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Social media service turns Boston-area bad news into good deeds.
Boston.com, an online news source for Boston’s greater metropolitan area, recently announced a partnership with good2gether, a social media web service that connects people to causes and nonprofit organizations. Through this partnership, good2gether will power Boston.com’s Do Good™ channel, a central location for people to get connected to a wide array of causes and community-service organizations throughout the region. Users can search by the type of cause of concern to them, as well as the different ways that they could become involved: volunteer, make an in-kind donation; attend an event, etc. They can also look for organizations or events within a certain geography, whether that’s close to home or work. Search results are accompanied by maps. Social tools, such as the ability to email search results to a friend or share on social networking and book marking sites like Facebook and del.icio.us, are embedded within each listing.
“We see Boston.com’s Do Good™ channel, as a wonderful resource for area nonprofits to reach out to an audience of more than 4 million visitors,” said Leah Bailey, Executive Director of the Boston Globe Foundation. “The support that Do Good™ lends to local service organizations is very much in keeping with The Boston Globe’s commitment to strengthening to our community.”
“Introducing the Do Good™ channel should make the connection between Boston.com and our visitors even stronger,” added Bob Kempf, vice president of product at Boston.com. “The section adds a new dimension of high personal value to the Boston.com user experience.”
Boston Globe Media will be promoting the Do Good™ channel through numerous print and online relationships including The Boston Globe, Boston.com, The Boston Metro, Lola, NYTimes.com, and About.com, as well as at special events. Local nonprofits are encouraged to add and update their information to the Do Good™ channel at no cost; so far nearly 700 organizations have done so, with more contributing their local events, volunteer opportunities, and more, daily.
“We’re based in Boston as well, so good2gether is especially thrilled to help Boston.com become the Do Good™ anchor of New England,” said good2gether founder and CEO, Greg McHale. ”What better place for people to discover, engage with and share the causes they care about than on the very Web site they go to every day for news – where that impulse to do good is most likely to strike.”
good2gether seeks to change how Americans identify and interface with nonprofit organizations by launching Do Good™ channels on high-traffic Web sites like those of major news outlets, colleges and universities, and established social networks. Boston.com is good2gether’s inaugural media launch partner in what will be a six month national rollout plan across top markets.
We checked a couple stories on Boston.com’s main page to see if they’d prompt the good2gether module and make the connection from news to doing good. We tried “Feds: 27 levees overflow if sandbags fail” expecting to see some way to support relief efforts and “Honda rolls out new zero-emission car” expecting to see a global warming charity. Neither happened. We’ve seen this work in principle through the company’s presentation, and it’s quite promising. Right now, though, it seems you have to go to the bottom of the main page to find the “Do Something Good” section. This takes you to the dedicated area, which is hosted by good2gether (www.dogood.boston.com). From here, you can select categories such as “environment” and be taken to a page of green-themed charities, both local and national.
If you were to select Conscious Consuming, a MA-based charity that “seeks to increase awareness of the impact of buying decisions on our health, happiness, and environment,” it takes you to CC’s dedicated page, which is also hosted by good2gether. Here, there are a number of tools charities can use to engage with donors. The platform is free for charities to sign up and use.
2 responses so far ↓
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2 Green Blogs, New Media, and Social Change | Max Gladwell // Aug 1, 2008 at 10:01 am
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