Crowdsourcing has become common today. Wikipedia is a great example of compiling the world’s information into an online encyclopedia by way of volunteers coming together. So it was probably not too long til crowdfunding came along where people can help fund activities and organizations that need the dollars. One such advocacy-related sourcing site online is Kickstarter which I highly recommend you visit. Visitors can choose projects such as books, mini-films, graphic novels, theatre and art productions to fund. We are talking about small to larger amounts of money but doable one person at a time. Apparently nearly 1,600 projects have been funded by “micropatrons” since July of this year. Today you can help fund a graphic novel called Virtuoso which is set in Africa or an exhibition of local artists who can make paper out of anything, from banana peels to dryer lint. Or you could fund a film, gluten-free ice cream sandwiches or a children’s book. Advocates of all stripes should invest and support the creative process. Spending made worthwhile.
You may remember the June 23, 2010 post by Leslie Gaines-Ross, Civility in America, which included a chart from a Weber Shandwick/Powell Tate/KRC Research study showing that just 37% of Americans consider social networks “civil.” This wasn’t nearly as bad as some other aspects of society, such as government/politics (rated by 20% as civil) or the traffic on our roads and highways (rated by 24% as civil), but we think that civility in social networks is probably better than many Americans give it credit for. A great example of super-civility in social networking is Crowdrise – a site launched by actor Edward Norton and three partners in May which allows people to create pages in support of causes they believe in and gather other advocates for their causes.
The New York Times ran a story about Crowdrise on September 4, 2010 (article here) in which Edward Norton was so “advocately” quoted as saying, “Social networking offers a new way of getting people together to create power in numbers. More than that, it can help users express themselves through the causes they support. One of the things we’re trying to say at Crowdrise is plant a flag. Raise a fist. Declare yourself.”
