SocialButterfly.

Have some extra time but also want to engage the brain? Try Free Rice.

Play a simple word game and based on your success, rice will be donated to hungry children.

How It Works

A word appears and asks you to define it. Every definition you correctly identify donates 20 grains of rice. You’re intriguing the mind, using social media tools AND giving. Talk about collaborative innovation.

There are 55 different vocabulary levels, with customized options for your own vocabulary growth…the site says that most people don’t get beyond level 48. Will you be the one to reach level 55?!?

The words are also constantly evaluated on their difficulty level depending on how many people get the word right or wrong and new words are always being added.

Why

Free Rice also lists many reasons why its encourages the development of vocabulary as part of its mission in its FAQ section of its website. They include:

• Formulate your ideas better
• Write better papers, emails and business letters
• Speak more precisely and persuasively
• Comprehend more of what you read
• Read faster because you comprehend better
• Get better grades in high school, college and graduate school
• Score higher on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT
• Perform better at job interviews and conferences
• Sell yourself, your services, and your products better
• Be more effective and successful at your job

Who Finances The Donation?

According to the site, the site’s advertisers are the ones who actually pay for the rice to be donated. And, the site itself does not run a profit. Thus, you play, advertisers pay to be listed on the site, that money funds the rice donation.

Distribution

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) distributes the rice. The WFP works with over 1,000 organizations in over 75 countries, making it the world’s largest food aid agency. When possible, WFP buys the food through the local growers and economy.

Results

From its start on October 7, 2007 to April 27, 2008, the total number of rice grains donated = 29,724,130,370! For a break down of results, click here.

More

To learn more about hunger, visit Poverty.com, an interactive site that teaches about hunger and poverty, and even tracks how many hunger deaths occur per hour through a moving, interactive map…

Other Helpful Sites include:

What wave you may ask? The wave of effective positive change in yourself and in your community. At the Next Wave Take Action Summit 2008, the leaders of the future gathered and shared King’s inspiration with their visions for the next big wave of change.

Participants in this interactive 3-day program to learn how to create, develop and spread this ‘wave’ for social change. Speakers shared insights, knowledge and resources about copyright, trademark, gaining nonprofit status, business development, financial integrity, marketing, social marketing and fund raising.  The main message: Before you can motivate/inspire/encourage/support others….you have to know who you are, where you’re are going, your strengths, weaknesses, etc.

As organizer Tambra Stevenson might say, “You’ve got to lead your own ship before you can have effective leadership with others.”

The social entrepreneurs who attended this past weekend’s summit are steering their own ship and others, addressing such social causes as:

- Eco-enterprise
- Youth literacy
- Financial literacy
- Health awareness
- Political engagement
- Poverty and welfare
- Health and Wellness
- and more!

Yours truly also spoke about the exciting field of social marketing and social marketing’s role in the growing field of social enterprise. Other summit speakers represented a kaleidoscope of organizations including: ASHOKA Foundation, IQ Solutions, OhMyGov!, GreenDMV, William James Foundation, First Environment, Chance Academy, D.C. Mayor’s Office on Community Affairs, Upgrade America, IBM, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. Copyright Office, Nonprofit Roundtable, D.C. Office of Partnerships and Grants Development, Main Streets Anacostia, Creative Cause, DNC Women’s Leadership Forum.

In the future, the Next Wave Take Action committee plans on hosting an event to commemorate Robert Kennedy’s assassination. See you there!

In an earlier post, I clarified how social marketing differentiates itself from social media marketing. Now, I am asking for your thoughts on how the term social marketing relates to the term social change marketing.

Social marketing, as we’ve discussed, has decades of theoretical history and practice. It is a term constantly evolving and defining itself. However, the field also faces a challenge: branding itself…especially since the onset of social media marketing.

Reading through social marketing texts and journals, the terms - social change, marketing for social change, and social change marketing are making increasing appearances, so I am curious on others’ thought about how the two terms relate.

A good summary of the two concepts, including how they relate to commercial marketing, is found in Dr. Stephen Dann’s slideshow titled:

“Social change marketing in the age of direct benefit marketing – where to from here?”

In this presentation, Dann asks the question: Where to from here? which provides information on how social marketing has grown and compares to commercial marketing and what this may mean for the future. Other signs of the concept of social change’s relationship to social marketing dates back to Prof. Alan Andreason’s book: Marketing Social Change. So, there is a history. On the web, Craig Lefebvre’s blog is titled On Social Marketing and Social Change, suggesting the relationship.

Thus, I am curious on your thoughts about the terms/concepts of social marketing versus social change marketing:

• Can social marketing be renamed social change marketing?
• Or, is social marketing one component of social change?
• Or, is social marketing one piece of social change marketing? What’s the difference? Is there a difference?

It may seem like a matter of scrabble to some, but these discussions really engage me, and I hope the enthusiasm sparks interest as I think the relationship between the two terms is continuing to develop and will becoming increasingly important as we work to brand social marketing. =)

“If I traded it all
If I gave it all away for one thing
Just for one thing
If I sorted it out
If I knew all about this one thing
Wouldn’t that be something?”

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This may not be the one thing the group Finger Eleven was singing about, but Rosetta Thurman of the blog Perspectives from the Pipeline asks about a certain one thing….

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“If (we) knew all about this one thing……wouldn’t that be something?!?”