Sunday, November 14, 2010

Using Social Media for Social Good

The other day I was perusing one of my favorite sites, Mashable.com, when I saw something of interest on the main page. The page featured a story about a non-profit organization using Foursquare to raise awareness about homelessness. The North Carolina non-profit organization, Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD) provides food, shelter and clothing to the city’s homeless. The organization recently launched a Foursquare initiative “designed to unsettle application users and raise awareness around homelessness in Durham. “ Basically, UMD wants to inspire Foursquare users to check into unusual locations, such as abandoned warehouses, to raise awareness about homelessness prevention.

After reading this article, I realized Mashable.com features non-profit organizations on a regular basis in its Social Good section. This section is dedicated to discussing organizations’ social works projects. It allows readers to see how organizations are using social networking sites to promote their causes and it allows readers to track the success of these projects.

Social media is a great way to raise awareness and many organizations are finding unique ways to promote their cause. Check out how some organizations are using social media to promote non-profit campaigns at http://mashable.com/social-good/.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kurie Fitzgerald.

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