Zoetica’s Charity Challenge

Credit: Awesome artwork by Faith Goble used from Flickr on a Creative Commons license.

When we started Zoetica, as its founders – Beth Kanter, Geoff Livingston, and Kami Huyse – we wanted it to be a different kind of company. Less of an agency and more of a change agent. As it says on our home page, we want to help mindful organizations affect social change – both charities and companies.

When considering a launch party for Zoetica at SxSW interactive, we wanted it to be different from the party atmosphere that pervades the culture of the conference. We also wanted to make it meaningful. How better to do this than by highlighting a charity (501c3) that needs a hand in launching its social media strategy, we reasoned? And what if we brought some of the brightest minds in social media together, including people like Robert Scoble and more, to look at the mission and goals of this charity and help us come up with some amazing ideas?

Even better…what if we all learned from the process?

So, that is what we are going to do. We are looking for a charity that is hungry for help but short on dollars. We will provide a Gold Pass to SxSW and you will be the guest of honor at our launch party and will get, in essence, a free consulting session with Zoetica’s founders. You will have to get yourself to Austin on March 13th and find a place to stay. In return, you will walk away with a rich education and a plan to get started.

We also realize that this is a fast turnaround, so we have made a very simple Google Form for you to fill out. The deadline is this Sunday February 28, 2010, 12 midnight PST.

We are looking for three things:

1. A description of your mission in less than 150 words
2. Your goals for social media in less than 150 words
3. Why you want to win this prize in less than 150 words

We will then ask for some contact info and for the URLs of all your current social media properties (Twitter, Facebok, Blogs, etc.). We are serious about keeping each section under 150 words. Forced brevity distills thinking and allows us to see what really matters.

We will pick the winner based on who we would most like to work with given the entries. We will make our selection no later than March 2, midnight PST.

We wish you all good luck and hope that the process of describing your goals and mission will be useful no matter the outcome.

So don’t hesitate, ENTER HERE!

Comments

[Ashley Messick]

Beth - this is such an incredible opportunity for a deserving nonprofit. It is so wonderful and generous for you guys to be offering such a contest. I wish I could enter for BCP but I think there's some great smaller, just-starting nonprofits out there that fit the "hungry for help, short on dollars" bill a lot better than we do :) I'll be at SXSW though and hope to see you all there. It will be so wonderful to attend all of the sessions about using technology for social change!

[Claire]

I think this is an absolutely fantastic opportunity, am going to Tweet this now. How great of you to offer it!

[Jane Baxter Lyn]

Am executive director of the U.S. Green Building Council's Central Texas - Balcones chapter, based here in Austin. As the first and only staff member it has been challenging to find ways to get the word out about our amazing mission. Social media is the logical way to go but I am technology challenged so an opportunity like this would be huge for us.

[Lindsay Reene]

I can't imagine a better group of consultants to guide an emerging social media strategy. Looking forward to seeing these results.

Thanks, as always, Beth.

Lindsay Reene