NEWS: Social networking to help charities

PETALING JAYA: At first glance, the landing page of Ammado.com looks like that of any other social networking site.

But instead of being another cyberspace place that hosts party pictures, Ammado — said Joeri Gianotten, its South-East Asia/Pacific managing director — is a community of people who care.

In essence, he said, it is a stakeholder engagement tool that focuses on causes and charities.

“We don’t want to be just another social networking site but a tool that individuals can use to engage with causes that are important to them,” he told In.Tech on the sidelines of the MSC Malaysia Innotech conference recently.

Ammado.com was started two years ago when its founders were at a technology conference discussing how technology can help make a difference in a chaotic world. “Their vision was to create a global community of people who care,” said Gianotten.

On the website, visitors can find out about or donate to any of 6,000 charities registered there, even if they do not want to be a registered member of Ammado.

However, if they want to join in a discussion or comment on a cause at the site, they will need to be registered members.

Inspiration

Gianotten said Ammado has tools that can help drive support for a cause or charity. These work to engage its visitors and members by creating an emotional bond to the causes they support.

An example of this is Ammado’s Giving Circle — a chart that shows the number of causes or charities that a company or individual supports, without revealing the amounts that have been donated.

Although it may look like a showy piece of decoration on a profile page, Gianotten said the Circle is there not for show but to inspire the friends and families of the donors by communicating their values.

Gianotten said companies also love the tool because it shows the soul of a caring company and allows it to build up an emotional connection with its employees and customers.

“When customers or employees see that the company supports the same causes that they do, they feel more connected with that company,” he said.

After all, Facebook and Twitter are popular because people like to show or tell what they’ve been up to, said Gianotten. But what was missing in that equation was communicating the causes and charities that they are passionate about.

“The Giving Circle inspires people into supporting a cause or charity,” he added.

Responsibility

Another tool used by Ammado to drive a cause is the Giving Circle gift card. Gianotten said this can be used as a selfless alternative to the vouchers that stores give away.

Instead of a card that encourages customers to spend more, companies can thank customers by helping them make a difference to a charity. The customer redeems the voucher by going online and donates the amount to any cause, anywhere in the world.

“We see this as a way of engaging the customers by letting them decide on which causes they wish to support, instead of getting them to support the same ones that the companies do,” he said.

To disburse the funds to a charity or cause, Ammado has partnered with RBS Worldpay, a payment gateway system. It sends the funds to the charities and causes once a month.

Gianotten said the rising number of socially-conscious consumers will help boost Ammado’s ratings.

Some of the companies that are already using Ammado to extend their corporate social responsibility activities include softdrink giant Coca-Cola and media conglomerate Time-Warner.

To find out more about Ammado or if you want to donate to a charity of your choice, go to www.ammado.com.