Social Networking and Social Justice Meet in Jumo

We know well the effect that social sites such as Twitter have had on us — bringing us together in times of crisis and helping us find jobs — but where are the web sites that bring us together for the good of social justice?  Enter Jumo.

Jumo is only ten months old and still in its beta phase (mind you, it took Gmail five years to get out of beta) but they are quickly growing. The founder of Jumo explains why it seemed like Jumo had to be created in a Jumo Blog entry:

When I founded Jumo earlier this year, I had simple vision: use networking technology to connect individuals and organizations working for global change. I wanted to build a network to help everyday people find, follow, and support those working day in and day out to make change happen in our communities and in regions around the world.

I wondered how it could be so different from charitable groups that have groups on Facebook. It actually has you log onto your Facebook account as part of the setup. The thrust of Jumo is that it brings together numerous charitable organizations and helps the users keep track of how they are helping the organizations.

News articles, Twitter posts and YouTube videos will be added to the pages, and users can add their own feedback and comments, just like Facebook. It appears that Jumo has created its own pages that aren’t necessarily in partnership with specific charities; the Akshaya Patra Foundation page, for example, asks “Is This Your Organization?” and seeks an administrator for the page.

In the end only time will tell how well Jumo will help the organizations on their site, and to what extent Jumo will guide people to charities the way that Yelp guides people to good restaurants.