Two things things that I really love are social media and helping out charitable causes. I spend a good portion of my day using services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. I also work to contribute some of my spare time to volunteering at homeless shelters, baking goods for the needy, and donating to causes I believe in. In an effort to combine both of these passions I was looking for a way to support the growth of social media and do some good at the same time. This lead me to design the Tweet 4 Kiva campaign.
The power of social media is amazing for helping out organizations in need. So much so that a new term has even been coined specifically for it: social good. There are new blogs that are specifically built around the idea of social good, such as WhatGives!?. They do an excellent job of promoting a variety of different causes across the social web and bring into light the issues of many people in need. In my effort I want to put my support behind two groups for which I would like to see continued growth and that benefit society. Those are Twitter and Kiva.
Hopefully by now you are familiar with Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site. While most people have heard of Twitter and the site boasts millions of users, it has not achieved mass adoption status (as say, Facebook). I would like to help get it there by encouraging people to join and use the service, while also supporting a good cause.
Kiva is a micro-lending site (apparently I have a thing for things done on the micro level) that allows global person to person lending. An individual is able to give a small loan, which is then combined with the small loans of others, to an entrepreneur’s initiative in a developing country. During the course of approximately six to twelve months the loan is repaid. At that point you may either invest in another person or have the money deposited into your PayPal account. The process is described by the graphic below:
How the Tweet 4 Kiva campaign works
I am encouraging people who are currently not on Twitter to sign up. Once registered, they will tweet (as one of their first tweets):
I jointed Twitter so that I can #tweet4kiva!
While the wording is not necessarily important, what is is the inclusion of the hash tag #tweet4kiva. This is how I will keep track of it all. For every new signup who sends out that tweet I will donate $.25 to Kiva up to $50 (hey, I’m on a limited budget here, but it’s a start). After the initial loan is repaid I will continue to reinvest the money with other individuals on Kiva. At no point will I look to get the money back. It will only be used toward improving people’s independence and their economic sustainability. I also hope that other organizations will join in to help match my contribution in order to really get this to grow. Together we could add a lot of members to Twitter while helping raise money for Kiva! So, what are you waiting for!? Pass this link around, get people to join, and get them tweeting!
