mySociety blog » PledgeBank

Ian has used PledgeBank to start a residents association for a new block of flats in Cambridge, UK.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to disable the PledgeBank Facebook application. It used to let you sign and share pledges from within Facebook.

Facebook recently changed their platform (again!), breaking our code for sending success/failure messages. Obviously, it is no good signing up to a pledge if you don’t get informed when it succeeds.

I tried to fix it, but couldn’t work out how to do so quickly. We don’t have the time and money at the moment to chase after this, so I’ve disabled the application entirely. Links to PledgeBank pages on Facebook now redirect to pledgebank.com.

Hopefully it’ll be back one day - do send us emails if you miss it (or money if you have a large pledge that really needs it!). I think there may be a better solution with a simpler interface - the current application tried too hard to reimplement all of PledgeBank within Facebook. And besides, we should be supporting OpenSocial now it exists. It’s an open standard, Facebook isn’t.

Technical details: We used infinite session keys to send notifications from cron jobs. Quite reasonably, this no longer works. However, I couldn’t find out what to use instead. I think Facebook should respect backwards compatibility of its APIs a lot more, and if it breaks it they should give clear instructions about what to use instead. This does put me off ever wanting to develop anything on their platform again.

I’m enjoying the weather at the moment, seems to be sunnier than the summer, but cool with an atmospheric autumnal taste in the air.

mySociety is changing as ever, leaping forward in our race to try and make it easier for normal people to influence, improve or replace functions of government. More on this as it happens.

Meanwhile, I’ve been continuing to hack away at WhatDoTheyKnow. A little while ago Google decided to deep index all our pages - causing specific problems (I had to tell it to stop crawling the 117th page of similar requests to another request), and also ones from the extra attention. There have been quite a few problems to resolve with authority spam filters (see this FOI officer using the annotation function), and with subtle and detailed privacy issues (when does a comment become personal? if you made something public a while ago, and it is now a shared public resource, can you modify it or take it down?).

Right, I’ve got to go and fix a bug to do with the Facebook PledgeBank app. It’s to do with infinite session keys, and how we send messages when a pledge has completed. Facebook seem to change their API without caring much that applications have to be altered to be compatible with it. This is OK if the Facebook application is your core job, but a pain when you just want your Facebook code to keep running as it did forever.

(the autumn photo thanks to Nico Cavallotto)

Over a thousand Ebbsfleet United supporters have used PledgeBank to raise enough money to buy a striker Michael Gash from Cambridge City.

This is an excellent example of why you should never pre-determine exactly how people are going to use your site!

The latest “Giving Carnival” question is being organized this month by Peter Deitz, the brains behind Social Actions.

Peter’s question: “Is person-to-person fundraising dead, or just getting started?�?”

I’ll give my brief answer. Person-to-person fundraising is either dead or slowly dying, but that could be good news. Let me explain.

We’ve all probably had some experience with person-to-person fundraising — me, I sold Girl Scout Cookies. Now, I wasn’t selling Girl Scout cookies because I deeply cared about raising money for the organization or because I was interested in sharing the story of the Girl Scouts with those whose doorbells I rang. I was in it for the badges and stuffed unicorns that I could win by selling the most boxes of cookies. Person-to-person fundraising has reached a point, I think, at which there is such commodification of an organization’s story that there is little meaning left in the actual transaction…just stuffed unicorns.

Person-to-person action, however, is a different story — and I think that’s where there is tremendous potential. Take, for instance, what’s happening on PledgeBank. Individuals create a pledge to do “something,” but must make asks of their social network (friends, family, co-workers, etc.) in order to make that “something” happen. Rather than operating via a “transactional” outlook, it’s actually necessary to tell the story of why this “something” is important. There are few drive-by fundraisers on the site — you have to interact with folks and let them know why they should sign up to this social contract with you in order to meet your pledge’s target number of signers.

Similarly, I recently chatted with David Stoker, who’s working with Ashoka’s Citizen Base Initiative. They’re addressing the problem of superficial interactions by encouraging organizations to rally a fan base of individuals who support them…much like a sports team. The analogy is lost when you start imagining people painting their faces on behalf of the Red Cross, but the idea of organizations looking to their network for more than just a donation is certainly compelling.

Don’t get me wrong — I still buy and love Girl Scout cookies. But if I had to place bets on where the future of online organizing lies, it’s on peer-to-peer action that requires interaction, that illuminates an individual’s values, and that is part of a meaningful narrative arc. Thin Mint, anyone?

