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Social Initiatives: FreeRice.com
Posted on March 22, 2008 by jaywalk1 in Public Relations, Social Initiatives
Background: According to the United Nations, the cost to end world hunger completely (accounting for diseases related to hunger and poverty) is almost $200 billion a year. 50 year-old FreeRice.com creator, John Breen*, has come up with what I think is a simple yet clever way to engage people in the fight to end hunger, a vocabulary game. FreeRice.com site visitors are greeted by a clean, nicely-designed web page which breaks it all down:
- Click on the answer that best defines the word.
- If you get it right, you get a harder word. If wrong, you get an easier word.
- For each word you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
Diagnosis: This campaign is healthy and full of life. Rob Walker says it best in his NY Times column: “It’s a self-improvement time killer on behalf of a greater good.” Initiatives like this are great examples of how we can communicate effectively about important issues and make it engaging at the same time.
Prescription: Take the good to the next level. Pitch FreeRice.com to the schools.
(Disclosure: I am the son of a tough, NYC Dept of Education teacher from the Caribbean school of thought. Education is a HUGE issue for me.)
Site vistors at FreeRice.com range from 300,000 to 500,000 people daily, so there’s no doubt that that the initiative is on the right track. I would take the good to the next level by targeting high school students. 9th – 12th graders are a great audience because they can use the site to improve their SAT verbal skills, but they are also in the key stage in life when you begin to figure out who you really are and decide what your personal morals and values will be.
It would be great if the initiatives like FreeRice.com could be woven into school curriculums across the country, providing students with a useful tool and an entrée into online social initiatives. The overall goal: Encouraging the digitally-minded students of this generation to become the social initiative creators of the next.
* John Breen is also the creator of Poverty.com.
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Hey,
Avanoo is a startup that is trying to help make the world better by letting people use a new support channel- web presence. Web users can go to Avanoo.com get a badge for a cause and start raising awareness and donations 24/7 effortlessly. And each time one of these badge is clicked, a donation is made to the nonprofit organization on the badge. If you could put a badge on you blog or write about this growing movement, you would be helping to make the world a better place!
Thanks,
Rajesh