Facebook co-founder’s new social network for donors aims to speed global change

Facebook co-founder’s new social network for donors aims to speed global change

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Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is launching a new networking website that aims ‘to revolutionise’ the way donors connect with organisations that are working to change the world.

Jumo, meaning ‘together in concert’ in the West African language Yoruba, aims to create a new way for donors to link up with frontline organisations and encourage  long-term relationships between them.

Hughes, whose social networking skills were successfully put to work for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign said, “I really want to move away from the old model in which you have to rely on people giving $10 after a humanitarian crisis to a newer model where people give money but also their time and their skills, whatever they have, to the causes that are personally meaningful to them well before the crisis moment presents itself.”

Jumo is already up and running with a brief explanatory website. A fully functional site is due to launch in the autumn.  Some commentators are questioning the ‘revolutionising’ aspect of the venture. Commenting on a story about Jumo in the Wall Street Journal, Timothy Ogden, editor-in-chief of USA-based  Philanthropy Action, an online journal for high net worth donors, wrote, “…there are already dozens of organisations in existence with the same goals. Jumo simply confuses and clutters the already chaotic landscape of organisations trying to help donors connect with non-profits.”