# Twitter adds nonprofit people as suggested users

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/11/10/twitter-adds-nonprofit-people-suggested-users/
- Published: 2009-11-10T23:26:10+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Twitter has for some time offered a list of celebrities, journalists, bloggers, 
sportspeople, politicians, company leaders and other significant users of the service
in a list of ‘suggested users’.

 

This list was designed to help new users find interesting people and to start following
them and receiving their messages.

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However, charity staff and leaders, and those involved in philanthropy did not get
a look-in. Presumably Twitter’s staff did not think them as worthy of interest.

 

That has now changed, and a number of nonprofit sector people that use Twitter are
now listed.

 

‘Suggested users’ from the nonprofit world now include Matt Flannery, co-founder/
CEO kiva.org; Kjerstin Erickson of social entrepreneurship nonprofit FORGE; Bruce
Lowry, communications director of the Skoll Foundation; successful social media 
users charity: water; and the Acumen Fund.

 

The value of being listed on this list is clear. It can rapidly increase the number
of followers, often by tens of thousands each. Indeed, it took Matt Flannery of 
Kiva by surprise; he wondered if his account was being spammed as he watched the
number of followers grow rapidly. He currently has 130,396 followers.

 

Similarly, [Kari Saratovsky](http://twitter.com/socialcitizen), VP Social Innovation@
CaseFoundation & evangelist for all things social media 4 social good currently 
has 134,912 followers; Bruce Lowry at the [Skoll Foundation](http://twitter.com/SkollFoundation)
has 131,519 followers; and [Kjerstin Ericson](http://twitter.com/Kjer) at FORGE 
has 134,045.

 

That this many people choose to receive regular messages about philanthropy is encouraging
and means that nonprofit sector updates are a part of many people’s daily lives.
The value of Twitter as a tool to spread information about the nonprofit sector 
is clearly growing.

 

Let’s hope that by following these nonprofit sector people, many other Twitter users
start to learn more about the sector.

 

http://twitter.com/invitations/suggestions

 

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