Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has taken the wraps off of Jumo, a social networking site focused on helping people find and support reputable charities. Hughes told the New York Times that he hopes the site will do for charities “what Yelp did for restaurants.”
Eligible charities must be certified as tax-exempt organizations to prevent fraud and, once approved, can set up pages within Jumo’s network similar to how Facebook’s “fan” pages work. Individual users can log into Jumo using their Facebook credentials, see which charities their Facebook friends support, and follow the same charities if they’re so inclined. (More on Techland: Facebook To Trademark “Face”)
Like any new social network, Jumo will face the chicken-egg problem of how to get charities to join when there aren’t any users and how to get users to join when there aren’t any charities.
The site already has 3,000 charitable organizations on board and Hughes served as Obama’s “chief digital organizer” during the 2008 campaign, though, so Jumo may very well be in a good position right from the get-go.
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