As the true extent of the damage of Superstorm Sandy is coming to light, the amount of help needed on the East Coast is immense. As hundreds of thousands sit in the dark with little food, others have lost their entire households.
I’ve rounded up some ways that bloggers can help. Please add any links to vetted fundraisers, other ideas to help relief ideas or links to posts you’ve written about Sandy in the comments.
1. Write a post and ask your readers to donate money to the American Red Cross, or another …

Everyone seemed to have an opinion about my engagement. I was only twenty, not even old enough to drink legally, when my college boyfriend proposed. I strongly believe women should decide if and when they want to marry, but sadly, the same sentiment is not shared around the world. My friends teased me for being a “child bride,” but real child marriage is not a laughing matter.
Have you ever imagined your perfect wedding? For many children, marriage is already a reality – and there was no dream wedding. You can …

The Annual Bloganthropy Awards recognize and honor women who use their blogs to support charitable causes. Launched in 2010 by Bloganthropy.org with support from Child’s Play Communications, the unique awards program, now in its third year, is dedicated to recognizing bloggers who effectively use social media for social good. The 2012 event marks the first time that the Bloganthopy Awards are hosted at BlogHer, the world’s largest conference for women in social media.
Previous winners of the Bloganthropy awards include Katherine Stone (2010) and Susan Niebur (2011). Katherine Stone writes Postpartum Progress, the …

Pinterest is the darling of social media right now, but it’s not new to many of us, bloggers. I first started using Pinterest sometime last spring/summer, and have loved watching the site grow. Predictably, with the growth of the site, marketers, nonprofit directors and everyone in between are asking and wondering how they can use Pinterest to reach their target audience.
As bloggers, we can use Pinterest to further our favorite causes. I’m highly active in the congenital heart defect community. CHD is when a baby is born with a heart problem that develops in …

I get the opportunity to meet many bloggers who are passionate about social good. One of the most common questions is: “Do I need a 501c3 to get started?”

As social media “cause marketing” heats up, bloggers are learning to navigate the intersection between business and charity. According to a 2010 Cone LLC study, 85% of consumers have a more positive image of a product or company when it supports a cause they care about and 80% are likely to switch brands, similar in price and quality, to one that supports a cause. Companies looking to create attention-grabbing cause marketing campaigns turn to bloggers for added authenticity and passion.

At a time when bloggers are trying to define what it is they “do”, adding charity into the mix creates another layer of complexity…

At Bloganthropy, we focus on social media and philanthropy. A lot of our members, though, are parents. The ability to use our social media influence to amplify our volunteer efforts may be especially important to those of us with young children. Traditional volunteer opportunities are not always a fit. And yet, it may be even more important to volunteer when we have young children–as a type of “spiritual maintenance” and a social outlet for ourselves and also to set an example for our children.

Shara Lawrence-Weiss of Mommy Perks has a unique way of using social media to raise money for charity: her Twitter profile picture is a photograph of herself wearing branded “Twitter Charity Hats” (real or photoshopped) in exchange for a charitable donation.

Volunteer 4 Long Island, a non-profit, charitable organization, needed volunteers on Thanksgiving morning to assemble packages of food, personal items (toiletries), and clothing for those who are homeless or living in emergency and temporary housing.

We talked about reaching out to corporations for future years and she said that this year they could use more volunteers, so we concentrated on social media volunteer recruitment efforts…