This page was created for people and organizations who have created opportunities to take action on any one (or more!) of the causes people care about, and who want to share them and make it easier for people to find them. If that describes you, then we have prepared this page thinking about questions you may be asking yourself.
I've never heard of Social Actions before. What is it?
Social Actions is a project presented by a group of people who, with ideals and ideas, are working on three big things:
- Making it easier for people like you to make a difference on the causes you care about.
- Promoting collaborations that advance the work of social innovators.
- Developing open source software that adds a philanthropic layer to the web.
You can learn more about Social Actions and the people behind the project on this page.
What does Social Actions provide that would be useful to me?
First and foremost is the Social Actions API, a collection of actions people can take that -- which makes it easy to share your campaigns (aka "opportunities to take action") with other sites and tools, and, through them, with people and organizations in your area, across the country, and indeed across the world.
Participating in the Social Actions API is like sending your targeted press release to a news agency where media around the world can pick it up and publish it, or write about it.
So the Social Actions API can be the connection between my "action opportunity" (or collection of opportunities) and tools that can help promote it. What kind of tools are we talking about?
Basically, we're talking about any tool that a developer wants to make drawing from this API. We keep a directory of these applications in this page. There is a bit of everything on this directory - applications that let people share on Facebook or Orkut about projects they're involved in, replace standard Google ads for cause ads, etc.
Also, you can find one of these tools on socialactions.com itself: our search engine. Any person visiting there can look for ways to support a cause they are interested in by using the names of causes themselves as search terms. This is the page they land on, for example, when they enter "environment" - http://search.socialactions.com/actions?q=environment.
And how do I participate in the Social Actions API?
What's the first step?
Email the RSS feed URL for your actionable content, sorted by date, and containing the latest campaigns to team@socialactions.com. We’ll subscribe to it and add a profile listing for your platform to the wiki [add link].
What exactly should the RSS feed include?
All we need is a basic RSS feed, sorted by date and containing the latest campaigns.
Is there a fee?
There’s no fee. The Social Actions API is completely open source and we’re committed to aggregating as wide a spectrum of actionable opportunities as possible.
Is there a contract?
There’s no contract, however we do ask platforms to optionally endorse our mission and terms of collaboration.
Endorsement from platforms is not a prerequisite for participating in the Social Actions search interface and open API, or required for having a profile on Social Actions. It simply provides an indication to us, and the public that your platform is aware of Social Actions and is committed to providing the best possible experience for individuals.
I’d like to edit my platform’s profile listing on Social Actions. How do I do that?
Ask for Writer privileges here using the link in the sidebar to be able to update your page.
How have other people used Social Actions to draw attention to their campaigns?
"At Firstgiving our mission is to connect people who care with the causes they care about. We want to make it as easy as possible for them to help make a difference. Social Actions and its open API approach can help us – and others in the space – achieve this mission with greater velocity and greater impact. Every additional information channel and every additional forum helps empower people who want to make a difference, and that’s good for everybody."
- Mark Sutton, (formerly) CEO, Firstgiving
"DonorsChoose.org is excited about the Social Actions mashup because we believe that this will be the first of many such efforts to open up individual involvement with the social sector. At DonorsChoose.org we have long been guided by our philosophy of citizen philanthropy, the idea that an ordinary individual should have the same level of choice, impact, transparency and accountability that has traditionally been reserved for established philanthropists. This kind of mashup has the power to extend that philosophy to encompass many more social causes and many more kinds of involvement, from microphilanthropy to volunteering. We hope this points the way toward future digital collaborations of this type."
- Michael Everett-Lane, (formerly) Executive Director for the NorthEast Region, DonorsChoose.org
Is there a place on Social Actions where I can get in touch with other people interested in taking action, philanthropy, etc.?
Yes! You can join us at My Social Actions, where you can read or share blogposts, information about events, and mostly communicate with other people who share your interests.
Where else can I find Social Actions materials?
Apart from the apps that you may see in other webpages, there are two main sources for Social Actions information outside the website: the Twitter account we have, @socialactions , and our Facebook fanpage, Social Actions .
Where do I go if I have any other questions?
Apart from having the freedom to post any comments or questions you may have on this wiki, on My Social Actions, or on the Facebook page, you can find some contact information here .
All the information about other aspects Social Actions can be found at our wiki. Click here to go to the index.
Why is an API useful? Couldn't we just put a project directly in touch with each technology and avoid the creation of an API?
We technically could, and this is what it all would look like:
Social Entrepreneur #1 has launched a project that aims at raising awareness about recycling. It works through talks on waste separation given for free by volunteers in their communities. As a way to promote his project, he has to look up what tools are being used by people who are interested in environmental activism to find ways to get involved, and afterwards send to each of the project developers an e-mail with the information about his project so that it can be included in said tools.
In this example, Social Entrepreneur #1 will have to get in touch with 15 different technologists, and those 15 different technologists will be probably getting e-mails from another 50 people who also want their projects to show up in their tools.
This is what this scenario would look like if the use of the Social Actions API were added:
Social Entrepreneur #1 has launched the project, and he wants to promote it to get people to give talks in their communities. What he does is get in touch with Social Actions to have his project show up in their API. Some technology developers will draw information from this API to use with the tools they create to help people around the world find ways to get involved in causes they care about.
In this example, Social Entrepreneur #1 will only have to get in touch with 1 project, and those 15 different technologists will only have to look at the information compiled by one project to draw from when they create their tools.
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