Logo by @alliepal

TwestivalSF Returns in 2011 Locally Contributing to Juma Ventures

SAN FRANCISCO – What happens when individuals from all over the world employ the power of social networking for a very good cause? Twestival happens! (Twestival = Twitter + Festival) – 100% volunteer run – 100% of proceeds go to charity.

Twestival local, the biggest fundraising event promoted and fueled by Twitter will happen on March 24, 2010.

TwestivalSF is focused is helping the nonprofit organization, Juma.org

Juma Ventures empowers youth to make successful transitions to independence in adulthood, through an innovative program that integrates employment in social enterprises and essential support services. Juma’s program provides the foundation for youth to fulfill their inherent potential to transcend challenging circumstances and impact their communities.

Over 200 cities around the world will gather in their hometown venues to help create awareness and raise money for the charity of their city.

Special guests include:
• @MilesTheDJ LIVE 105 radio host and DJ in the mix
from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
•Sioux City Kid – San Francisco’s newest hickabilly jazzgrass band
•John Vicino – Songer, songwriter, and talent
•Featuring products from companies such as: EyeFi, PopChips, PretzelCrisps, TruBlood, and more!

Taking place at
Atmosphere and Lounge
447 Broadway Street
San Francisco, CA

Times: 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Tickets are $10
More information: www.sftwestival.com all proceeds go directly to the charity.

Here’s a preview of what you may have missed in previous years, that you won’t want to miss this year!

TwestivalSF Recap – Thanks to @landinimedia

TechSeen 2010

What happens when over 200 cities invite all their Twitter followers to a festival benefiting a charity on one night? Twestival!

San Francisco’s Twestival was put on by a team of 20+ wonderful volunteers, once more. The event took place on March 25 at Horizon Lounge in North Beach, and raised over $9,000 for Concern Worldwide.

Joined by 2 wonderful title sponsors – Bing and Tap11, the night brought in more than the usual suspects!

@annaanisin, @pop17, @webwallflower, @krystyl

@sylviet, @nathanmcgee

@jennicricket - raffle ticket hustler

@briansolis and @chrissaad with winning raffle prize from @throwboy

Tons of raffle prizes!

Over 400 people were in attendance starting at 6 p.m. including raffle drawings every hour on the hour, and 2 great live bands! Sioux City Kid and the Revolutionary Ramblers were the openers, followed by Stroke 9 as the headliner.

*Photos by @eyeficard and @thekenyeung

To see all photos from the recent Twestival San Francisco, check out Flickr!

Today is World Pneumonia Day. Pneumonia is the #1 killer of children under 5, which is sort of scary. Save the Children are taking this opportunity to use social media to help raise awareness.

New Media Strategies and JESS3 have worked together with Save the Children to design and develop a game called Mission Pnuemonia. It educates people about pneumonia, shares real success stories, allows sharing across Facebook and Twitter, and of course, provides opportunities to donate and sign a petition to Congress.

You can take a few minutes out of your day to go play the game, learn a little, and maybe help out a great cause. You can also tweet the information with hashtag #WPD and follow or message @SavetheChildren.

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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.

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.

I’m a sucker for a non-profit. In fact, I’m spending all of today teaching an introductory class on Social Media to a room full of non-profit folks. I know these folks, in general, have very little money, time, and tech skills. That’s why I was so excited to stumble upon Grassroots.org.

Grassroots.org is there to help non-profits with some of the hard stuff. They offer free (yes, free!) services to registered 501(c)3 organizations. The Toolbox includes graphic design, domain name registration, web hosting, a web site builder tool, web design services, SEO consultation, virtual phone services, and an online marketplace, among other items.

The Grassroots web site boasts that they “currently serve 1,959 charitable organizations in the US and Canada and have provided them with a total savings $2,299,044 since 2003.” That’s pretty fantastic.

How do they do it? As far as I can tell, they match up willing volunteers (web designers, graphic designers, SEO consultants, and so on) with a non-profit. Additionally, Grassroots.org is itself a non-profit, so they’ll happily take either your offered talent or cash donation.

It’s too late for me to add this wonderful site to my Social Media for Non-Profits presentation, but you can bet I’m going to tell them about it.

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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.

Creative Commons announced today that Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife, Ann Wojcicki of 23andme, have donated half a million dollars to the non-profit. Creative Commons focuses on expanding and improving copyright and licensing in the digital era. The money will go to help Creative Commons as a whole, but will have a special focus on Science Commons, an initiative that focuses on lifting legal and technical barriers on research. The Creative Commons blog states that

Today’s challenging economic climate has made it difficult for nonprofit organizations like Creative Commons to raise funds, making Wojcicki and Brin’s wonderful gift all the more appreciated. CC is busier than ever – we’re working with artists, scientists, educators, students, programmers, entrepreneurs, companies, universities, governments, and cultural institutions around the world to increase sharing and improve collaboration in ways that benefit all parts of society. As a nonprofit, we simply couldn’t do this work without the generous support of people like Wojcicki and Brin, as well as the other private donors, foundations, and corporations that enable Creative Commons to operate.

This private donation is in addition to the support Creative Commons receives from Google.

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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.

by Brian Solis (via PR 2.0)

Presented by The Society For Geek Advancement, “I AM A GEEK” brings together some of the biggest personalities and celebrities in the online space to proclaim their geek pride. “I AM A GEEK” also urges viewers and the community to “be the geek who keeps on giving”, and for the launch, has partnered with the non-profit Room To Read, building schools and libraries for children in developing countries around the world.

The video features:

Shaquille O’Neal (The Real Shaq), Steve Wozniak (Apple Co-founder), Kevin Pollak (Actor), Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation), LeVar Burton (Reading Rainbow, Star Trek: The Next Generation), Jason Calacanis (Internet Entrepreneur), Samm Levine (Actor), Felicia Day (Creator of The Guild / Actress), Kevin Rose (Co-Founder Digg, Revision3), Alex Albrecht (Co-Host Diggnation), Leo Laporte (Technology Journalist and Broadcaster), IJustine (Internet Celebrity / Lifecaster), David Karpe (Founder of Tumblr), Veronica Belmont (co-host of Revision3′s tech-centric show, Tekzilla,), Sarah Lacy (Sillicon Valley Journalist and Author), Randi Zuckerberg (Marketing Director Facebook), Pete Cashmore (Founder of Mashable), Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com), Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV), Jonathan Coulton (Famed Singer-Song Writer), Kevin Pereira (The Cable Television Darling), Tay Zonday (YouTube celebrity), Julia Allison (Internet Celebrity, Lifecaster), Julia Roy (Blogger), Marina Orlova (HotForWords, YouTube Internet Celebrity), Shira Lazar (On-air personality, blogger), and yours truly.

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