CAUSES
About this study
I chose to analyze the basis and the hidden agenda of the Causes application, built by Project Agape, because it’s one of the few applications I enabled on facebook. Because, in its application description, it cites “equal opportunity activism” as its goal, I chose Causes as my entering point into the study of whether there are hidden agendas behind all applications, even those that are “democratizing activism.”1
I found my sources by searching through Google for causes+facebook app, and then looked to news/opinion pieces once I understood the data and the facts. I found some conflicting numbers, but collected generally consistent information.
Causes: How it works
Based out of Berkeley, California, Causes was created to make use of the huge circles of online friends that share social networks (the app is connected to MySpace, too) as a communication medium. 2
As with many other sectors, NGOs have taken a hard hit in the wake of the recession, which has forced the organizations to get creative with getting the word out for backing. The Causes app allows 501(c)(3)s in the U.S. and Canada to register to the application, so that users can support them by joining and inviting others to join thereafter. Through membership to a cause, users collaborate to stay in the loop with news stories, events and fundraising efforts of the respective organization. All monetary donations are sent to the Network for Good to distribute. 2
By inviting friends, sending gifts and actively participating in the facebook “community” via various applications, users can earn karma points, which they can in turn use to buy small gifts or donate to a cause. (Here’s where they get you. The 6th graders on facebook may be less interested in donating their points to One.org than in banking and getting a prize. This is besides the fact that “karma” is not supposed to be about what you can get out of the deal.)
Joe Green, one of the application’s founders, said, “People are much more altruistic if they get social credit for it. The social incentive is to show on your profile how many volunteers you’ve recruited or how much money you’ve raised.”2
Causes data
Causes is free for users and non-profits alike, but it costs organizations staff time to develop and maintain their pages. The word is out though, and though there’s some debate over the success of the app, more and more people are becoming a part of the trend. There are currently 35,291,157 monthly active users, a figure that’s growing at a daily rate of 0.28. 3 It’s numbers like those that make Causes the third-most popular of the more than 52,000 applications on the site, according to The Washington Post. As of April, 179,000 orgs have enlisted the app’s help since its inception. 2
The monetary success is less chart-topping, though. Only a small number of participating organizations have raised $1,000+ and only185,000 members have donated funds. Fewer than 50 of the more-than-100,000 gorups have hit the $10,000 mark and only two (the Nature Conservancy and Students for a Free Tibet) have raised $100,000. 2
And, although I chose to include the word “only” as a qualifier because those numbers are mere fractions of the number of people considered “users,” I’m hugely impressed with the power of this app. Sure, only two charities raised more than $100K, but those donations are funds that didn’t exist for two good causes before.
One blogger echoed my sentiments in posting this (and please excuse her poor spelling and grammar): “I’m sure there are other meausres, but you get the point, what measures we use to define success will utlimately define us and while dollars in might be easy to measure it’s not alwasy the best one to use.” 5
Educational value and impact
As far as lessons go, the value of philanthropy is up there with the best of them. Causes’ slogan says it best: “Anyone can change the world.”
I always write about access and this application provides access to those that can’t afford to donate money to a cause and/or, for some reason, cannot give of their time to that cause.
The lesson here is that supporting a cause can mean more than just donating money. The blogger I cited earlier also wrote this:
“Causes on FB enables us to tell our own world – distinct from the world - about the issues, campaigns, orgs that they are passionate about. We can bring our networks of friends, our ingenuity, our passion, our time, our expertise to support causes. It enables lots and lots of people to learn about causes and to share them with their friends easily, quickly and inexpensively.” 5
Controversies
The first thing that made me question Causes.com, which is the site of the developers, was the .com suffix. Trying to be a believer but being an inherent skeptic, I couldn’t help but wonder how an agency focused on philanthropy, and allegedly unfocused on commercialism, why was the domain not a .org? I then learned that a third party distributed the funds.
Most of the controversy around the Causes application is whether the app really accomplishes what it seeks to or is a big waste of time.
One side cites the stats: Fewer than 1 percent of social network users that have joined a cause donated money to the cause.
The other cite cites the numbers, too, but takes on some optimism with the “It’s better than nothing” point-of-view: More than 3 million users support the cause “Support the Campaign for Cancer Research”,” to which $61,440 has been donated. This about $.02 per user. 6
Other connections
Many of my sources cited Obama’s huge success in online fundraising for his Presidential campaign as a reason why Causes should be more successful.
“Green” marketing, soliciting and fundraising was also a common thread. By taking to online social networks to do the job, NGOs save money and trees!
Hidden agenda
Money, like every other application. But this time the hidden agenda might actually be a good one..
This is not to say users shouldn’t be a little wary. In the “About Causes” decription on facebook, biased rhetoric seeps through. This is the first sentence (I’ve bolded the phrase that sets of a red flag for me), “Facebook Platform presents an unprecedented opportunity to engage our generation, most of whom are on Facebook, in seizing the future and making a difference in the world around us.” 1
It later states, “Any Facebook user with a little passion and initiative can create a cause, recruit their friends into that cause, keep everybody in the cause up-to-speed on issues and media related to the cause, and, most importantly, raise money directly through the cause…” 1
But then again, if there ever were an acceptable platform for exploitation, raising money for registered non-profit organizations is definitely it.
Sources
1: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about
2: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042103786.html
3: http://statistics.allfacebook.com/applications/index/mau/
4: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/28/causes-reports-on-its-first-year/
5: http://afine2.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/wash-post-disses-causes-on-facebook/
6: http://www.allfacebook.com/2008/04/new-causes-application-looks-to-raise-money-without-donations/
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