Social Networks, Philanthropy, and Facebook Ethics
This paper examines the potential of social networks — particularly Facebook, Google+, and Twitter — to support philanthropic fundraising by nonprofit organizations. It proposes the creation of a Facebook Fan page to raise funds for orphaned children affected by the Japan earthquake and tsunami, coordinated with the American Red Cross. The paper also evaluates the ethical dimensions of hosting charitable campaigns on Facebook, including concerns about data ownership, subscriber privacy, and the use of donor activity data for advertising purposes. Analytics tools are discussed as a method for measuring the viral reach and effectiveness of social media philanthropy efforts.
- Introduction: Social Networks and Philanthropic Potential: Social networks as platforms for philanthropy and change
- Facebook and the Ethics of Philanthropy: Facebook's scale and its philanthropic fundraising possibilities
- Creating a Facebook Fan Page for Charitable Causes: Proposed Fan page campaign for Japan tsunami orphans
- Facebook and the Ethics of Data Analysis: Data ownership, privacy, and donor disclosure concerns
- References: Cited academic and trade sources
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What makes this paper effective
- It grounds an abstract topic — social media and philanthropy — in a concrete, actionable proposal: a Facebook Fan page for Japanese tsunami orphans coordinated with the American Red Cross.
- It balances opportunity with critique, acknowledging Facebook's fundraising potential while directly confronting data ownership and privacy ethics.
- It uses cited academic and trade sources to support both the strategic and ethical claims, lending credibility to what is a relatively short argument.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied ethical analysis by moving from general observations about social network business models to a specific ethical problem — Facebook's claim of ownership over user-submitted data — and then connecting that problem directly to the proposed philanthropic use case. This "concept-to-application" move is a strong technique for short analytical essays.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief framing introduction, then splits into two substantive sections. The first covers the practical mechanics and rationale for a Facebook Fan page campaign. The second pivots to the ethical complications of hosting charitable activity on a platform with a controversial data ownership policy. A brief references section closes the paper. The two-section structure mirrors a problem-solution / opportunity-risk pairing common in business and social media analysis essays.
Introduction: Social Networks and Philanthropic Potential
The potential for social networks to transform and strengthen philanthropic efforts is still nascent yet shows significant promise. Social ecosystems formed to support the need for greater collaboration and communication continue to illustrate how effective they are as a platform for enabling social change and philanthropy (Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden, 2011). This analysis evaluates how Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and other social networks can be used for fundraising by nonprofit organizations. The ethics of fundraising is also discussed, with the concrete example of creating a Facebook Fan page to enable greater donations.
Facebook and the Ethics of Philanthropy
Facebook continues to dominate social networking from a membership, activity, and time-spent-online standpoint. The latest statistics place total membership at 750 million globally, growing at 30% to 50% per year (Sharma, 2011). Facebook is now more prevalent than many operating systems and larger in reach than several nations (Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden, 2011). This provides an exceptional base for initiating philanthropy programs and initiatives.
Creating a Facebook Fan Page for Charitable Causes
Creating a Facebook Fan page for a given cause is very straightforward: it involves creating an account, populating it with images, and then recruiting donors and interested supporters. The entire process can be accomplished within minutes. As many children from Northern Japan were left orphaned as a result of the devastating earthquakes and tsunamis, there is an urgent need for food, clothing, and financial support. The proposed Facebook Fan page would be coordinated with the American Red Cross and promoted through friends and acquaintances across social networks.
The use of Google and Facebook Analytics to track the activity of this program — and the effects of including friends and acquaintances — will serve as an index of the level of trust in the network, as well as how viral Facebook actually is. There is much hype surrounding the level of viral strength and trust on Facebook, yet the truth is often revealed in the results of Facebook Fan page programs as measured through analytics (Sharma, 2011). Creating a Facebook Fan page integrated with Facebook and Google Analytics will therefore provide a concrete, measurable approach to evaluating the overall performance of this philanthropic effort.
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