How Can Changebloggers Make a Greater Impact Online and Offline?

October 15th was Blog Action Day, a day for bloggers, podcasters and vloggers to write about and raise awareness about an issue. The theme for this year was poverty. Blog Action Day is a wonderful idea, but it feels too short to make a real impact. I'm interested in exploring how Changebloggers, people who want to use their blogs, podcasts and vlogs to change the world, can make a greater impact through longer online events, and face-to-face meetups.

Here are a few examples of some month-long and two-week long online events:

Maw Books Blog ran a Blogging and Reading for Darfur campaign last month. For the month of September, Natasha Maw read and blogged in an effort to create awareness, and raise funds for Darfur. Her campaign was a combination of book and movie reviews about Darfur, as well as fundraising for organizations serving the people of Darfur. She read 31 books and raised $1,1136.60.

The 2008 DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge for public schools is happening this month. Bloggers compete against each other to raise the most money for specific projects in low-income public schools. As of this writing, $168,941 dollars has been raised by 2,058 donors. Check out the projects some BlogHers are raising money for.

Chez Pim has run four Menu for Hope campaigns for two weeks in December. Now in its fifth year, Menu for Hope is a fundraiser (last year it was for the UN World Food Programme) where food bloggers from all over the world offer food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. Readers buy virtual raffle tickets to bid on the prize of their choice. Last year the campaign raised $62,925.12.

In addition to making an impact online, I'd like to see changebloggers meeting offline as well.

Members of the Changeblogger Network have started meeting face-to-face in New York, Washington, DC and Philadelphia. Changeblogger New York organizer, Naomi Hirabayashi, posted about their recent meetup on Idealist.org: Calling All Changemakers and Changebloggers in NYC.

I'd love to see Changebloggers meeting face-to-face not only to coordinate and share resources about ways to make a difference online, but also to organize and participate in service opportunities found through organizations like VolunteerMatch, the Hands On Network, One Brick, and Idealist.org.

What ideas do you have for mobilizing the collective power of Changebloggers online and offline?

Cross-posted from BlogHer.com

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