Students have long been involved in social change efforts, aligning themselves with diverse causes including the labor movement, anti-war movements, divestment campaigns, Fair Trade campaigns, climate change, access to education, and a lot more.

To celebrate such efforts, nominations are now being accepted for the first ever Campus Hellraisers award, honoring the year’s “most noteworthy student campaigns and other creative feats of campus activism.” The award is sponsored by Mother Jones, Campus Progress, and WireTap. Winning campaigns will be featured in the September/October issue of Mother Jones.

Note: Nominees are not limited to college students. Grad students, high school students, and kindergartners are all potential candidates.

Nominate a student activist here by June 10th

Would you like to help cure muscular dystrophy? How about cancer? Find new influenza antiviral drugs? Fight AIDS?

Even if you don’t have a background in science or medicine, you can contribute. It’s easier that you think, thanks to a technology called grid computing. Grid computing creates a system of many individual computers that have greater computational power that a handful of supercomputers. The computational work is split into small pieces that happen simultaneously. The result? Research time can be reduced from years to months. As an example, in 2003 scientists using grid computing identified 44 potential treatments to fight smallpox. Without the grid, the research would have taken more than a year.

You can contribute to this important research by connecting your computer to the grid. Here’s what you do. Register your computer with the World Community Grid, an organization whose mission is to “create the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle projects that benefit humanity.” Download and install a small program to your computer. When you’re not using it, your computer can request data from the WCG server. Then your computer performs computations on the data, and sends it back. The computations provide scientists with valuable information that helps their research.

According to their website, World Community Grid is making technology available only to public and not-for-profit organizations to use in humanitarian research that might otherwise not be completed due to the high cost of the computer infrastructure required in the absence of a public grid. All results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community.

This entry is one in an ongoing series about how we can all be taking small steps to help one another in tough times. Read more by clicking on the category, “A Little Bit More.”

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

We recently started an Idealist development blog where we’re posting updates and questions about the next version of Idealist. If you’re interested in joining the conversation, please head on over. Right now, we’re specifically looking for thoughts regarding what kind of content you’d like to see on Idealist. In addition to jobs, volunteer opportunities, and events, what other kinds of posted content would you find useful?

Thanks for reading!

Do you want to share your opinions about how to improve Idealist? Have you ever wondered what goes into creating and running a website like this one?

We’re excited to announce a new blog where we will be writing about the Idealist.org web development team’s work on a re-design of Idealist. We’re working on a new look and feel, as well as a series of new features, and we’d like to invite you to contribute your ideas and opinions.

We’ll use the blog to post questions and polls for you — the people who use Idealist to find and advertise job and volunteer opportunities and learn about good things going on in the world. We’ll also provide updates on our progress. Our hope is that many of you will contribute comments and ideas, so that we can make sure the next iteration of Idealist is as useful as possible.

Find the blog at idealistdev.wordpress.com. Don’t forget to bookmark it!

Natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies tend to inspire an outpouring of relief efforts; we see evidence of this in the number of people who browse Idealist for volunteer opportunities in an affected region immediately following a disaster. And, of course, through the organizing efforts of The Red Cross, Oxfam, and other disaster relief agencies, we see opportunities for individuals to contribute in other ways – small donations of money, food, clothing, or blood add up to the critical support these organizations need to do the life-saving work they do.

For this edition of “A Little Bit More” we want to call attention to the small ways you can help:

• Stay up to date on emergencies, disasters, and funding appeals on ReliefWeb. Sign up for daily or weekly email updates, or subscribe with an RSS reader.
• The International Committee of the Red Cross is another extensive resource for the latest news on victims of war and other violence.
• Donate blood. Find a blood drive (United States only).
• Donate your spare change to the American Red Cross through a Coinstar machine.
• Register to help in a disaster. Sign up on HelpinDisaster.org, list your skills and availability, and you’ll be contacted if you’re needed.
• Join Oxfam America’s Humanitarian Action Team and help influence United States legislation on humanitarian issues such as the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the earthquake in China, and the global food crisis.

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Previous entries in our A Little Bit More series:

March 17: Open Up Your Home

March 10: Exchange Services Through Time Banking

February 27: Donate Your Birthday

February 23: Support the Arts During the Economic Downturn

February 19: Use the Internet to Stretch Your Organization’s Dollar

February 17: Asking One Another: What Can We Do Now?

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

How many times have you read a blog entry about something that made you angry or sad, but were left feeling helpless because you didn’t know what you could do?

