AIDS, computers, and organizing: part I, toward a revolution in fundraising? A report from the Planetwork conference

AIDS Treatment News, June 27, 2003 by John S. James

* Participants in social-networking software are not interrupted when their referral network is traversed; they do not have to answer a phone call or email. This makes possible much more exploration of existing referral network. Donors deciding how to use their money can look through hundreds of person-to-person links, instead of only a few.

* All the information on these sites is public and voluntarily given. Anyone who creates a profile can choose what they want to reveal about themselves. At the same time, social-network sites have strong pressures for honesty and accuracy, since peoples' friends and colleagues are on the same site, and can see how one presents oneself.

* Some churches raise money through public donations, in which members of the congregation parade near the collection basket in front of the group, and everybody can see what is dropped in. Other churches provide envelopes so that members can donate privately. The online referral database offers both possibilities, and can allow each donor to choose whether or not to make their donations public -which I think will be the prevailing system.

* A fundraising site could be useful for connecting people even if they do not want to donate. Such visitors should be welcomed, as they increase traffic and general usefulness of the site -- and might change their mind and donate after all. In addition, it would be costly to police the site to keep Out those who do not intend contribute, since the whole idea is to allow donors to explore possibilities, without any guarantee of finding a match that speaks to them.

* Donation guided by online exploration of networks of personal trust, relationship, and recommendation could become widely popular. There are many successful models and precedents for online activities that involves other people -- either in one's own social network, for games or discussion among strangers, and for activism in issues important to society in general. Here is a way to combine these kinds of interpersonal activity online -- and participate meaningfully in donation decisions, with the help of the best personalized expert guidance anywhere.

* This kind of social-network software could help in many areas outside of fundraising -- for example, in improving elections of political candidates. Already, probably most voters decide whom to vote for mainly through personal recommendations. But today the chain of personal referrals, if traced back, is likely to be found to originate in television ads or other crafted manipulation (you may have noticed that news reports are most informative about what is really going on just after the election, when they can tell the truth because it no longer matters). Online referral networks could improve the political process by providing more people with trusted connections to a variety of experts -- who, unlike political advertisements, do not always have pre-established positions they are paid to support regardless of the facts. Another political use would be to help people judge the credibility of action alerts, even from organizations they do not know -- providing a much larger potential base for public mobilizat ion and response to the most important alerts.