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Challenges Jumo Poses for Local Charities

December 1, 2010 By Tracy Viselli 1 Comment

As you can imagine, I think about the state of civic engagement and philanthropy in our city a lot. How do we use technology to engage more people? How do we use technology to inspire more offline action? How do we reach people who have never been involved before? And because of my community orientation, I can’t help but notice the way large-scale efforts like Jumo absorb the media attention and funding available in the space, but leave small communities and organizations out of the conversation.

The first thing I did when I could finally log into Jumo was look for Alexandria charities. Jumo is based around issues you want to follow but it does provide a chance to follow local projects-after you’ve made all of your other selections. What did I find under Alexandria in Jumo? With the exception of ACT for Alexandria, I found national charities and associations with Alexandria addresses. What I wanted to find was some of the local charities serving the local community—charities like Community Lodgings, Carpenter’s Shelter, ALIVE!, The Reading Connection, Healthy Families Alexandria, Alexandria Neighborhood Health Services, Friends of Guest House, etc. All great local charities who assist people in our city and who need our help.

Challenges Jumo poses for small, local charities:

  1. It makes it the responsibility of small, local charities to add themselves to Jumo-no so small a task for many small organizations operating on a shoe-string without designated social media or communications staff. The site then has to be maintained, people have to be followed, and the content must be monitored. And from the looks of existing pages, monitoring is a necessity because Jumo is pulling in news and other feeds that might not be related to your organization at all.
  2. You can donate to local charities once they are on Jumo, but you have to use Jumo’s donation mechanism. They don’t point you back to the nonprofits own donation process-taking away from what is sometimes a minimal but painstakingly developed online presence over years.
  3. Most importantly, you must OPT OUT of an additional donation tip for Jumo that defaults to 15%! For a small organization, that’s a hefty chunk of your donation going somewhere else.

It’s definitely possible that small organizations will benefit from Jumo’s efforts on their behalf-providing them with another point of contribution and interaction-but I wonder if how effective it will be for them? My sense is that it’s easy for small organizations without the resources to use it effectively to get lost on Jumo.

A few months ago, I gave a presentation about what I see as the need to return to local efforts at IgniteDC called “Back to Barnraising: Why Hyperlocal Is The Future for Online Civic Engagement and Philanthropy” (See Slide Share version below) because, when you look at the reasons people give/volunteer, it’s clear that they prefer to do so locally. According to a study at the University of Kent, people choose social actions using three criteria:

  • The action is easy to find.
  • The action speaks to their personal background.
  • The action makes them feel like they are making a difference personally.

And local giving makes impact questions like “Who did I help?” and “What difference did I make?” much easier to answer, making for a more satisfying philanthropic experience.

Jumo isn’t all bad-there is much good there. But like many large scale online projects, it forgot about the small guys during the planning process.

While projects similar to Jumo have been very successful (Citizen Effect, Change.org, etc.), what they’ve made apparent is that what is often most difficult to do, is to help those living closest to us-in our town, on our street, on our block. (Citizen Effect’s Citizen Gulf Day of Action is a successful exception.) I believe that the next generation of online civic engagement tools and platforms must address this most basic need-neighbors helping neighbors. That’s what we’re striving to do and we hope you’ll help.

Back to Barnraising: Why Hyperlocal Is The Future for Online Civic Engagement and Philanthropy
View more presentations from ACTion Alexandria.
Filed Under: Civic Engagement, Featured, Nonprofits Tagged With: action alexandria, charities, charity, civic engagement, community, hyperlocal, jumo, local, online, philanthropy

Growing Civic Engagement Among Young Voters, One Vote At A Time

November 1, 2010 By Kevin Bailey 2 Comments


The importance of participating in the political process can never be overstated. This is especially true when it comes to the fundamental principal of our democracy, the vote. Election cycle after election cycle we have to remind people of this civic responsibility and younger voters are no exception. Motivating young people to become involved in the political process and exercising their right to vote can be challenging, yet it is critical in sustaining an educated and aware electorate. People must understand the power they possess to influence the direction of government at all levels – federal, state and local.

For younger people, an understanding of the political process should first happen at the local level; this is where they can see government at work, affecting their everyday lives. Participating in local government (i.e., voting, issue advocacy) is sometimes overshadowed by the allure of state and national politics and elections. Truthfully, even I at 18 was concerned only in voting in the next presidential election, and failed to pay attention to the local issues, which had the most immediate impact on my life.

There is an election every year in Virginia so there is always an opportunity to get younger people involved. However, getting them off to an early start through engagement in the local community is key. This will provide them a case study in governance and political action that will make them more consistent and educated voters, no matter their political leaning. The objective is to get younger people involved earlier in an attempt to increase the likelihood of their sustained engagement in the political process. Voter apathy and fatigue are real, but measures can be taken to avert catastrophic drop off in voter turn out, especially among the younger demographics. As with most things, exposure and education is the answer. Let us make it our task to encourage the engagement of younger voters in local government – voting, issue advocacy, campaigning, etc. Not only will they become more consistent and educated voters, they will also be more prepared to take on the leadership roles of local elected office.

Editor’s Note: Representatives from both the Alexandria Young Republicans and Alexandria Young Democrats organizations were asked to contribute a blog post addressing the importance of voting as a form of civic engagement for young voters. Kevin Bailey, president of the Alexandria Young Democrats found the time during this busy election season to respond.

Filed Under: Civic Engagement, Featured Tagged With: alexandria, civic engagement, community, local, vote, voters, young, youth

ACTion Alexandria Breakout Panel at Nonprofit Excellence Forum

October 12, 2010 By Tracy Viselli Leave a Comment

If you’re attending ACT for Alexandria’s 6th annual Nonprofit Excellence Forum on Wednesday, October 13, I hope to see you at the ACTion Alexandria breakout session. We’ve pulled together a great panel to discuss the vision we have for ACTion Alexandria and how it can connect citizens and organizations to solve local problems relating to hunger, homelessness, health, education and literacy. Led by Shayna Englin, who has a decade of experience identifying and mobilizing supporters for non-profits and causes at Englin Consulting, the ACTion Alexandria panel also includes: Tony Castrilli, the Director of Communications for the City of Alexandria; Bonnie Baxley, Executive Director of Community Lodgings; and Chris Lewis, a community organizer who is now a Legislative Analyst at the FCC.

It’s exciting to be part of such a great event. More than 300 people are expected to attend this year’s forum-a record year. Jean Case, CEO of the Case Foundation, which is dedicated to expanding giving, promoting everyday philanthropy, deepening civic engagement and broadening the use of new technologies to make giving more informed, efficient and effective, will lead the morning’s Forum with an interactive conversation led by David B. Smith, the Executive Director of the National Conference on Citizenship.

The Nonprofit Excellence Forum is sponsored by Capital One.

Filed Under: Events, Nonprofits Tagged With: act for alexandria, action alexandria, alexandria, citizen, citizen philanthropy, civic engagement, community, nonprofit excellence forum, philanthropy

Welcome To The ACTion Alexandria Blog!

September 26, 2010 By Tracy Viselli 1 Comment

Welcome to the ACTion Alexandria blog!

This blog is Phase I of a much larger project to create an online platform to promote civic engagement and community problem-solving in Alexandria.

Sponsored by ACT for Alexandria, the Bruhn-Morris Family Foundation, the City of Alexandria, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the ACTion Alexandria blog is just the beginning of a project more than a year in the making. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: action, action alexandria, civic, community, engagement, online civic engagement

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