1. Virtue Goes Viral
How United Way Can Benefit from Social Media
The Main Idea: United Way NYC can attract young people to their 2010 LIVE
UNITED Bridge Walk and Volunteer Festival by creating a badge that people can
post to their online social outlet of choice. The badge would be a new spin on
old-fashioned Boy Scout badges (because there’s nothing more hipster than
slightly ironic nostalgia—as a 25 year-old living in Williamsburg, I have ample
evidence to support this).
Ideally, the badges would be an unintrusive yet ubiquitous online presence, and it
might add a playful twist on random acts of charity to somehow distribute the
logo in person as well—via stickers, postcards, or even sidewalk chalk, all
methods of outreach that would provide a positive alternative to the
Greenpeacers’ guilt-inducing sidewalk traps. The badge would link out to the
United Way website and to GoodSearch, a search engine that donates its
income to charities—we could have UW-NYC entered on autofill. This would
generate small donations at no cost to United Way or to its tech-savvy young
supporters.
Add-Ons: User interest could be further generated by asking people to submit
badge designs and then creating a Facebook page where their friends can vote
for their favorite one. Who knows? With enough snazzy designs United Way
may even be able to have a few T-shirts printed with the winning design, which
they could then sell on their website.
- Ashley Newman