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August 21, 2007

Young People Raise Funds Via Social-Networking Sites

Social-networking Web sites are growing in popularity as a way for young people to raise donations for their favorite charities — and as a way for those charities to reach out to a new generation of philanthropists, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper discusses several Web sites, such as DonorsChoose.org, Change.org, and SixDegrees.org, that link donors to one another or to charities, an approach that is attractive to young people who have lots of online friends but not much money.

“When you’re young and starting out, it’s very difficult to take this meager paycheck you have and donate part of it to something else,” says Samantha Millman, 26, who works for a real-estate investment firm. She created a donation-collecting “charity badge” on SixDegrees.org that she could send by e-mail to friends.

“I basically blasted everyone I knew,” she says, adding that the badge raised more than $15,000 from 406 donors. “I was not only surprised by the dollar amount, but to have 400 people somehow hearing about this through word of mouth was phenomenal.”

Read more about online fund-raising efforts in The Chronicle.

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