Making the site

You can search for projects on this new meta-website:

http://mashup.socialactions.com

More information on that project over here:
http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/mashup-social-actions

I am, along with many others, working with Peter from SocialActions to try to improve this tool to make it easier for people to search through the social sites like Helpalot.org.

After 52 people have taken the survey, let’s take a look at the results.

People who like the concept will probably be more likely to fill in the survey, but I think still it is an encouraging result to have over half of the survey takers saying the concept is great.

Other:

• I think it is challenging for individuals who work in charities to create a profile about which charities they like without seeming biased.
• I’d want to be able to donate money straight from the website, with the click of a button.
• I would like to build group/s to support certain charities or their projects
• I would use it to teach at the college level.
• Would be great to be able to link to a page which has all the charities related to a particular category and thus promote specific causes, also to show categories for particular or all regions — e.g. countries and towns.
• I would like to see charity vetting by various third-party agencies.

Most people would like to use the site to search for charities. The start page will be mostly a search engine and explanations on what Helpalot is.

Specific attention some remarks:

• I would like to build group/s to support certain charities or their projects

We now changed the concept so people can support projects, thereby indirectly also supporting the charities that own the project.

• I’d want to be able to donate money straight from the website, with the click of a button.

We are researching this, but it will not be in the first version.

Other:

• On return on investment - some sort of measurable input / output parameter. Perhaps this relates to effectiveness and efficiency.
• relevance of the social change
• The more search categories the better, definitely — has to be easy to use and well presented though!
• What’s the difference between tags and topics?
• I dont want to search, but i want the that the ones i like contact me (but only the ones i like)
• On when the organization was founded. For a lot of people it’s important to know how long a charity organzation exists. Especially in these days, when financing is quite easier to get and where charities stand up for each little stupid thing, like a charity for traumatised stickers that lost their glue. On what the ‘Consumentenbond’ or other ‘reliable’ institutions find of the charity organization. Maybe some kind of ‘charity-checking-group’ already exists somewhere. They could join aswell as other institutions that differs per country. As long as all is done safe and without commercial intentions. On ‘keurmerk’. (Extension from above) ‘Keurmerken’ are good, especially when they’re visualized in a simple way (like the icons for movies, you’ve seen them!). This really works for the ‘visual people’ in this world. Make sure that the ‘keurmerk’ comes out of the results from the consumentenbond and the other institutions i mentioned above.
• What they do - specific activities. Also attributes (religious? age-based? etc)
• walking on the street,
• By UK charity commision number.

Most people would like to search on words. So the basic search field is just an input field. With a ‘more search options’ button to view a more search criteria. These other criteria will include category, home location, mission location, evaluations.

Interesting is that ‘quality judged by your personal network’ gets 44,9 %. It’s not something we will be able to do in the first version, but this survey indicates it is really something worth going after.

Specific attention some remarks:

• What’s the difference between tags and topics?

I changed the wording of these options half way down the survey. This may have altered the results.

• On when the organization was founded. … … the other institutions I mentioned above.

Too much for this blog to respond to, but most of what was asked for will be on Helpalot. If not in the first version, it will in a later version.

Other:

• I would actively encourage friends to join once I have a personal experience of the value of the site.
• see my answer above
• i’d like to choose wich of my supported charities my friends can and can not see.

The results for this questions give some insight on the likelihood that Helpalot will be able to grow by itself.

Specific attention some remarks:

• I’d like to choose wich of my supported charities my friends can and can not see.

This will not be possible. The whole idea is to make it easy for people to find charities by using the trust of personal relations. Personally, I don’t think you have to be ashamed to support a charity. For other type of information like your address, there will be privacy settings.

