The whizz-kid revolution

Chris Hughes, the 26 year-old whizz-kid who co-founded Facebook and was responsible for the Obama campaign online, is launching Jumo, a new groundbreaking initiative linking social networking to the philanthropy world.

His aim?

“Connect people to the issues, organizations, and individuals relevant to them to foster lasting relationships and meaningful action.” 

Jumo, which means the “world in concert” in the western African language Yoruba, is the chosen name for the website which is already up and running – even though it’s proper launch will take place in the autumn.

Currently, www.jumo.com gives a sneak preview into what many are predicting will be a giving revolution.

Showing the logo and asking you to answer a few questions such as what you are most likely to be doing on Sundays and what kind of car you aspire to drive, Hughes already seems to have started a kind of donor’s profiling record – perhaps in the same spirit of the Obama matching database which linked millions of undecided voters to suitable volunteers the former group could empathise with. At the end of the Jumo questionnaire, visitors are informed that the Jumo team will be in touch with opportunities to suit their profile. A tagline reads:

“There are no magic solutions to the challenges our world faces. But there are millions of people around the globe who work each day to improve the lives of others. Unfortunately, there are millions more who don’t know how to meaningfully help.”

In a recent interview Hughes explained: “what I want to do is reach a point where people can’t say, ‘I want to help. I don’t know any good, meaningful opportunities to do so. What can I do?’” he says. “I want to create a world where that statement is no longer possible.”

Hughes has however been accused of cluttering up a saturated market, which will only further confuse non profit groups faced with too many options to connect with the general public.

DonorEdge, Idealist.org and LeapAnywhere.com are just a few examples of American established websites, already doing similar things.

So what makes Chris Hughes so different?

Maybe it is his global vision to completely overhaul giving as we currently perceive it, helping to establish long term relations between frontline organisations and normal people.

“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,” Hughes said.

Maybe it is his understanding of the skills and instruments that can help to create what he has called “a movement”, where online activity is crucial, but never as crucial as the real impacts it is having on the ground.

In an entry in the Huffington Post last September, Chris Hughes gave all the hints to his future enterprise, clearly laying out the lessons he had learned from the Obama campaign, and the power of individuals he uncovered.

“We shared a set of values and a vision for what America could be. Nothing could have embodied this approach to campaigning more than the technology that we built at the heart of the campaign. We chose to build and refine tools that helped everyday people tell their own stories, talk about their passions, and then take up the banner of the cause in their local community.”

During his time working on the Obama campaign, Hughes claims to have discovered something that went beyond politics, very probably one of the major parts of the Obama election success. It may also prove to be a large contributor to Jumo’s.

 “There are tens of millions of Americans who care about progressive issues that affect all of us. If progressive groups fail to take advantage of this energy and demonstrated capacity, they will waste a uniquely potent moment in American history.”

 

www.jumo.com