Here’s how organizations large and small are using social-networking sites to tap into a whole generation of trendy supporters who, with a little effort, could turn into BFFs and future donors.

By Abny Santicola

“It’s powerful not just to have a one-to-many relationship where, say, I, as Amnesty [International], have a relationship to all these individual nodes that are isolated,” Rattray says. “It’s important for all those individual nodes to connect to each other and allow them to support me.”

Billauer says LROF tries to translate the relationships it develops on MySpace into real relationships outside of the MySpace realm, which helps to create more fundraising, volunteers, event participation, etc.