hope140 blog

Free to Tweet: Celebrating Digital Free Speech

Guest Post by Ken Paulson, President, First Amendment Center

James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the boys would have been all over Twitter.

There’s no question that the nation’s founding fathers would have embraced social media as a logical extension of their own commitment to freedom of speech and press. Today’s digital marketplace of ideas is exactly what they had in mind.

That intersection of traditional American freedoms and emerging technologies is at the heart of a new educational effort called “Free to Tweet,” a campaign organized and supported by a coalition of educators, librarians, artists and journalists to remind young people about the value of these core freedoms.

There’s a lot of reminding to be done. Only three percent of Americans can name the five freedoms of the First Amendment, reflecting a lack of attention to these core liberties in the nation’s classrooms. Surveys show that young people can far more readily name the lead characters of The Simpsons than the freedoms of speech, press, religion, petition and assembly.

To help build understanding, we’re using Twitter (follow us @1forallus) as a platform for an unprecedented campaign in support of the Bill of Rights. On December 15, young people between the ages of 14-22 who tweet in support of the First Amendment will be entered into a competition in which they can win one of 22 $5,000 scholarships by using the hashtag #freetotweet.

The contest, funded by the Knight Foundation, is tied to the 220th birthday of the Bill of Rights, a largely forgotten date in American history.

It’s not as though no one ever attempted to give this day the respect it deserves. On Aug. 21, 1941, a joint resolution of Congress called on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to designate a day in honor of the Bill of Rights.

On Nov. 28 , 1941, the Los Angeles Times reported that “President Roosevelt today called on the American people to observe Dec. 15 as ‘Bill of Rights Day,’ to cherish the ‘immeasurable privileges which the charter guaranteed’ and to rededicate its principles and practice.” FDR called on government officials to fly the flag and for all Americans to “observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and prayer,” noting that Adolf Hitler’s greatest fear was our freedom of speech, press and religion.

Then came Pearl Harbor and World War II, and the national celebration never really caught on. It’s the holiday that got away.

We’re trying to remedy that with a virtual rally on behalf of First Amendment freedoms on its 220th birthday.

All Americans are urged to join us in tweeting on Dec. 15 and help generate the kind of attention and energy that this date so richly deserves.

The irony is that most of us honor the Fourth of July because we believe it’s a day on which Americans secured their freedom. But the truth is that the Declaration of Independence really only secured freedom for white and wealthy men. It took freedom of speech, press, religion, petition and assembly — the five freedoms of the First Amendment — to lead to suffrage for women, the emancipation of slaves and equality for all.

Twitter is the perfect platform for conveying freedom of speech in as quick and contemporary a manner as possible. James Madison would be proud.

Twitter Ads for Good Program: FAQ

What is the Twitter Ads for Good Program?

The Twitter Ads for Good Program is one aspect of the Twitter for Nonprofits Program. See a full list of what the Twitter for Nonprofits program offers here.

Who Can Benefit from Twitter Ads for Good?

The Twitter Ads for Good Program is Split Into Three Separate Funds:

The Global Fund: This fund offers any registered non-profit a chance to amplify their campaign. Recipients of this fund specify an upcoming effort and request promoted Tweets or a promoted accounts as a way to reach beyond their regular audience and create special awareness of an effort. Additionally, any non-profit that pays for promoted tweets or promoted accounts advertising on Twitter is eligible for a 20% discount.

The Crisis Relief Fund: This fund ensures that critical information from relief partners reaches the widest relevant audience during natural disasters and other immediate emergencies. These partners are pre-determined and offer both preventative and post-disaster response messaging.

The Community Fund (San Francisco): This fund focuses on the needs of non-profits in the communities in which Twitter, Inc. operates, starting with San Francisco. This program offers pro-bono ad space to organizations that enhance the lives of local residents and municipal bodies.

How Do Organizations Participate?

Any 501c3 can apply for a grant starting with the Contact Form on our Hope140.org site. Organizations must have a clear need for initiating a Twitter campaign. Grantees are required to track the impact and report back on what they were able to accomplish. Impact reports are critical to our understanding of the real value of these grants and in understanding best practices in this realm.

