Wednesday World Changers: Do Something

I really enjoyed a blog post about Do Something.org today. The starting question is: Q: What can teens do to help change the world with no money, no car, and no adults?


Do something is a great example of mobilising young people. They had 12 programs in 2010 with 147,000 teens participating. In 2011 it was 16 with 204,600 teens participating. In 2012 they aim to have 30 programs.


Their programs include:   Teens for Jeans (video here); Give a Spit About Cancer; Animal Welfare; Cause Scavenger Hunts; and Grandparents Gone Wired. (I wonder if teens would still join in even without the groovy names?)

The post notes that dosomething.org has three criteria for deciding whether to start a program. I think we could all take note from their criteria:

1. Pop culture/current events: What are people talking about? Has a celebrity that teens respect taken up a new cause? Has a natural disaster impacted teens somewhere?
2. What do people want?: DoSomething.org relies heavily on crowdsourcing. In fact, they have a youth advisory council which they convene every two weeks to find out what’s on their minds and consequently, what DoSomething.org should be thinking about as well.
3. Data: What is Facebook traffic, unique visitors to website, and other quantifiable stats showing about  their constituents’ interests- in other words they are using social media to their advantage

Lessons for any organisation --and frankly any age group. If we want people to donate their time and or money, lets ask:

1. whats contemporary in terms of causes/issues?

2. what is on people's minds?

3. what are people focussed on on-line?


What are the criteria you use to decide on a project?

(and a groovy name helps?)