That’s why we love the concept behind this “Related Ways to Take Action” blog plug-in from Social Actions. If you’re a WordPress.org blogger, simply download and install the free plug-in and each of your blog entries will magically feature a list of related actions people can take based on keywords in your writing. The actions themselves are from a diverse pool of sources including Idealist.org, DonorsChoose.org, Change.org, GlobalGiving.com, Kiva, Care2, and more. So, if you blog about an earthquake, the “Related Ways to Take Action” list might include volunteer opportunities with disaster relief agencies or ways to make online donations.

The immediacy is key. Without tools like this, someone may read your blog entry and make a mental note to “do something later.” But if the action is right there in front of them, they’re more likely to actually do it.

Very cool idea. We’re looking forward to seeing how it works!

If you’re familiar with the person-to-person microlending site Kiva.org, or the work of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, you might be interested in the recently released Social Investing Guidelines from the Grameen Foundation.

Over the past several years the concept of microfinance (providing financial services to the poor), and specifically microcredit (providing small loans to the poor who would otherwise not qualify for traditional credit), has gained a lot of attention. Many see it as part of the solution to poverty — research shows that microfinance helps poor households meet basic needs and protect against risks. It’s received its fair share of criticism as well — arguments include the fact that the touting of microcredit programs as a solution to poverty can lead to budget cuts for public programs, and that small loans generally do not lead to job creation which is fundamental for countries trying to reduce their poverty rate.

If you’re interested in becoming a lender with a micro-lending site such as Kiva (where you can make loans as small as $25, choose the exact entrepreneur you want to support, and know that the default rate on loans distributed through Kiva is only 2.2%), or if you already are, you might want to read the Social Investing Guidelines. The guidelines are based on the Progress out of Poverty Index, a tool that measures poverty levels of groups and individuals. The Guidelines encourage individual investors to ask questions of the microfinance institutions they’re working with, including: What measures are taken to ensure that investments really support the poor and poorest populations? and How does the investment manager define poor, very poor, and extremely poor?

Tools like these Guidelines seem crucial in order for micro-lending programs to truly be effective, accountable and part of the solution.

We’ve been brainstorming small ways we can contribute to the greater good, despite the worsening economy. I was reminded recently that nonprofit social media maven Beth Kanter celebrated her 51st birthday last year by asking her online network to donate $10 each to the Sharing Foundation.

It’s such a simple idea. In fact, once I started looking, I saw lots of evidence (here, and here, and over here, for starters) that people have caught on to this easy and effective strategy for leveraging personal and professional networks for a good cause.

So, why not? When your next birthday rolls around, consider asking your friends and family to make a donation to your favorite organization instead of presents. It’s great for kids’ birthday parties, too. Check out these resources for turning a child’s birthday into a learning experience from Children for Children and ECHOage.

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Previous entries in our A Little Bit More series:

February 17: Asking One Another: What Can We Do Now?

February 19: Use the Internet to Stretch Your Organization’s Dollar

February 23: Support the Arts During the Economic Downturn

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

Okay, if there’s anyone out there still doubting the power of the internet to build community and affect real change, please check out Twestival on February 12th. Twestival is an entirely volunteer-driven campaign to raise awareness and funds for an organization called charity: water, which has the worthy mission of helping to bring safe drinking water to developing nations.

The coolest thing about Twestival: it’s being hosted by Twitter communities in 175 different cities around the world. (What’s a Twitter community? Members of the microblogging site Twitter who happen to live in the same city.) Each Twestival event is different; but all proceeds go to charity: water. If you can’t attend on February 12th, or if there isn’t one in your city, you can still make a donation, donate your music, or enter the t-shirt design competition.

If reading about our Global Volunteering Fairs next week (in Washington DC, New York, and Boston) inspired you to want to support organizations in another country, but you aren’t able to travel, you might consider virtual volunteering.

Virtual volunteering allows you to offer your time and skills to worthy organizations, without having to leave home. Keep in mind, though, virtual volunteering isn’t synonymous with a short term commitment. Volunteering from afar can be just as time consuming, intensive, and meaningful as on-the-ground activities.

Virtual volunteer opportunities can be ongoing (check out this telecommuting volunteer role with The Seasteading Institute) or one-time activities (can you translate from English to Kashmiri?). They may involve an advanced degree or skillset (any turtle-supporting lawyers out there?), or they may be teen-friendly (put your social networking skills to good use by becoming a Red Recruit with the British Red Cross).

The opportunities to volunteer virtually are just as diverse as on-the-ground opportunties. If it suits your lifestyle, go for it! You’ll notice that “Virtual” is one of the options in the Country pull-down menu on our Volunteer Opportunity Advanced Search. (You can even volunteer virtually with us!)

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]