Jumo: Linking Online Users to Charities

Chris Hughes, founder of Jumo, says he wants his site, to be unveiled Tuesday, to do for charities “what Yelp did for restaurants.” Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

New York Times: A Facebook Founder Begins a Social Network Focused on Charities

Social media is gradually gaining traction with regards to connecting people and charities. Most people with a serious desire to contribute back so society have a personal cause that they would like to know more about, and the Internet is one of the greatest platforms of readily accessible knowledge to make informed decisions. Citizens of developed countries are also more inclined to reach out to organizations with a foreign or even international reach, and media evolution has transformed communications to a two-way interaction channel. This allows donors to contribute not simply capital or funds, but also ideas, knowledge and passion.

Chris Hughes, already internationally renowned as one of the founders of Facebook, is one contemporary media mogul out to imitate the Facebook model to create what I would term another "middleman enterprise". Facebook acts as a platform to link the interests of online users to specific business or service organizations with the potential of catering to their needs. Based on this model, Jumo links the interest of donors online to specific charities that they would like to contribute to. This enterprise has already grabbed the headlines of many traditional publications and social media platforms, and will probably have to cater to the incoming tide of registrations.

However, as Jumo is a non-profit enterprise which survives largely on advertising profits, it is likely that many charities leveraging onto this platform will be inclined to spend money on advertising. Well-known charities with more money will be pressured to create a budget for it, and the bigger the charity, the more spending power it will have to monopolize airtime on the website. If caps are not implemented and the priorities of charity organizations not adhered to, social media platforms can potentially skew donations to one side, and donations become channeled to advertising instead of their target group.