Related Causes Widget from Social Actions

You probably already know about Social Actions, a new project to aggregate data from numerous social sector directories like Kiva, GlobalGiving, and Idealist. Social Actions has been mentioned on our blog a handful of times and took third place at NetSquared this year.

Just this morning, Social Actions unveiled the Related Ways to Take Action widget for adding links to social causes on blogs or other Web sites. The widget works a lot like Google AdWords, suggesting causes based on keywords that appear in the site. I had fun trying URLs for various sites and articles to see what kind of recommendations Social Actions would come up with. Although there's the occasional oddball, most of them are pretty good.

One thing I like a lot about this widget — and about what Social Actions is doing generally — is that it's not just about donations. The engine suggests petitions and volunteering opportunities, giving visitors a more holistic view of participation.

Previously on this blog, I've decried the giant "donate" button displayed on many nonprofit Web sites. In the subsequent discussion thread, Russ at GiftWorks suggested renaming the button "Ways to Help" and making volunteering and advocacy opportunities just as prominent as the Visa and MasterCard logos. Listing your nonprofit in various social directories is a good first step; the more difficult next step is creating a Web site that invites your visitors to get involved.