Living Above the Fold

Manuel de Paz is a short, bespectacled man from El Salvador with a scruffy goatee and a round, friendly face that belies his turbulent past. He’s lived in the United States for almost two decades, though he still speaks with a slight Spanish accent. Dressed in jeans and a black turtleneck, he looks casual as he walks around the basement offices of the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, where he works as community outreach coordinator.

Sanctuary from the Storm (The East Bay Monthly, December 2007)

I’d been hearing a lot about how businesses could use Twitter to boost their branding and sales.  But I hadn’t heard much about how charities and non-profits could use the same technology to help raise funds for worthy causes.  On April 14, actor Hugh Jackman pledged to give AUS $100,000 to the charity that could best convince him, via Twitter, that it was deserving of the award.  He later announced that, unable to decide, he had chosen two winners to split the prize: Operation of Hope, a medical foundation that donates surgical procedures to children in developing countries born with facial deformities, and Charity: Water, a non-profit dedicated to providing safe drinking water in developing countries. That led me to look at some ways that non-profits could use Twitter to draw attention to world problems and help work toward solutions.

How Charities Harness Social Media to Raise Awareness, Money (PBS Mediashift, April 28, 2009)