Jumo, the Social Network to Change the World

Today marks the public beta launch of Jumo, the social network created to facilitate social change in our world.

The brainchild of Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and director of online organizing for the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Jumo is a social network designed for the purpose of connecting people with the issues and organizations that they care most about. It is a network for social change and at the time of launch over 3500 charities were listed in more than 200 issue areas from around the world.

Jumo connects individual philanthropists and organizations working to change the world using three basic philosophies:

• Find: Issues and projects that you care about. This is achieved through an interface that works similarly to Facebook’s likes and interests where you get to choose the topics that matter to you the most.

• Follow: The latest news and updates. Similar to “liking” pages on Facebook, the user gets to select those charities that they wish to follow and assist and in doing so they manipulate the feed of information that makes up the user’s home screen.

• Support: Their work with your time, money and skills. Jumo is about creating action in a world where many people want to help but do not have the inclination to start helping. Jumo places the charity’s required actions in your own home, on your computer, and allows you to follow the results of your assistance on a daily basis as opposed to once a year when you attend the charity’s annual general meeting.

Kristen Titus, Jumo’s Managing Director has this to say:

“We were frustrated by the lack of opportunities to get involved with the issues and organizations we care about. How many times have you read an article or seen that video and wanted to help but just didn’t know how? We know there are millions of people working to improve the lives of others, many of whom don’t have the resources to have the greatest impact. And we know there are millions more who want to help, but don’t know how. Despite huge advancements in connection technologies—500 million people on Facebook, for example—it’s difficult to find meaningful opportunities to get involved. We believe we can do better,”