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A Little Bit More: Tweet for a Cause

By Celeste, who promises to start using Twitter more regularly. Follow her @smellyham.


by Flickr user 7son75 Last week Scott wrote about how thrilled we've been with our growing community on Twitter. The increasingly popular micro-blogging service has proven to withstand the test of time – not to mention the fickleness of the tech community. It's still all the rage. And with the difficult economic climate the world finds itself in now, why not use it to raise some money for a good cause?

My favorite example of using Twitter to get some cash is that of the Twitchhiker, a.k.a. Paul Smith. Casting aside the age-old upturned thumb method, Twitchhiker is instead using the social media service as means to complimentary accommodation and travel around the world. The United Kingdom native gave himself just the month of March to see how far the goodwill of the global community could take him. Why would he do this? Besides an opportunity to learn about other cultures and try exotic foods, he raised thousands of pounds for charity: water, a nonprofit that aims to bring clean water to developing nations.

The organization charity: water may sound familiar if you've been following Twitter-related news. Last month's Twestival brought together Twitter communities in 200+ cities around the world in an effort to support their projects, such as new wells in Uganda and water towers in India. Overall, the event raised $250,000. The director of development at Girls Inc. of Chattanooga was so impressed with Twestival's success that she decided to see if Twitter could work to raise funds for her local nonprofit. Within one day, the Tennessee-based organization was able to gather enough money to send three low-income girls to their science camp.

Tech guru Beth Kanter has a great blog post about using micro-blogging to fundraise. Know about any other successful examples? Leave a comment below. Bonus points if the project name is a clever play on words.


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This is the eighth entry in our series A Little Bit More, which highlights the "little somethings" that people and organizations are doing to respond to the needs around them—things that, if done by many people all around the world, add up to make a big impact.