SocialChange.is Mobile

3

1. What is your project? [1 sentence]

An interactive mobile communication platform for social entrepreneurs and social intrapreneurs to share their diverse experiences, innovative ways of thinking, and lessons learned that informs and connects readers to the ideas, people, and organizations creating the future of social change.

2. How will your project use mobile tools and approaches? [2 sentences]

The SocialChange.is mobile app will allow users to quickly read and engage with content, writers, and other users via multimedia commenting (geo-tagged photos or videos), voting and sharing features, options to submit questions or ideas for new stories, and location based features that display other users around you, what you have in common with them, and options to connect via private messaging, Twitter, or Facebook. Through geo-location the application will also allow readers to learn about, and participate in, local and global projects that users may not have been aware of previously without the app.

3. Who will use it and why? [1 sentence]

The app solves the problem of taking valuable knowledge that typically stays within the heads of innovative change makers and shares it with the world, which allows aspiring change makers to learn more about the innovative ways people are creating social impact, informs the press - local and national media outlets as well as journalists – about today’s social entrepreneurship revolution, and educates the general public about how to support change makers in their area and around the world.

4. Please list three ways they would learn about your project.

1. The SocialChange.is readership as well as Be Social Change community, which I am also the co-founder of (subscribers, followers on social media, and members of meetups)
2. Partnerships and campaigns with other social change networks, communities, and organizations
3. Social media contests geared towards people who are not yet aware of the SocialChange.is movement

5. What connections have you made, or will you make, with others [communities, organizations or networks] about your project? [2 sentences]

SocialChange.is is already connected with social entrepreneurship communities and organizations such as Compass Partners, Echoing Green, Center for Social Innovation, The Hub, and Green Spaces to bring on large numbers of their members as contributors to create original content. Additional outreach will be made to major media outlets and syndication partnerships.

6. What part of the project have you already built? [1-2 sentences, feel free to include links]

The website for SocialChange.is is built and we will be adding more online contributors and additional interactive features throughout this year. This grant will allow the website to become accessible through mobile technology and will help to significantly increase interactivity and the number of people we reach, inform, and inspire.

7. What does success for your project look like? [1-2 sentences]

Success will be defined by first building a minimal viable product to test with the SocialChange.is community to gather user-feedback and metrics such as level of engagement (number of comments, votes, uploading of user-generated content, connections of readers and contributors made) and sharing of content (social media metrics). This data will then be used to focus on core features and develop a mobile application that allows user to access information, tools, and experiences from change makers around the world and empower readers with a unique set of mobile resources and an engaged community to help transform their own ideas for social good into reality.

8. What resources do you need to succeed? [1-2 sentences]

In order for SocialChange.is to become a successful mobile application there is a crucial need for a dedicated staff to work on it full-time, including a web and design team to build the app, a marketing team to intelligently spread information about the app, a researcher to gather user feedback when prototyping, as well as an office where all of these workers will be able to congregate and generate new ideas as we move forward. It is my hope that with this grant will be able to be provided for most, if not all, of these resources. 

Additional details:
Please list who is on your team:

Marcos Salazar, Founder, SocialChange.is, Be Social Change, and former technology strategist and leadership researcher for Girl Scouts of the USA - http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcossalazar 

Ron Suarez, Web Developer, Founder of LoudFeed.tv

Margarete Koenen, Designer, LoudFeed.tv

Michael Feder, Editor, SocialChange.is

Mustapha Abokede, Researcher, SocialChange.is - Innovation Ambassador at KPMG and Acumen Fund Global Fellow

Expected number of months to complete project: 8 months
Estimated Project Cost: $275,000
Name: Marcos Salazar
Twitter: @marcossalazar @SocialChangeis
Email address: marcos@socialchange.is
Organization [if applicable]: SocialChange.is
City: New York
Country: NY
How did you learn about the contest? Knight Foundation Newsletter