How Do We Chose Which Organizations Receive Twitter Ads for Good Grants?

Twitter wants to remain as agnostic as possible. That means all applications are approved as long as the organization seeking a grant is confirmed to have 501c3 status and has a clear campaign focus. Given the demand, applicants should apply six months in advance of their desired campaign.

Does the Twitter Ads for Good Program Offer Grants for All Twitter’s Ad Products?

At this time the program only offers grants for promoted Tweets and Accounts.

Where Can I Apply?

Fill in the form here.

Twitter for Nonprofits Program

Since the day we launched our first advertising product in April of 2010, we’ve been supporting non-profits with pro-bono and discounted access to our promoted products on a daily basis. Specifically, our Promoted Tweets for Good and Promoted Crisis Tweets have served dozens upon dozens of organizations, and we are eager to continue our work. With more than 99% of the top 200 nonprofits in the USA on Twitter, we know we’re doing something right.

Starting this fall, we’re formalizing the individual services we offer to nonprofit organizations into a comprehensive “Twitter for Nonprofits Program”.

Read below to read about our existing offerings (and one new one!), and how to apply:

Twitter for Non-Profits Program

1. Twitter Ads for Good

Pro-bono: Select numbers of registered non-profit organizations can receive pro-bono tweets and accounts. This program is booked solid with a 6-month waiting list right now, so organizations must apply early. Fill out this query form for an application.

There are three pro-bono funds:

Global Fund: Any registered non-profit can amplify their campaign to donors around the world through this fund in the Twitter Ads for Good program.

Crisis Relief: Non-profit organizations who provide valuable resources in times of crisis (natural disaster, civil unrest) can apply to be considered for this fund.

Community Fund (San Francisco): Any registered non-profit focusing on the needs of communities where Twitter, Inc. has offices (starting with San Francisco) can apply to this fund.

We also offer paying non-profit advertisers a bonus:

Paid: Registered Non-Profit organizations who do not receive acceptance into our pro-bono program can apply to receive 20% bonus on all ad buys. Contact our sales team here.

2. Hope140 Spotlights

Guest Blog Posts from Hope140

Hope140.org is the website where we featured unique uses of Twitter in the world of social good. If you’re interested in contributing a guest post for the blog at Hope140.org, fill out this query form for an application.

Tweets from @hope140

@Hope140 is a Twitter account dedicated to highlighting positive uses of Twitter for good in the ecosystem. We often tweet out to promote third-party causes. Fill out this query form for an application for us to Tweet about your cause today.

3. Pro-Bono Analytics

We extend pro-bono access to a comprehensive analytics system typically reserved for paying advertisers to a select number of non-profit organizations.

Fill out this query form for an application.

4. Verification

To be considered for Twitter account verification of your non-profit organization, fill out this query form.

As always, some conditions apply to each program. We’re eager to see your applications for doing good on Twitter.

Twitter in Tohuko

Six months after the largest earthquake in 1,000 years, Japan is still working to rebuild.

Here’s a great video from James Kondo from Twitter’s Japan office at TEDX Tokyo, who talks about some of the uses of Twitter in the aftermath.

Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet at a Time

The new book by Twitter’s Claire Diaz-Ortiz called Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet at a Time is out today!

In celebration, you can get an electronic copy of the book for free for the next 24 hours.

Here are the details:

Starting at 12:00 AM (midnight) PST on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 Twitter for Good: Change the World, One Tweet at A Time will be available as a FREE electronic download for 24 hours only.

Where can you find it free for 24 hours on September 6?

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Did you miss the free offer?

Enter to win a copy here.

Volunteer on Twitter to Help with Hurricane Irene and Other Disasters

As many Americans prepare for Hurricane Irene, there is no shortage of innovative efforts on Twitter to provide information and support. (Here is one Twitter list of Hurricane Irene related information.)

The American Red Cross, for one, is piloting a new program to engage digital volunteers on Twitter to help with rescue and recovery efforts in emergency situations. The @redcross digital volunteers are on 4-hour shifts to monitor questions about resources, track trends, and keep track of important search terms related to Hurricane Irene. At the end of each shift, volunteers then provide valuable disaster operations reporting to improve situational awareness and best affect decision-making for American Red Cross operations and public information strategy.

