go ahead and go and bid big to help out various good causes. Here’s the auction / charity schedule:

100% of the proceeds goes to charity, which I find awesome. Want to know more? Check out the Blogwell charity site.

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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology. You can also catch Michelle presenting on Twitter at the upcoming DevLearn ’08 in San Jose.