New Ways to Make a Difference

Put Your Time to Work

• For anyone with a jammed schedule, a new group called the Extraordinaries offers ways to devote even just a few minutes of free time to something worthwhile. Micro-volunteering opportunities abound on BeExtra.org from using your smartphone to view and label photos (to help digitize museum archives) to snapping a picture of a local park (to help build a map of places where kids can play).

• Another new tool aims to break world-changing action into its tiniest subparts. IfWeRantheWorld.com which expects to launch this fall, encourages you to dream big–end poverty! cure cancer!–and then helps come up with small, specific ways you can help achieve progress in those areas.

• Random acts of kindness are getting a high-tech boost, thanks to social entrepreneur Daniel Lubetzky (page 52). First, print a card at Kinded.com Then do something nice for a stranger, like sharing an umbrella or helping carry luggage, and hand that person the card. The recipient can go online and note where the act of kindness took place and then pass the card along. It’s like Pay It Forward, with mapping features.

• The Web has long been a good venue for finding volunteer opportunities. Now a new site called AllforGood.org draws together listings not only from traditional volunteer sites but also from Craigslist and Meetup. And it makes it easy to share these opportunities with friends on social-networking sites.

Put Your Money to Work

• Buy a fair-trade scarf or the work of an African artisan on eBay’s WorldofGood.com which vets every product to ensure that it’s eco-friendly or ethically sourced.

• To help build a business in a developing country, try peer-to-peer lending. Kiva.org started the trend, which lets you lend as little as $25 to the entrepreneur of your choosing and track the recipient’s progress online. Now there are specialized sites like Wokai.org which provides microloans in rural China. Wokai is Mandarin for “I start.”

• More than 1 in 9 dollars in the U.S. stock market is now invested in socially responsible funds. Go to SocialInvest.org to find out how to shift your dollars to match your values.

Put Your Friends to Work

• Gather your pals and organize a reverse boycott called a Carrotmob. Instead of punishing corner stores and other local businesses for environmentally unfriendly practices, help them do better by arranging a massive shop-in, in which the owners agree to use a portion of the revenues to get greener.

• Rally your friends to support a good cause. Last year bloggers competing in the online equivalent of a walkathon raised more than $270,000 for DonorsChoose.org which funds public-school teachers’ requests for classroom materials. This year’s Social Media Challenge starts Oct. 1.

• Twitter is becoming a hub not just for socializing but also for social action. And as silly as they may sound, “Twestivals” get people to meet off-line to help a local charity. For non-Twitterers, TimeBanks.org is spreading a form of reciprocal community service, including everything from day care to tutoring.

• Join a neighborhood volunteer group like Brooklyn’s In Our Backyard and Washington’s CarbonfreeDC, which help groups of friends partner on projects–like planting gardens and teaching people how to green their homes–and have some fun along the way.