Why We Need Group Fundraising RSS Feeds

It is one of the strangest deficiencies of the group fundraising field; of the seven major platforms – GiveMeaning, SixDegrees, FirstGiving, ChipIn, Change.org, GlobalGiving and Fundable – only two sites publish RSS feeds of active campaigns. That would be GlobalGiving (feedburner) and Fundable.org (xml).

I’ve been scratching my head for several months about why the five others all neglect to make an RSS feed available. Are the platforms trying to protect the privacy of the campaign organizers? Is the absence of RSS simply an oversight? Did the creators assume that only direct friends and family of the campaign organizers would contribute, therefore removing the need for syndication? Are the sites worried about diminishing traffic to their domains?

Each platform probably has its own reason for not publishing an RSS feed of active campaigns.

While I wait for clarification on this subject, here are five points in favor of Group Fundraising RSS feeds:

Mash-ups: If the group fundraising websites started publishing RSS feeds, then it would be quite simple to create a mega RSS feed that spans the seven platforms and points to the respective donation pages of each site.

Derivatives: If tags are included in the RSS feeds, then a site like Foik could start publishing subject specific RSS feeds of active campaigns: ie, all campaigns on global warming, poverty, education.

Web 2.0 sites: Once group fundraising websites start publishing RSS feeds, then sites like Del.icio.us, Bloglines, Technorati, and Digg could start auto-detecting new campaigns.

Fewer barriers: With RSS feeds, we could reduce the barriers that separate the group fundraising platforms. End-user contributors could more easily find the campaigns they want to fund with less concern about which platform is serving as host. I had the reduction of barriers in mind when I created this Google Search for Group Fundraising Campaigns.

RSSA: RSS doesn’t have the multimedia appeal of video and widgets… but it’s just as crucial for creating networked-based social change. A few months back, I learned of a concept called RSSA, which stands for Really Simple Social Action. As I see it, RSS feeds for active group fundraising campaigns = RSSA.

By sharing, mashing-up, and ‘digging’ group fundraising RSS feeds, social networks would be sending around much more than just news stories. They'd be distributing 'make it happen now’ links. Each <item> would connect directly to a donation page that enables action on the ground.

Building RSSA into social networking would be so simple. We just need a few of the decision makers at the group fundraising platforms to increase the priority of setting up RSS feeds.

Note: Rumor has it that ChipIn will launch a fully RSS enabled version of their main website very soon. If the group fundraising platforms follow ChipIn into RSS publishing with the same speed that they followed ChipIn into fundraising widgets, then this blog post may become obsolete pretty quickly.