Top-12 Nonprofit Facebook Applications

Do you know Facebook ?

The second biggest socialnetwork in the world behind Myspace already has more than 40 millions registrated users. These users are essentially college students and young graduates, but the network’s base is diversifying rapidly. With a clean and easy-to-use interface, and open API, Facebook is coming to be THE socialnetwork of today, and will probably remain for some time.

The opening of his API allowed thousands of users to developp applications directly into the platform : in less than two months, there were already more than 2500 of them, in which you can find apps used by more than 30 million people.

What has surprised us is the amount and creativity of these applications, especially concerning the nonprofit sector ! The BL’ONG list of the top-12 nonprofit applications for Facebook you can find here is not exhaustive, but lets you see a little part of the opportunities of communication, fundraising and advocacy offered by the new media to the nonprofit organisations.

(to see all these apps in actions, come visit the BL’ONG profile on facebook : Blong Blong)

Used by more than 1,8 million people this application let’s you display on your profile the causes you’re supporting, the people you’ve recruited and the gifts you’ve made.

A lot of causes are already registered, from the smallest local association to the biggest NGO (Greenpeace, Amnesty, Save Darfur to name a few).

Causes is a really powerful tool of communication and fundraising. It’s also one of the most used app on Facebook.

One can find two applications Awareness Ribbons which work almost the same way : you choose the cause you support and display them in the form of little ribbons on your profile. Each one can create his own ribbon for every kind of cause : from leucodistrophy to antiracism…

I AM GREEN let’s you display publicly what kind of actions you do for the environnement. Each action gives you a “leaf”, and the total score defines your “greenitude”. Anyone can add new actions and invite his friends to share them.

From “I print on both sides of my printer paper”, to “I bought an hybrid car”, one can find a lot of possibilities to show his own actions :

The application Change.org has been conceived and developped by the change.org team. Change.org is a socialnetwork that lets you say to the world what you want to change in it, and leverage the power of community to effectively act. In some way, this application let’s you become your own mini-NGO with communication, fundraising and action tools.

The application Chipin comes from the famous fundraising widget, which allows anyone to raise funds very very easily.

The application Carbon Diet Plan lets you define how much CO2 you save by using one way of transportation instead of another (feets vs car, train vs plane, etc…).

It’s a nice application that makes me feel is the full contrary of the so-called “right to pollute” : the “duty to save energy” !

The well named application Health Tip of the Day lets you display on your profile a daily tip to stay healthy.

The application Passive Activism describes itself like that :

Lazy people of the world unite!

Help save the world without lifting a finger.

The concept is simple and brilliant : you add a little advertising banner on your profile. The revenues generated by all the facebook users will be given to a different association each month. For exemple, in july, the money will go to the Cancer Research Institute.

The application Peace Commitment let’s you simply display what actions you’re planning to take for the International Peace Day on september 21^st and hare it with your friends.

The application Nature Quote of the day displays a nature quote on your profile on a daily basis.

The application 24 Hours for Darfur is leveraging the power of facebook as an e-advocacy tool. Users are invited to submit videos against genocide in Darfur. These videos will be shown to political decisions makers on foreign policy, and a week of micro-events will be organised in september, including a live-broadcast from the UN.

The application Your Daily Green let’s you display everyday a new “green lifestyle”. A nice way to share your green attitude.

Two month after the opening of the Facebook platform to external applications, more than two million people added nonprofit applications to their profile. Even if it’s lower than 5% of the total number of users, one can be confident in the growth of the nonprofit sector on these new media.

In fact two different things are pretty encouraging : the big NGO’s are not yet exploiting new media as they could (especially in Europe), and the demographics of Facebook are an extraordinary opportunitie to raise awareness and money from young people.

The BL’ONG is on Facebook, are you ?

[UPDATE]

Another application to add to the list was sent to me by Stas who seems to be from the Searchgive team. This application lets you search thru the main search engines (Google, Live, AOL, and more), thus making money for the advertisers… and for charities !