Young Founder Interview: Peter Deitz

I'm happy to present the latest in FLiP's series of young founder interviews. Peter Deitz created Social Actions, an organization which helps individuals and organizations use social media to plan, implement, and support peer-to-peer social change campaigns so that grassroots solutions to local and global problems can flourish. Peter also writes a blog, About Micro-Philanthropy, to highlight the leaders in the social sector. What's micro-philanthropy? How do you go about becoming a consultant in your 20's? FLiPs, I'm happy to introduce Peter Deitz: 

Future Leaders in Philanthropy (FLiP): Thanks for taking the time to speak with FLiP! Let’s start with some basics. Where did you go to school? How did you get involved with the social sector?

Peter Deitz (PD): First, thank you for this opportunity to talk about my work with the FLiP community.  I’m always looking for like-minded souls.  People who are interested in Social Actions can friend me on Facebook.  My profile is listed on the FLiP Facebook Group.

My path to the social sector is pretty direct.  I graduated from McGill University in 2001 with a B.A. in history and then went on to get a Masters in history from The University of Toronto in 2003.  When I graduated the second time, I was ready to leave academics behind and throw myself into the so-called real world. 

My time in Canada, my studies of history, my experiences with Quakers, and current events at the time had all led me to pursue a career in doing something good for the world.   Entering the private sector was never an option.

When I started applying for jobs in New York, Washington, Toronto, and Montreal, I found that I was not alone in the pursuit of meaningful work.  A Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in history are common currency in our field.  I needed something to distinguish myself.  As a closet nerd, I had developed a decent sense of interface design and could program my way through a basic website.  I started applying for web manager and IT jobs for nonprofits. 

Eventually, I found my way to a full-time job in New York City as a technical consultant on several human rights and global governance projects.  The work was great.  The people were great.  For the first time, I felt like I was making a difference.  But after two years, I wanted to move back to Canada and launch my own project.

FLiP: What is Social Actions? How old were you when you launched it?

PD: As I was leaving New York City, my colleagues asked me what I would do next.  I responded tongue-in-cheek by saying, “I’m going to devote myself to philanthropy.”  I wasn’t joking.  Within three months, I starting publishing articles on something called “micro-philanthropy” and had launched a project called “First-of-its-kind.”

In hindsight, the name First-of-its-kind was a placeholder as I clarified the way in which I wanted to shake up the world of philanthropy.  My goal was to do something totally original that would encourage more people of my generation to become philanthropic.

By August 2007, at 28 years old, I had developed a clearer vision of how First-of-its-kind could evolve into something truly useful.  I revamped the site and changed the name to Social Actions.  Today, Social Actions is a search engine of peer-to-peer social change campaigns and a training resource for individuals, organizations, and foundations that want to use social media to create social change.   

My project pulls the latest giving and do-gooder opportunities from 14 social action platforms, ranging from Kiva.org’s community of micro-finance lenders to GiveMeaning’s platform for group fundraising.  A social action platform is a website or online tool that allows individuals to use social media (i.e., email, video, images, social networks, and widgets) to raise money and support for specific projects.   

As the number of social action platforms grows, Social Actions is positioned to be the go-to place for finding opportunities to engage from across the sector and learning how to create peer-to-peer social change campaigns.

Through the blog on Social Actions, called About Micro-Philanthropy, I post articles for individuals on how to use social media and social action platforms to start fundraising and do-gooder projects of their own.  For nonprofits and foundations, I write articles and offer consulting on how to leverage the resources and passions of supporters.

FLiP: As a young founder, what kinds of challenges did you run into?

PD: My biggest challenge so far has been in developing a business plan for my project.  I’m led to this work out of a personal interest in how the internet is changing philanthropy and impacting my generation.  I see tremendous opportunities to create more do-gooders in the process.  But I haven’t quite figured out how to pay my bills at the same time. 

I’m a one-person operation.  I do all of the communications, graphic design, and coding for Social Actions myself.  My current challenges are to expand the team, deepen my partnerships with social action platforms, and find a way to pay rent each month.

