A pioneer in social networking, the American Cancer Society realizes that Web 2.0 tools are just high-tech ways to continue what it's been doing for a hundred years — building and interacting with a community of constituents united against cancer.

By Abny Santicola

Thank you, Mr. President
Music credits President Obama’s online success during his primary and presidential campaigns with lighting the fire under the organization to really take online community building to the next level.

“We watched with fascination as the Obama campaign just did such a fantastic job using social networks and capturing the movement that social networks bring. We watched that through his entire campaign and realized there was a lot of similarity between what he was doing and what the American Cancer Society has always done in terms of capturing a community, communicating with them, giving them important messages, and then allowing them to make decisions to pass that message on or support the American Cancer Society,” Music says. “So we watched him, and we read everything we could find about what he had done and said, ‘Hey, it’s time for us to be in this game as well.’”