A Birthday Wish And The Power of Social Capital

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-01-11 07:30:00 UTC
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When I saw a tweet from Epic Change founder Stacey Monk asking me to help celebrate the nonprofit social media guru Beth Kanter's birthday today, I couldn't sign up fast enough.

Beth is one of the best known and most important voices in the nonprofit blogosphere. For years, she has been researching, consulting and writing about how social change organizations can make better use of the new digital architecture to more deeply engage with stakeholders of all types.

For her birthday this year, she took advantage of one of the more successful new tools - Causes' Birthday application on Facebook. The application gives anyone the chance to make a "birthday wish" for their friends to donate to any of millions of organizations connected through Causes.

Writing a post explaining her request, Beth asked her friends and readers to donate to The Sharing Foundation, a youth and education focused nonprofit helping students succeed in Cambodia. It is an organization, a cause, and a place that Beth cares deeply about, and it's pretty amazing how easy the new world of social tools - her blog, her social graph on Facebook, and the Causes application - make it for her to share that passion.

I just made a donation, and I hope you'll consider it, as well.

But something else about this story caught my attention. Beth is a leader in the field not just because of her sage advice but because of the deep relationships she has built with friends and professional contacts over the years.

A group of those friends, without Beth knowing or asking, decided that Beth's goal of $530 for the Foundation was not only within reach, but that her blogger friends could help her smash that goal if they all got together. They reached out to dozens of fellow change bloggers and as of my writing this, 48 had signed up to blog out a post.

That's social capital at its finest. Beth may have gotten the ball rolling by asking people to donate, but the power of this story is that she didn't have to ask for more. She has contributed so much that people didn't bat an eye at the chance to help spread the message.

Give way more. That's the secret.

Happy Birthday Beth!

Donate for Beth's Birthday Wish.

(Photo courtesy Beth Kanter)

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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