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

Josh Billauer, chairman of the board for LROF, says initially he was skeptical when he saw that one of his staff members was spending 30 minutes a day on MySpace upkeep.

“I personally, as the board chair, was thinking, ‘You know, there’s got to be a better way to use your time.’ It’s really hard to see the fruit of your labor very early; you have to really commit to it and, you know, within a short period of time, all of a sudden we started getting inquiries via our MySpace page and it just kind of escalated, and now it’s almost unmanageable just the amount of information that flows through that to us,” he says.