# Ammado – interesting new social network for fundraisers, but not sure what's in it for donors?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/10/31/ammado-interesting-new-social-network-fundraisers-not-sure-what039s-it-donors/
- Published: 2007-10-31T21:36:41+00:00
- Author: Bryan Miller

[⌊Ammado.com's front page⌉](http://about.ammado.com/site/index.php)

 

I had an especially busy time last week with a couple of big presentations to give
at the same time as I was due to be attending the **[Resource Alliance’s](http://www.resource-alliance.org)**
International Fundraising Congress over in Holland.

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Unfortunately, while the presentations went fine, this meant that I didn’t get to
see many sessions at the Congress – which is a pity because it’s a unique opportunity
to hear from fundraisers from all around the world. However, I did get to talk to
some folks from **[Ammado](http://about.ammado.com/site/index.php)** about their
new social network – which is currently in Beta phase.

 

The Resource Alliance had partnered with Ammado at the Congress, with invitations
for all 900+ delegates from some 50 different countries to join the beta test membership,
so I joined-up and visited their exhibition stand to learn a bit more about it.

 

From the publicity materials I had thought that the site was purely intended as 
a social network for fundraisers – providing an environment within which fundraisers
around the world can share ideas, pose questions, and generally feel more connected.
All in all, rather like a year-round online version of the International Fundraising
Congress. What surprised me was that the Ammado team actually envisage it as also
being a general social network for people interested in supporting charities.

 

I must admit that I’m not convinced that this is going to work for them on a mass
market scale – at least not in those countries where online social networking is
already becoming established (which is pretty well all developed markets).

 

The real hard core of a charity’s active supporters might be convinced to join-up–
and I can see it perhaps being a good place to communicate with and equip keen volunteers.
However, for general supporters there needs to be a very good reason for them to
register and maintain a profile on this site as well as on any other social networks
they’re already members of – whether that’s **[MySpace](http://www.myspace.com)**,**
[Facebook](http://www.facebook.com)**, the newly launched over-50s **[Saga Zone](http://www2.saga.co.uk/sagazone)**,
or whatever.

 

If people are already active within their own personal networks on sites like these,
then that’s where fundraisers should be engaging with them – if they want to benefit
from the peer-to-peer fundraising potential on offer. Perhaps Ammado is hoping to
ride the growing wave of interest in social networking and catch late adopters who
haven’t yet chosen a social network site – but in that case they’ll be up against
some very high profile generic site competition.

 

Only time will tell whether they can achieve their vision of creating an online _“
community of people who care”_. Meantime, however well it develops as a **[Web 2.0](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/blogs/bryanmiller/2007/07/20/what-is-web-20)**
charity portal, it’s certainly well worth fundraisers taking a look at **[Ammado](http://about.ammado.com/site/index.php)**
as a potential resource for networking and sharing of best practice – which is a
very worthy aim for the site in itself.

 

 * **[October online fundraising round-up](https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/10/31/october-online-fundraising-roundup/)**(
   31 October 2007)
 * **[What Web 2.0 is and why it matters](https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/11/08/what-web-20-and-why-it-matters/)**(
   8 November 2007)
 * **[Facebook Pages offers new ways to engage with supporters](https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/11/14/facebook-pages-offers-new-ways-engage-supporters/)**(
   14 November 2007)