I've been covering both Change.org and Project Agape's Facebook apps on my blog over at http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/categor y/project-agape/ and at http://www.nonprofittechblog.org/categor y/changeorg/.

There is one inaccuracy that I'd like to correct in your post. As of 6/21/2007, the Causes app had already raised $100k. They should be well past that number by now (7/16/2007).

Currently, the Causes app has 1,634,046 users. Change.org has just hit 2,008 users. The raw numbers favor Causes for now.

However, you haven't yet really discussed the major advantage of going into Facebook. Take some time and look at the privacy waivers that Causes and Change.org users have to check off when they sign into the app. It's an eye-opener. Basically, both Causes and Change.org on Facebook will have the ability to look at the entire profile of their users as well as add things into their mini-news feed. It's really quite amazing.

I invite you to join in the conversation on my blog about both apps. The discussions are quite heated but very enlightening. There's an outstanding bet right now as to how much money the Causes app will raise in December. I'm guessing $825k or more. The other side says it will be less. Care to take a bet?

Thanks for the write-up Mike (this is Ben, founder of Change.org).  I think your last point hit the nail on its head - what we've built has a lot of promise, but for it to have really significant impact it's going to require organizations to participate and actively engage potential supporters.

Fortunately we're seeing a surprising number of nonprofits moving in that direction, and since releasing our Facebook app we've had over 100 new organizations sign up for an account.  Now, signing up certainly doesn't mean that they fully engage (as you've said, many will simply set up a profile and hope that people will chance upon them and join, and others will miss the point entirely and try to drive people to their main website so they can capture their email address and integrate them into their traditional means of communication - i.e. weekly spam).  But many organizations are clearly interested in the potential of these new tools, and nearly all of the large organizations we've been in contact with have recently hired someone for "new media" or "online outreach" dedicated to engaging young supporters on social networks.  This is a first and important step.  The next step is going to require that organizations start treating social networks as more than a new, sexy marketing vehicle by actively using these tools to build community, allow for greater member participation, and forge a genuine movement around their cause.  It's not going to happen right away, but that's definitely the direction in which things are headed.

Also, as a quick note about Alan's post about our size vis-à-vis Causes and what organizations can expect for growth on Facebook.  A lot of people's expectations of the sort of growth possible on Facebook have been a little skewed based on the widespread publicity of the set of apps that were released the day of Facebook's announcement, many of which gained more than a million users in the first few weeks (Causes among them).  The primary reason for the explosion of these apps was that Facebook made it very easy for users to invite all of their friends, which drove exponential growth.  Facebook has since started to dramatically reduce the number of invitations it allows because people were complaining about receiving too many invites (the maximum number people can send is now 10 invites per day), so new apps relatively handicapped and growth has been distinctly slower.  This takes nothing away from our enthusiasm about the potential Facebook represents but it does mean that, as with everything worth fighting for, it will take time to turn Facebook into the force for social change that we think it can be.

Ben

Maybe ActBlue is the organization that could pioneer a real Facebook campaign?