Are you interested in being a digital volunteer on Twitter for the American Red Cross?

This is a pilot program for @redcross, and they hope that the lessons they learn from their digital volunteers during Hurricane Irene will help improve the program in the future. Here is some information about what they’re looking for from volunteers:

Preferred Capabilities:

- You have a personal Twitter  account and you’re not afraid to talk with Red Cross stakeholders
- You’re adept at searching on Twitter
- You’re familiar with Red Cross relief efforts for Hurricane Irene (or you’re willing to study CrossNet to become that way)

Duties:

- Monitor Twitter for keywords like Redcross, “Red Cross”, #hurricane, #irene
- At the end of each 4-hour shift you’ll provide a short summary of the trends you’re seeing in conversations.
- Using your personal twitter account, you are asked to respond to any questions you feel comfortable with (the resources on CrossNet for Hurricane Irene are great for finding answers).

Ready to apply?

If you want to become digital volunteers for the future (as Hurricane Irene digital volunteers are now in place), please email Wendy Harman at harmanw@usa.redcross.org

Igniting Change in Darfur

Guest Post by @DarfurStoves

Since 2003, conflict in Darfur has killed at least 300,000 people and forced more than two million people from their homes. You may wonder, how can a fuel-efficient stove address the humanitarian crisis in Darfur?

The Darfur Stoves Project seeks to protect Darfuri women by providing them with specially developed stoves which require less firewood, decreasing women’s exposure to violence while collecting firewood and their need to trade food rations for fuel.

Women in Darfur aren’t alone. More than half of the world’s population – three billion people – cook their food and heat their homes by burning coal, wood, dung, and crop residues in open fires or rudimentary stoves. According to the World Health Organization, exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves and open fires causes 1.9 million premature deaths annually, and is the fourth worst overall health risk factor in developing countries. As the household members most likely to cook meals, women and children are most affected.

One of the great things about Twitter is that we’re able to keep up with other groups tackling similar issues, like the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. This past fall, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the launch of this exciting initiative and its goal of “100 by 20,” which calls for 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020. We’re a member of this Alliance, and are optimistic that it will help raise public awareness about the importance of cookstoves. We’re particularly excited about the Alliance’s new Global Ambassador, @Julia Roberts and look forward to reading her tweets as she becomes more involved with the cause. Twitter has allowed a global network of like-minded organizations to exchange ideas and encourage collaboration and with half the world’s population in need of fuel-efficient cookstoves, there’s plenty of work to go around! (Check out #cookstoves to learn more.)

While Darfur has slipped from the headlines, Twitter has also allowed us to update followers on the terrible conditions that persist in the region. Thousands of families in Darfur have been displaced since January of this year and continue to flood into overcrowded displacement camps. The UN has declared June 20th as World Refugee Day and we encourage you to help raise awareness about this issue by tweeting with the #worldrefugeeday hashtag.

826 National is Tweeting for Students

Guest Post by Gerald Richards (@Gerald826CEO), CEO of 826 National

“If you teach kids how to tell stories, they have a better chance at everything.” –Sherman Alexie

At 826 National, we’re dedicated to that “better chance.”

Each year, 826 chapters across the country provide a range of programs for students, ages 6-18, aimed at strengthening their expository and creative writing skills: from after-school tutoring to Storytelling and Bookmaking field trips, to in-school projects that support teachers. Our network of nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organizations are rooted in the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.

Last year nearly 24,000 students walked through the doors of our centers in Ann Arbor, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC. We also launched our newest project, ScholarMatch, a website where we match donors with college-bound students in need of financial aid.

The work we do is only possible thanks to our legion of volunteers, totaling over 5,000 at last count. Our volunteers are professional writers, lawyers, college students, and everyone in between. They enable us to provide the individual attention that is so critical to a student’s development. At 826, we say if you can only give an hour a month, give that hour. It will make a difference.

