Earlier this week, Michael Farah, the local entrepreneur who owns popular yogurt shop Berry Chill, launched social networking platform ActofGood.org. Intended to connect volunteers and donors with charitable causes, the site offers functionalities devoted to education, discussion, and event management, and it will, according to Farah, give charities free access to of-the-moment marketing tools that will help them attract attendees to their events.

"Social networking is probably the greatest tool we have" for charities to promote their causes, Farah said. "Right now, a lot of charities can only reach their members via email, regular mail, or by phone. With social networking sites, they can be a little bit more interactive with their member base." As opposed to emails or letters, the sites are "places where members can share information," Farah said—and they can do it quickly. Whereas "most charities' Web sites are very stagnant—they get updated maybe once a month or even once a year"—Act of Good "has a blog and a discussion board, so members can generate content in real time," Farah said.

So, what can Act of Good offer that Facebook can't? First of all, "we're not looking to replace Facebook," Farah said. In fact, "when people R.S.V.P. to a charity event on ActofGood.org, it automatically posts to their Facebook profile. But Facebook doesn't have the tools that charities need to be successful" in increasing attendance at their fund-raisers.

The problem with Facebook, according to Farah, is that "if you receive an invite for a charity event, it gets cluttered amongst the bar promotions and personal parties that you're invited to. So someone like me, I have 40 different event invitations on my Facebook page, and I don't even know where to check, because most of it's just spam." Another issue that Farah sees: Even when Facebook users R.S.V.P. for an event, they often forget about it. "It gets posted to your events page," he said, "but it gets lost amongst everything else. You won't remember an event unless you add it to your personal calendar." 

To combat that problem on his site, Farah added a functionality to the calendar section that allows users "to add charity events to their personal calendars—whether it's Outlook, Entourage, iCal, Yahoo, or a BlackBerry—with the click of a button. So as soon as I say yes to an event, it gets sent directly to my phone, and there's no way I'm going to forget about it. It's a permanent fixture of my life now; it's different than just saying I'm attending on Facebook to show initial support, then forgetting about the event."

As of this week, Act of Good has profiles for more than 20 local nonprofits, among them Meals on Wheels Chicago, Bright Pink, and the Chicago Fire Foundation. Farah says that other charities hoping to get affiliated with the site can sign up online or via phone; then, after Act of Good staffers verify the organization's accuracy, a group can create a profile for no charge. "Some organizations are very familiar with social networking," Farah said, "and we can help those that aren't very computer literate to build out their sites."