Other:

• A quality standard - sign of approval - or other form of certification by a trusted body or friends I know would be useful
• Where is Charity without Trust? Charity is like the water, Trust is the canal.
• The world is difficult for charities to effectively fund. Only the UN, IMF, World Bank, and Bretton Woods organizations are suitable for such an undertaking, however for grassroots projects this would be a valuable site. Too many cents to the dollar are lost in international aid. A portion of the website encouraging users to pressure the US into committing to the Millenium Development Goals of providing .7 % of GDP to int’l aid would be super sweeto.
• I trust that the charities are making their effort and can be better if all are joined together.
• I trust that most charities are doing the best that they can!
• Charities need more help! Especially since there are scams eating up our money while legit ones barely survive.

It may be obvious, but these figures also indicate people would like to do some research before supporting a charity. Interesting is that when I speak to people a lot of them say they give money to a charity because someone approached them on the street.

In these moments people do not really have time to do research and might feel somewhat pressured to decide on the spot whether to support or not. It may be interesting to research the possibilities of making a simple mobile phone version of Helpalot, based on the same data, to make it easier for people to judge a charity ‘on the spot’.

Specific attention some remarks:

• The world is difficult for charities to effectively fund. … … of GDP to int’l aid would be super sweeto.

You can use your personal page to try to set up some sort of movement, but Helpalot itself should have no political opinion. It is up to the people using the site to decide that based on the content by other users.

Other:

• Would like to support charities but I don’t have any money.
• With a potential to get more involved.
• You miss spelled you.
• Support charities when it’s convenient to me. Dropping a check in the mail is too much work. Finding a small charity that suits me is too much research.
• cynical but interested.. but i don’t like the way most charities act
• As a matter of fact, I was about to start working on a project very similar to this one!
• also want to change the world
• actively supporting a project for net4kids.nl
• I am the manager of an Educational Non Profit school in Japan for ’school refusal’ kids
• Activist and participant in charity projects

People where less cynical than I expected them to be. But maybe the cynical people are less likely to take the survey.

Specific attention some remarks:

• Would like to support charities but I don’t have any money.

On Helpalot, you can show your support without the cost of money.

• You miss spelled you.

Oops..

8. How old are you?

The average age of the survey taker was 30 years. The youngest 16, the oldest 54.

9. What are other relevant questions in relation to making Helpalot a success in you opinion? Or is there any other feedback you’d like to give?

Out of 23 remarks, here are some:

• It would be nice to have a network of people to search to find out really useful and positive ways to give of my time and/or my money. I hope this gets big enough to get to the local (ie metro area) level. It’s a good idea. I will prolly sign up and add, if I can.

• I believe http://www.guidestar.org lists all charities 501(c)3 including a breakdown of legal information regarding board members, funds raised, and distributions. For ratings, there are other websites which evaluate the way funds are spent whether on administration or actual assistance to the needy. I even think there is already another site (it’s been a few months, and I’ve been so overwhelmed with my own charity I’ve forgotten the names–sorry) where you can register your own ID, tell friends about it, and they can see who is supporting which charities and why. In other words, I’m not seeing how this is new. Sorry.

Helpalot is different in the way that it has user generated content, there are no ‘premium’ products like on Guidestar where you have to pay for. There are many more differences.

• How are you going to regulate feedback? ebay works because it’s transactional… there are a lot of people with agendas that would like to hurt some charities because of ideology or for other reasons.

There are two types of regulation/moderation. The first being the removing of illegal content by our moderators. People can inform Helpalot of bad behaviour (racism, etc) and we can make the appropriate actions.

On the other hand you can only contribute if you have a personal account, there is always a name next to the content making it easy to see who is responsible for what. This encourages social control.

Like Wikipedia, we want to keep it as open as possible. There will be some ‘bad’ content that might be able to last for a while before being spotted, but that’s the offer we need to make to include the small charities. It is not possible to include all (small) charities using a centralized approach.

• I think this is an amazing idea, really looking forward to the implementation. Let me know if you need or would like a hand.

Thanks for the support. We can always use help. I made a list on how you can help.