FLiP: You use the term "micro-philanthropy" a lot.  How do you define it?

PD: That’s a good question.  I wish I had a simple answer for you. 

Micro-philanthropy, like micro-credit before it, encompasses many things.  It’s philanthropy in the broadest sense— donating time, money, and in-kind services for social uplift—but with a twist.  The “micro” part can denote the fact that it happens over the internet or that it involves a smaller-size donation than typical philanthropy. 

A micro-philanthropist is someone who does not necessarily have deep pockets but wants to spend his or her discretionary income on something worthwhile.  Using a range of micro-philanthropy platforms, individuals can make small donations to organizations and independent projects and then pass these giving opportunities on to friends and family. 

For me, the most attractive quality of micro-philanthropy is that it happens while people are living their lives (and not after they’ve amassed a fortune).  For the most part, micro-philanthropy bypasses traditional institutions that are accustomed to handling the estates and endowments set up by dead or elderly people. 

The impact of micro-philanthropy can be as great as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, or even greater, as long as more and more people get involved and see their role on this planet as responsible micro-philanthropist as well as green consumer. 

The term micro-philanthropy was coined by Tom Munnecke and Heather Wood-Ion of the Uplift Academy in 2002. 

FLiP: What partnerships have you launched? What kind of partnerships are you looking to form?

PD: The first two months of 2008 have already proven incredibly exciting in terms of existing partnerships and potential for new ones.   

In January, I created an e-newsletter for the founders and staff of social action platforms.  This e-newsletter formalizes the fact that I’m working with and am in regular contact with close to 25 social action platforms. 

I will use the e-newsletter to encourage collaboration among the social action platforms and brainstorm ways to put the Social Actions initiative at the forefront of promoting micro-philanthropy and peer-to-peer social change.  As Social Actions grows, all of the contributing platforms grow as well.
I’m also forging partnerships with nonprofit technology consultants and philanthropy bloggers.  As a group, nonprofit technology consultants and philanthropy bloggers are prodding organizations and foundations to embrace social media and peer-to-peer social change. 

If I can promote the work and ideas of my colleagues in the field, then I will help propel the peer-to-peer social change movement to the next level.  Specifically, I’m working with my colleagues to develop a ‘wizard’ that will simplify the process of planning and implementing a peer-to-peer social change campaign.   

In the coming weeks, I’ll launch a proposal on the NetSquared Mash-Up Challenge that brings nonprofit technology consultants, philanthropy bloggers, and social action platforms around a common purpose: developing an open standard for indexing micro-philanthropy campaigns so that search engines like Google and directories like Craigslist can easily republish the contents of all social action platforms based on keyword or location queries. 

To stay up-to-date on all these endeavors, I suggest that people sign-up for the e-newsletter, which is  packed with tips and suggestions on using social media to create social change and provides updates about my project. 

People can sign-up for the e-newsletter here:

http://www.socialactions.com/e-newsletter

My blog, About Micro-Philanthropy, can be found at:

http://www.socialactions.com/about-micro-philanthropy

Thank you again for offering me this space to share my work with Future Leaders in Philanthropy.

Comments

[Peter Deitz]

Hi Flip, Thanks again for running this interview in the Young Founders series. I've already received a few Flip-related friend requests on Facebook!

If you are reading this comment before Friday, March 21, I want to point out that voting has opened in the NetSquared Mashup Challenge (mentioned above).

In late January, NetSquared put a call out for the most innovative mashups for social change. Anyone and everyone can vote for their five favorite mashups until Friday evening. The 20 mashups with the most votes will attend the annual NetSquared Conference in San Jose and have a chance to pitch their projects to funders, foundations, and nonprofit tech colleagues.

People can support my work by voting for "A Mashup of 29+ Social Action Platforms" over at NetSquared:

http://www.netsquared.org

To test drive the mashup I have built with a colleague, have a look at:

http://mashup.socialactions.com

All the best, Peter