Epic Change has entered a really interesting competition sponsored by Net2, an organization that links IT professionals to create social change on the web. Their contest is looking for great “mashup” ideas from charitable causes & social innovators; a “mashup” combines data and functionality from multiple existing web tools to create a new tool or service. If the competition has led you here – welcome & Happy St. Paddy’s Day! We hope you’ll spread the luck o’ the Irish & vote for us here after reading more about our entry. Please note that before you’ll be able to vote, you’ll need to register at Net2; ignore the stars, too, as they’ve been disabled during the voting period; vote counts will not be published until the competition ends. For your reference, here’s a link to the voting instructions, too.

We’ve included the details of our mashup below, including examples, a use case diagram, expanded data sources and many compelling statistics that illustrate why we believe this tool could have incredibly broad application & appeal, so read on:

THE WHAT?

The EPIC CHANGE: Story-Powered Activism mashup will create a storybank (i.e., database) of images & videos from various non-profits & charitable organizations that consumers/activists can personalize as eCards & eGifts and send to friends via email and social networking sites for $1 each. This tool will enable charitable organizations of all types (including, likely, most of those participating in this competition!) to share their stories in an effort to raise funds, empower their donors & supporters, and generate awareness of their causes.

At Epic Change, we’ve been looking for a great tool that allows us to sell & circulate eCards & eGifts we’ve designed to share stories about a school we’re building in Tanzania & raise funds to support our efforts. We’ve scoured the web for what seems to be simple functionality to no avail - and the potential market is vast. Imagine how much money & awareness could be raised for our cause (and many other causes) - all by enabling non-profits to share their stories by circulating $1 eCards & eGifts based on videos or images that they’ve already stored on Flickr, YouTube, Slide and on similar image- & video-hosting sites. Here are a couple of examples:

1. In honor of World AIDS Day, Epic Change could send to our supporters an eCard based on the video below, which features children at the school we’re building in Tanzania singing about the HIV crisis in their country. Their song is led by 9-year-old Glory, an orphan whose inspiring personal story you can read more about here.




2. A consumer-turned-activist could go to our mashup site in search of a Valentine, and select this image to send, which features Pius, Max & Egifred, three boys who attend the school we’re building.

The general use cases that are presented later in this post explain more thoroughly how these specific examples would work.

THE WHY?

Here’s why we think this story-based tool will make a significant difference in raising funds and generating awareness for many important causes:

• Stories Matter. According to recent research by Wharton professor Deborah Small, stories are far better than statistics at generating an emotional response that inspires giving. In fact, statistics seem to suppress giving.
• Pictures = 1,000 Words. According to the July 2007 edition of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Fund-raising appeals do best when they are crafted around a single gripping image.”
• Greetings are Profitable. Consider the following statistics:

• UNICEF generates more than $100m per year through the sales of greeting cards.
• It’s estimated that Facebook’s digital $1 gifts are worth around $15m per year.
• The Cupcakes for a Cause online eGift campaign sold over 3,000 $1 virtual cupcakes in the first 24 hours of the campaign, and sold over 10,000 in the first week.
• It’s estimated that American Greetings has 2.5M subscribers as of early 2006 with each subscriber paying a subscription fee of $14 annually for the service, and JacquieLawson.com has over 500,000 subscribers who pay $10 per year. E-greetings are continuing to grow in popularity each year.

• Peer-to-Peer Philanthropy Works. According to this vlog entry by Peter Deitz, a micro-philanthropy consultant who founded SocialActions.com, peer-to-peer fundraising is an appealing strategy because one’s friends are viewed as reliable, credible sources of information about causes who may also convey a sense of contagious enthusiasm.
• Donors Deserve Power. Tools like this put power in the hands of donors and supporters by giving them a simple, useful tool to connect with their causes and their networks. According to veteran fundraiser Jeff Brooks of Merkle, “More than ever before, donors are insisting that you share power with them, not treating them like passive ATMs.” This tool is one way to do just that.

THE HOW?

Here are a few more details about how this might work: Senders would customize images like the examples above with a personal greeting, formatting and potentially skins or audio clips. Additionally, the eCard or eGift would include links - created by either the non-profit, the sender or a tool like Sphere - that give more information about the cause or story featured in the image, highlight related offline products that for sale on a site like CafePress, and, most importantly, enable the recipient to forward the video again at a cost of $1 per send (or, perhaps, a sliding scale for multiple orders, or a subscription fee). Contributions would directly benefit the organization that provided the image, with a nominal percentage/fee directed to Epic Change for each transaction.

Here’s what we think a few general use cases might look like. Of course, we’re not as technically gifted as many of you, so this is just some initial thinking to, hopefully, start the conversation.

Here’s some of the potential data sources and shared services our mashup might use, too:

I hope you’ll agree that this tool will be valuable to many charitable causes who are constantly looking for effective new ways to share their stories, empower their donors & supportes, generate awareness and raise funds. Certainly, Epic Change looks forward to leveraging this story-powered mashup as a potential sustainable source of income to fund loans we make to community improvement projects across the globe, like our current effort to build a primary school in Tanzania.

So, please register at vote for us at Net2 to help us get resources and funds to support the further development of this idea. We’d love to get your ideas, suggestions & feedback here, too, so leave a comment . . . Thanks!!!