Involve.me is a service that connects compassionate readers with worthy organizations that are fighting for change. The service is aimed at those who would like to make a connection between what they read and how they live. We hope to help this audience bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing clear, frictionless pathways to involvement in the issues that matter to them.
As a first step toward this goal, we've built a prototype for a chrome extension that does two things. First: it identifies social good organizations named in the articles you read, and provides annotations with basic information on the group, a one-click donation button, and a way to get in touch about volunteer opportunities. Second: it identifies trends in your reading history based on key words and phrases to send you a periodic email digest of organizations you might be interested in supporting or becoming involved with.
We think one of the most interesting things about Involve.me is its potential for growth. In its current form, Involve.me is a proposal for a useful service to make faster connections between individuals and social good organizations. But in the future, it's easy to imagine this transitioning from simple connective tissue into a sort of social good hub—one place to manage your relationships with a wide range of NGOs, nonprofits, and charities, whether that means setting donation goals and maximums, or scheduling volunteer hours. By becoming the infrastructure for these tasks, we could connect users to a wider range of social good organizations, and expose organizations to a wider user base.
By giving readers a clear avenue to act on journalism that they find moving, we're hoping to increase the potential for journalism to make a real-world impact without endangering the editorial integrity of the journalist.