It’s incredibly crucial, then, that we have tools to tell the 826 story so that we can help students keep telling theirs. Social media has been instrumental to our efforts. Twitter has helped us recruit new volunteers, spread awareness of our work, and has been a powerful fundraising tool. Over the summer, we raffled off singer-songwriter Neko Case’s car online and raised a significant amount of money— in large part through Twitter. We’ve also used our Twitter feed to showcase snippets of student writing, survey our followers, and follow education news from across the country.

In the week of August 26, we’ll be holding our second annual 826 on 8/26 week (get it?), which celebrates youth literacy. We’ll be holding a national contest and other events nationwide. We hope you’ll stay tuned— it’s an exciting time!

Without a network of caring people, we couldn’t serve a single student.

To learn more about us, follow 826 National at @826National.

Twitter Advocacy Works When @WhiteHouse Answers

Is Twitter a good tool for online advocacy?

Can tweets help get the word out to raise awareness and catalyze change? Does anyone in D.C. or on Capitol Hill really use or listen to what’s being said on Twitter?

For ONE — the grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa — the answers are an emphatic yes, yes, yes!

ONE recently used Twitter as an important tactic as part of their social network strategy to engage members as part of their vaccine campaign. ONE asked their members to tweet the White House to make an ambitious pledge for vaccines that could save four million lives in five years.

Garth Moore, ONE’s U.S. New Media Deputy Director, said the campaign plan was to get on the White House’s listening stream with their message. “The tweet itself was a 140-character work of pure simplicity. We asked members to tweet: “@WhiteHouse, got plans on June 13? Why not pledge to save 4m kids w/vaccines? Plz respond!’. We made it kinda fun and made it in a form of a question to draw out the White House to respond to our members about funding life-saving vaccines.”

A week later, ONE heard from sources that @whitehouse received the messages and that they were listening, so the campaign went back to their top tweeps to send another message. This time, they sent this tweet: “@whitehouse: Do your fair share. Pledge $450m over 3yrs to save 4m kids w vaccines. @ONECampaign #vax.”

Moore says, “When we heard we were making an impact, we changed our message to get the point across. And we made sure to get our Twitter handle and a strong hashtag in their so people could follow us and pass the tweet around.”

The campaign used an inventive Twitter mashup with Google Maps to show the names, tweets, and locations for their tweeps.

Moore says more than 2,300 ONE members and advocates posted their Twitter message on map. Overall, more than 3,500 messages were tweeted across the Twitterverse. While @whitehouse didn’t respond via Tweet to ONE’s outreach, the Obama administration did commit $450 million over the next three years to fund vaccines — the exact amount of funding ONE members asked for.

ONE later learned that the Twitter action was crucial in swaying the Obama administration to make the commitment for vaccines.

Want to know more? Follow @ONECampaign to learn more about the fight against global poverty and how you can take part in their next Twitter action.

Real Men Don’t Buy Girls

Guest Post by @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher)
Demi and I created @dnafoundation to raise awareness about child sex slavery and fight this terrible problem.

For those who are new to the issue, here are some important facts:

• The average age of entry into forced prostitution in the United States is 13
• Hundreds of thousands of American girls and boys are enslaved today
• Each year, sex trafficking generates $39 billion in profits globally
• 90 percent of the children and youth trafficked for sexual purposes in the U.S. are citizens of our own country
• An estimated one million children are forced to work in the global sex industry every year

Last year, we traveled the world learning about this issue. I visited Russia with the U.S. State department to learn more about technology solutions to child sex slavery. Demi visited Haiti to learn about how extreme poverty contributes to the growth of the issue. We met with survivors, politicians, law enforcement officers and everyone we could to learn what we could do. Ultimately, we determined that the best use of our time and energy was to focus on changing the behavior of the pimps who sell and the “johns” who buy children for sex. Our goal is to intervene before they engage in buying children for sex and to punish them if they do so. We learned that sex slavery is an elastic trade.  We want to make the costs of buying and selling children for sex so high that most of the people who are currently doing it just don’t.

Studies show that the average “john” is married, in his 30’s, and has no criminal record.

Ashton Kutcher

Co-Founder, The DNA Foundation