Virtue Goes Viral

Virtue Goes ViralHow United Way Can Benefit from Social Media

The Main Idea: United Way NYC can attract young people to their 2010 LIVEUNITED Bridge Walk and Volunteer Festival by creating a badge that people canpost to their online social outlet of choice. The badge would be a new spin onold-fashioned Boy Scout badges (because there’s nothing more hipster thanslightly ironic nostalgia—as a 25 year-old living in Williamsburg, I have ampleevidence to support this).

Ideally, the badges would be an unintrusive yet ubiquitous online presence, and itmight add a playful twist on random acts of charity to somehow distribute thelogo in person as well—via stickers, postcards, or even sidewalk chalk, allmethods of outreach that would provide a positive alternative to theGreenpeacers’ guilt-inducing sidewalk traps. The badge would link out to theUnited Way website and to GoodSearch, a search engine that donates itsincome to charities—we could have UW-NYC entered on autofill. This wouldgenerate small donations at no cost to United Way or to its tech-savvy youngsupporters.

Add-Ons: User interest could be further generated by asking people to submitbadge designs and then creating a Facebook page where their friends can votefor their favorite one. Who knows? With enough snazzy designs United Waymay even be able to have a few T-shirts printed with the winning design, whichthey could then sell on their website.

- Ashley Newman