The Social Charity Experiment
I have been trying to do something like this for quite some time and now that i got an opportunity and a good cause to support here goes the experiment. Different forms of this experiment/cause have been done by other people but this is my experimental version. The word ‘Social Charity’ is not something that i coined but i am putting it in contextually in this case and here goes my definition.
‘Social Charity’ is the act wherein a group of social media users support a charitable cause either by action or contribution.
The ultimate aim of such an experiment is to raise money for a charity organization through social media and at the same time provide some kind of benefit for the company/blog which initiates the experiment. To kick start this experiment, I am starting it on Social Couch and the benefiting charity will be Bhumi Chennai ( http://bhumichennai.org ) with Dr. Prahalathan being the person of contact. Bhumi is a non profit organization which works with under-privileged children in and around Chennai.
The Action Steps
1. For every new confirmed email subscription , Social Couch will donate $1 to Bhumi Chennai.
Opens in a new tab or window. When you enter your email address and confirm it, all new articles published on SocialCouch will be delivered directly to your inbox. This email will not be used for any other purpose.
2. For every new confirmed RSS subscription, Social Couch will donate $1 to Bhumi Chennai.
Subscribing via RSS will send in the latest articles to your feed reader.
3. For every comment posted on this entry, Social Couch will donate $0.5 to Bhumi Chennai.
4. For every retweet of the below text, Social Couch will donate $0.5 to Bhumi Chennai
Social Couch is donating $125 to BhumiChennai.org in this Social Charity experiment http://tr.im/CaO6 Please participate & RT
To make the $125 reach Bhumi Chennai one of these should happen before the end of the ten day time period. 125 new subscribers OR 250 comments OR 250 Retweets or a combination of these. An optimal success result can be something like this
25 new RSS subscriptons
25 new email subscriptions
30 comments
120 Retweets
A person can feel free to perform more than one action step. The total duration of the experiment is 10 days and any/all the action steps performed during the next ten days from the time stamp of the post will be counted. The subscriber count will be obtained from the Feedburner statistics and the Retweet count from Tweetmeme. The maximum amount which SocialCouch.com will donate to Bhumi Chennai through this socialcharity experiment is $125. The money will be paid via Paypal.
Why am I doing this?
- The Bhumi volunteers are doing a great job helping out the kids and staying in a land thousands of miles away this is the one small deed that i can do for now. On a lighter note i also want to increase my karma points!
- I know for sure that this money will be put to good use and Bhumi as an organization doesn’t have big overhead costs. The major part of this money will serve the deserving population directly.
- This will serve as a small case study for one of the projects which i am intending to start in the coming months
- This will bring in traffic and gain exposure for Social Couch as a blog and a brand. Although I have no plans of monetizing SocialCouch for now this might help me in the future.
- This will provide an opportunity for others to help a charitable cause without chipping in money.
Seriously! Is this Ethical?
I have discussed this with a few people and in my opinion this whole experiment is totally fine. First of all, i am not seeking monetary contributions from anyone and i am the only contributor. A few weeks back i read a nice post from Manas Tungare about the exploiting nature of Marathon Fundarisers. I would not put this on the same line but still it had some good points to infer. I am not exploiting my social graph directly too. As a reader if you have any objection regarding the ethics of this experiment do let me know and i will take the necessary corrective action.
What if it succeeds?
Stay tuned! I will let you know.
For now all i need is one step of action from you!
7 Responses 
Leave a Reply 
I believe an activity is ethical if
1. The result is positive
2. Nobody gets hurt directly or indirectly by it.
So I think this is definitly a positive step forward for social media and non profit organisations and would like to congratulate Ramanujam for coming out with this innovative idea. We work with Bhummi in Chennai and from our experience we can vouch for the fact that they are a truly professional organisation. My best wishes.
Way to go.
Cool experiment.
Great initiative, wish you good luck. Have done all of 4 listed above – I hope thats a fine way to show my humble support to your work?
Cheers
Hey…Very nice initiative indeed…And I really appreciate the efforts taken by you.. proud of U! Good Luck!!
great initiative! all the best! :)
I wish them all luck! Great initiative :)
hi ppl.. Yet again, here is an opportunity for you be a part of future India.. Pls do posting so that Bhumi Chennai gets more funds..thank you:-)