Hello, and welcome to Social Actions! 

We have prepared this page thinking about questions you may be asking yourself. You will find them in italics. 

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. 

What does Social Actions do with IT to make it easier for people to make a difference?

The main functions Social Actions has adopted in this regard deal with aggregation of information that is relevant to philanthropy and activism to make it easily searchable, the promotion of philanthropy-related software creation and the establishing of a community of developers that want to use their IT skills and Social Actions tools to help the world.

Social Actions API

Through this API, Social Actions aggregates the information provided by over 60 action sources (link to act sourc page) on volunteer, donation, and other opportunities people have to take action to support a cause. Many applications, including the search engine on the Social Actions website (link), draw from this API, which was launched in 2008 - including, for example, a WordPress widget that features related ways to take action on blogs, and a tool to share information on different social networks about projects you've donated to. Here is the full list of applications (link).

Open Actions XML

The goal of this Social Actions project is to promote the collaboration of people involved in the worlds of philanthropy and activism in the creation of an open standard that can be used by any social benefit organization or community group to exchange information about their projects and people seamlessly and in a structured format. This would allow grant-makers and citizen philanthropists to make decisions about their support to projects easier, and would also permit an easier sharing of information about projects.

Promotion of philanthropy-related software creation

Social Actions wants to help and encourage technologists like you to create software that can help promote the actions that will make the world a better place. One example is the Change the Web Challenge that was held by Social Actions in early 2009, and which led a number of developers to work on applications that drew from the Social Actions API to post actions on different social networking and content-sharing websites.

(any other ways that SA helps this creation?)

In this regard, Social Actions also tries to break the block. Developers who want to put their skills to use in the field of philanthropy and who don't know what exactly to work on can check the Social Actions Idea Hub, where people submit ideas for applications that they think would be useful. (link)

Developer community

There is a space for discussion about all these IT-related aspects of Social Actions - the developer group on Google Groups. There, developers can find tips for creation of applications that draw from the Social Actions API, and general discussions about IT and philanthropy.

How can I contribute to Social Actions?

How have other technologists used the tools in Social Actions?

Couple of case studies

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.