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Foik Micro-Philanthropy Network

Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):

Foik aims to do to philanthropy what eBay did to the auction house: increase participation by helping people connect with people.

Supporting organization:
Fractured Atlas
URL:
http://www.foik.org
City:
Montreal
Country:
Canada
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:

Foik Micro-Philanthropy Network ScreenshotWith the arrival of a unique set of social networking tools and collaborative payment systems, the barriers to practicing philanthropy on a large scale are coming down.

Anyone with an internet connection and a story to tell can now launch their own micro-philanthropy campaign in support of a particular outcome or non-profit project. Inviting large numbers of friends, family and fellow internet users to contribute costs nothing and can be fun.

The Foik Micro-Philanthropy Network was created to assist this emerging movement in reaching its full potential. Foik aggregates small-scale giving opportunities and helps individuals create and promote their own micro-philanthropy campaigns.

Sustainability (financial) model:

Foik is currently a one-person initiative maintained by a web designer living in Montreal (originally from New York City).

In the short-term, the project will continue as a part-time endeavor. To generate revenue and expand the project, the founder intends to offer a consulting service to traditional philanthropists who want to amplify their impact by entering the social networking world of micro-philanthropy.

Traditional philanthropists will hire Foik to design and implement innovative micro-philanthropy campaigns that have matching-funds associated with them.

The resulting revenue and experience will permit Foik's founder to deepen his expertise in online organizing while continuing to pursue the core mission of helping people create and promote their own micro-philanthropy campaigns.

Potential obstacles:
  • A market for the consulting service may take several years to mature
  • The Foik-produced micro-philanthropy campaigns may not reach their matching-fund targets
  • The online tools that enable micro-philanthropy may become overly commercialized
  • Political organizing in 2008 may divert attention and philanthropy dollars away from the non-profit and independent sectors
  • The do-it-yourself and web 2.0 movements may burn out (unlikely)
Resource Needs:

In order of priority, the Foik Micro-Philanthropy Network needs:

  1. An advisory board composed of passionate and experienced non-profit professionals
  2. Collaboration opportunities with traditional players in the philanthropy sector
  3. Start-up funding while the consulting portion of the project establishes itself
Key Milestones:

October 2006

  • Initial launch of First-of-its-kind

November 2006

January 2007

  • Relaunch of First-of-its-kind, this time abbreviated to Foik. The new site makes use of Drupal 5.1, a Google custom-search engine, a Google map, and the Tagedelic, CCK, and Views Drupal modules.

February 2007

April 2007

90 Day Project Plan (April/May/June 2007)

  • Build a widget for promoting micro-philanthropy campaign that resembles Google Adwords
  • Create a Drupal custom content-type for people who want to track their contributions to micro-philanthropy campaigns
  • Produce screencasts and video tutorials that walk people through planning and setting up a micro-philanthropy campaign
  • Publish articles on micro-philanthropy's contribution to the social change movement

 

Project Summary:

Foik (short for First-of-its-kind) is an independent Drupal-based community site that aggregates small-scale giving opportunities and helps individuals create and promote their own micro-philanthropy campaigns.

In the coming years, micro-philanthropy campaigns will become an important source of financing for nonprofits and independent projects. Micro-philanthropy campaigns are also likely to play an increasing role in giving people a vehicle for expresssing and enacting positive social change.

Since October 2006, Foik has been publishing original articles on micro-philanthropy, including a popular survey of the eight leading group fundraising websites and an early review of the revamped ChipIn fundraising widget.

In February 2007, the project's creator upgraded Foik to Drupal 5.1 and outfitted the site with a Google map and a Google custom-search engine as well as tag-based RSS feeds and weekly top ten lists of the web's best micro-philanthropy campaigns.

Related:
Submitted by peterdeitz on March 29, 2007 - 10:52am

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