I’ve had the good fortune to talk with a few folks over the past several days who have echoed many of the things that we’ve been learning at PledgeBank over the past several months and years, and I thought I’d share…

First, I chatted yesterday with Jason Dick, who blogs at A Small Change. The blog focuses on nonprofit fundraising, and in our conversation we chatted about the tendency of nonprofits to be more than a bit behind the curve when it comes to adoption of new ideas/technologies…but that’s old news. We also chatted about the organizations that have decided to take a bit of a chance on online fundraising, and that have done some incredible things. We’ve seen the same thing happen at PledgeBank — a small organization (or a not-yet-formed organization) trusts its supporters enough to put some modicum of responsibility in their hands, and gets a tremendous response.

I also chatted yesterday with Peter Dietz of Social Actions and the impressive lot behind the Social Actions Mashup (selected as a finalist in the NetSquared competition, btw). There was great conversation about the value in aggregating information, what the nonprofit sector can gain from the syndication of social actions, and how we can all work together to create more ways for more people to do more good. Really.

Finally, I had the pleasure of reconnecting with an old friend, Susannah Cowden, who is now working with Be the Change. As an organization that’s still forming and growing, there’s significant pressure to both be different and be innovative — I hear the same struggle from a lot of organizations in the U.S. While there are many folks who have every intention of trusting their supporters to act on their behalf and equipping them with the tools to do so, there are very few who actually do it.

I wanted to capture these conversations because these themes are not at all unique. We all know that nonprofits move slowly when it comes to technology. We all know that those willing to take a chance are, more often than not, rewarded. And we all know that there’s a delicate balance between controlling your organization’s message (especially if your tax status is 501(c)3 in the U.S.) and empowering your organization’s members.

What I think these conversations illuminated for me is the need for someone to cut through all of these lessons and to find ways to make real stuff happen, with real impact. That’s what mySociety is about: giving people “simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives.” And (I hope) that’s what PledgeBank enables. Holler (heather at pledgebank dot com) if you’re interested in working together to create a larger platform for collective community action.

Well, I doubt that this will end the mashup trend going on out in the interwebs, but I thought folks might be interested in seeing this…

NetSquared (based in the U.S.) has launched their newest summer contest, the N2Y3 (that’s NetSquared Year Three) Mashup Challenge. You can see the 100+ projects that have been submitted here. One of mySociety’s projects, PledgeBank, is featured in one of the submissions: Social Actions. OK, the name isn’t super-sexy. But the idea is. Peter Deitz is developing a way to lead any given user (an individual or an organization) through the process of selecting a social action platform. Do you want to raise money? Do you need to integrate with a specific CRM? Do you need an online donation processing tool? Do you need a widget for your site? This mashup with combine 29+ (the list keeps growing) “action” tools (including PledgeBank) in that wizard, helping the average Joe or Jane figure out which tool would work best for them.

Of course, in order to move forward in the competition for mentoring and money, Peter needs your vote. To vote for this mashup (and at least four more — NetSquared is smarter than to just let everyone vote for one), just create a free account on the site and add at least five projects to your ballot. There are some really cool ones out there, so browse around a bit. The polls opened on Monday at 8am PST, and they will be closing on Friday at 5pm PST. The 20 mashup proposals with the most votes will attend the annual NetSquared Conference in San Jose, May 27 & 28, 2008. During the conference, the mashup creators will have a chance to pitch their projects to funders, foundations, and fellow nonprofit tech professionals.

As they say in Chicago, vote early and vote often!

A lot has been happening with PledgeBank in the U.S. over the past few months, but an exciting podcast just went up that’s a great synthesis of some of that work. Idealist just launched a podcast featuring PledgeBank, and also telling the story of one of our favorite pledge campaigns. You can hear the podcast here.

You can also see more from the Bakul Foundation on their new website. Good things are happening, my friends…please help spread the word about PledgeBank to those folks you know who want to do incredible things like what the Bakul Foundation has done!

Whew. It’s exciting times.

As you know, we’ve been looking for a new developer for a little while, and I’m pleased to say we’ve found one. We’re very picky, as we have lots of really convulted, diverse software amazing award winning websites to keep going.

Just as important as finding someone technically skilled, it’s important that they are motivated and excited about what mySociety is doing. If you’re hiring any programmer you should be looking for that, especially so for a small, nimble charity like us. We had lots of good applicants, and were sorry we could only afford to choose one.

Please welcome Angie Ahl! She lives in Cumbria, so keeping with our policy of having staff scattered to the four winds. I can see mountain climbing in my future. Angie runs a web design company working mainly in the film and music industries. I’ll try and persuade her to post here about what she gets up to with us.

