Chris Hughes, the cofounder of Facebook and organiser of the online presidential campaign for Obama,
arrived at the decision to form a non-profit that would tap the power of the Internet to connect people and causes. Indeed, his latest project,
Jumo, is a social network aimed for people willing to change the planet. It should be able to help people achieve their humanitarian goals. In fact, Hughes thinks that people do not mind helping each others but the connection needs to be made easy so that they will do it and the best way to achieve is to create a website that can associate the skills and interests of everyone with the organisations that need them. In addition, Jumo should be a platform able to help the small NGO which cannot afford to finance an advertising campaign to make themselves known to the public.
Does this mean that this network website is going to help NGO to recruit potential people? I, for one, would be curious to see how it will grow and how the community is going to use this tool. I can see the potential. If I am a bit sceptical toward Facebook and its capacities to make people stay in touch with each other, Jumo seems to have a professional flavour which might make it more credible and persistant.
-C