• I think its a great way of making use of social networking to help charities, even i might be swayed to look more into charities

• I think you need to think about how to appeal to people: What is the added value of your service? How do people benefit from joining. How is this service going to be any better or easier for users than the charities themselves joining hyves or myspace? What will drive people to come back? How will charities benefit from the social networking format? How will you take care of donations? One of the main things for me is ease of use. I don’t want to spend time browsing charities. I want relevant charities to ‘be on my desktop’ (in a newsreader or calendar or similar) or maybe even as simple as in my inbox or on my phone.

..a lot of questions:

1. What is the added value of your service? How do people benefit from joining.

Being able to find information on smaller charities, being an international portal for charities that stimulates transparency, being able to easier spot frauds, being able to find other people who support the same type of charities. More details in ‘the master plan‘.

2. How is this service going to be any better or easier for users than the charities themselves joining hyves or myspace?

Focus. MySpace is hardly a search-engine for charities.

3. What will drive people to come back?

Updated content by the users. Seeing the progress of the projects you helped made possible. Communicating with your friends you met on Helpalot. Viewing and responding the feedback on your charity efforts. Finding new charity projects to support.

4. How will charities benefit from the social networking format?

Feedback. A platform to gain more support. Get in contact and learn from similar charities as your own.

5. How will you take care of donations?

In the first version we will not include direct donations. Helpalot is about making it easier to find a charity project you (dare to) trust. Other things like donations are secondary goals. We need to make sure we are on target with this main goal, before we take on other goals.

6. I want relevant charities to ‘be on my desktop’ (in a newsreader or calendar or similar) or maybe even as simple as in my inbox or on my phone.

That sounds great, areas we need to investigate in the future. Would you (or anyone else) be able to make concrete suggestions?

• Take a look at http://www.care2.com and decide if you want to look like that or not.

No, Helpalot will be more focused. We will also have no advertisement on the site.

• I think what you’re doing is great. I would like to support charities but I don’t know where to go or how to go about doing so, your site will allow this for me and many others. I’m hoping to see it up and running very soon

• Make it international. Include contact details to original charity. Collaborate with other websites (Blogathon etc).

The site is international and there will be contact details of the charities. We would like to collaborate with other websites, maybe you can help us with that?

10. Would you like to be updated on this project? (shortened the text)

Obviously I’m not posting the email addresses of the survey takers.

While I did not respond to all the remarks in this blogpost, we value all remarks equally.

A new survey?

First let me thank everyone participating on the survey, you can still fill it in yourself. Second, what do you think would be good questions for a new survey?

Video of interview with Kapenda Thomas, founder of Jookster. It’s a search engine based on social networks. As you probably know, Helpalot is about making you find your charities and it’s also a social network site. I haven’t tried Jookster myself, but I probably will.

The main goal of Helpalot is to make you find your charity. The charity or charities that you are able to trust enought to give them your valuable support (time, energy, money).

While I’m setting up a structure to make sure all the charities can be included, how do I make them all findable? On my survey I ask how you would like to search, I really need your feedback to make Helpalot as easy to use as possible. At this moment ten people filled in the survey (thank you!) and it’s already clear that different people like different paths to take when they search. What are some of those paths?

(more…)

Months before the project even began, I started with the thought of building a Wikipedia for charities. The concept evolved to social networking and evaluations, but the goal is still the same.

The focus is: Find your charity

This is because the casual searcher for charities is the biggest group we want to help. We’re building the site for them. What they care about is finding their charity. The charity that they want to support and can trust. Everything else in the site is in service of this goal.

That doesn’t mean these people are the most important target group. I foremost need the community, the active members, to make the site alive and full of quality content. But people who like to get active will find their way. It’s the people who only want to search, that need the easiest route to success. When they enjoy their experience on the Helpalot site, they might just become more active members themselves.

I knew this was the focus from the beginning, the Wikipedia beginning of the concept had the same goal, but writing it down makes it more official. So there you have it.