Other things - there’s another one of our Disruptive Technology talks in London next Thursday. It’s by Jason Kitcat, who not only is head of technology at netmums.com, but also co-ordinated the Open Rights Group’s electronic voting trials observations earlier in the year. Read the fascinating report - there’s a bit where overall control of the Scottish Parliament literally hung off the edge of the page of an Excel spreadsheet. Sign up now to come and see Jason speak next week.

Speaking of the Open Rights Group, it is astonishingly two years since a PledgeBank pledge got them started with 1000 supporters. Danny O’Brien has written a fun summary of what they’ve been up to. If they can do this, then what could you do with PledgeBank?

The “um’s” and “uh’s” on the interview are embarrassing, to say the least, but PledgeBank just got its first podcast coverage. Check out my NetSquared interview here. I’m hoping this gets us a bit of exposure in the U.S.

And I’ll do better next time with all the incidental sounds… :-)

Which are yours?

Bakul-Library - it’s just awesome, that they used PledgeBank, that they got a 1000 people, and that they’re going to make a new library in India because of it.

deathpenalty - Not because it was effective, and not because I agree with it. But because I disagree with it, and because of the reaction it got from left-wingers not used to seeing other points of view. PledgeBank is for anyone.

walkout - PledgeBank offline. These school students got together to march against war (whatever or yippeee), but just LOOK at how many text message sign ups there were. Tom saw in London an illegally flyposted flyer.

First1000 - I mean, they may be crazy libertarians, but ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE are going to move house. OK loads won’t move. But hundreds will.

tunepiano - It’s about fun and joy, not just politics and worthiness (bit of a worthy example to make that point I know, but it is a piano!)

We’re delighted to announce that mySociety has been generously awarded $100,000 by Omidyar Network, a mission-based investment group committed to enabling individual self-empowerment. The purpose of the investment, our largest to date from a philanthropic source, is to spread the use of PledgeBank.com to a host of community and grassroots groups in the US.

Omidyar Network invested in PledgeBank because it encourages collective effort by enabling users to rally the support of others through their own commitment to take action.

From starting new organizations, to giving blood, to volunteering to mentor others, Pledgebank has enabled people to do things they wouldn’t have done otherwise. Just this morning we were sent these pictures of a protest in Brazil that was organised using PledgeBank.

What has been missing to date, though, has been any resource to spread the use of the tool to traditionally offline groups. Whether these are schools, community groups, NGOs, churches or neighbourhood watch groups, many could benefit from PledgeBank, but few have had the opportunity to hear about it. Therefore, PledgeBank is looking to hire an outreach coordinator who will travel around the US meeting groups, listening to their goals, and explaining how PledgeBank can help them, for free.

mySociety will be recruiting the outreach coordinator in the New Year. If you’d like to get in touch, perhaps to pre-book an appointment to meet or talk with the outreach coordinator, or because you know someone who could do the job well, please drop us a line to team@mysociety.org.

I haven’t posted here for a while - in late May / early June I was on holiday in China for a month. After 18 months of hectic mySociety with only a break for a week, I needed it!

Since I got back, I’ve been busy on the no. 10 petitions site, which in the tag-team coding way that we do, Matthew has now taken over for a bit. And I’m doing something I’m hesitatingly calling “geocascading pledges”.

I’m not quite sure what to call it yet. It lets you make one pledge, but whose target counts separately in different towns. When someone signs up, they also choose a place. Rather than having to make a separate pledge for everywhere in the world, you can just make one.

Here’s an example pledge, which is also real (more on that later), so do sign it if you like. And then post your thoughts in the comments - it needs a bit of polishing yet.

So, PledgeBank launched today. Already, you can sign pledges to have trees planted to compensate for your CO₂ emissions, help clean up the banks of the River Taff, support local retailers, and one or two, err, more politically controversial ones. So, take a look, and sign — or, better, create — some pledges!

PledgeBank is mySociety’s second project. The purpose of PledgeBank is to get people past a barrier which strikes down endless good plans before they can are carried out - the fear of acting alone. It allows anyone to say “I’ll do X if other people also do X”, for example “I’ll write to my councillor if 5 other people on my street do the same”. However, there is no scale to big or too small, it could equally be used to say “I’ll start recycling if 10,000 other people in Britain also start”.

Pledgebank developement will start soon, and we are now looking for partner organisations, large and small, who would like to use Pledgebank when it launches. If you run a charity or other organisations, or if you know anyone who does, please do email us.