One of the most tangible ways to use social media to effect real world change is through fundraising. Social media provides foundations and individuals with a platform to increase interest in their cause and awareness of how much and what kind of help is most needed. Tapping into the social media fire hose for a cause can be quite efficient using the power of personal networks.
Finding ways to tap into your social media network to generate money for a worthy cause can be a daunting task. There are so many causes out there to choose from, and so many people you could potentially reach, that it would be easy to turn simple fundraising via social media into spam. One way to get around that spammy feeling is to make your fundraising drive somehow unique.
Some people choose to tie their social media fundraising drive to an offline event. Two come to mind here, one that I am lightly involved with here in Boston, Gradon Tripp's Social Media for Social Change fundraiser at the Harvard Club, and one past event from Gnomedex. The Gnomedex event was an experiment done by Beth Kanter to combine real time fundraising with social media. She was able to combine her blog network, her Twitter network, and the Gnomedex conference to raise over $2,600 dollars for a Cambodian orphan in under 90 minutes, just by leveraging existing networks, and more money was donated during the rest of the conference as well.
Some people choose to make their fundraising unique by tapping into the personalities in their network. Gary Vaynerchuk is one example of this method in recent weeks with his bus ride of Internet personalities who chose to shave their heads for charity on Ustream. Their charity was the Staley Foundation, and they raised over $2000 for cancer research in under three hours by being entertaining and using the power of a well known set of names for a good cause.
There are others who choose to work within the online environment entirely to do their part for social change. There are many people using social media to leverage their networks into smaller scale fundraising efforts (Fantasy Football leagues for charity, live Stickam and Ustream events, collaborative writing events on Google Docs and more). Even small donations help, so don't be afraid to create something to generate a conduit of money for your cause, on or offline.
Other people have been using the power of social networks created over sites like Twitter and Plurk to generate real time support for causes on a smaller scale. They have been building walking teams to meet in real life for the Avon 3 Day Walk for a Cure, generating interest in fund raising for local charity drives and walks, and soliciting sponsors for miles they pledge in these kinds of drives.
An interesting way I've seen people driving money to their favorite causes is by using Ning as a hub for a group or cause and driving people to the Ning group from sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, Plurk, Identi.ca and more. The Ning group is a cost effective (read: free) way to marshal the online troops into offline tasks in their area of the country using their specific area of expertise. The micro-blogging and social networking sites are a quick and efficient way to grow a network around a cause which you can then tap into offline.