Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, has just announced a new site called LikeMinded. The site will attempt to serve as an aggregate source for community involvement and local action. People can use the service to share stories of successful community projects and also as a place to find resources for getting their own project off the ground.
@craignewmark
craignewmarkideas for local change? @craigslist_fndn launched #LikeMinded today so
you can share them. @lkmnd http://bit.ly/lkmnd1
22 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
According to the site, here’s how you can use it:
Discovery
In LikeMinded Beta, you can discover two kinds of information about local issues you care about:
Resources: Resources are articles, videos, tools, and audio from around the web related to local community change. It’s information in its original form, available free from the source.
Projects: Projects are the story behind community change. What issue was addressed, how did the team do it, and did it work? Projects include visibility for the people and organizations who did the hard work and info about where and when it all happened. They are a great way to get a snapshot into how people addressed issues in their neighborhood.
You can discover information through the topics on our homepage, and you can explore more deeply at our full search page.
Sharing
Individuals and organizations are sharing local community stories through LikeMinded. The real magic comes when you share your story. What have you or your organization taken on? What cool projects have you read about? Help inspire others by sharing what you know as resources or projects.
The beta site allows users to search or share stories and resources in a variety of topics including health, education, safety, literacy and technology. Once within a category, you can learn about specific initiatives either completed or still in progress – for example, “Book Drive to promote literacy in San Francisco.” Each initiative’s page hold information about affiliated networks of sponsors, methodology and resources.
“We should all live in great communities: strong, healthy, democratic, sustainable, collaborative places. We built LikeMinded to make that happen. People are doing incredible things to strengthen their local communities. Too often, they don’t get credit for their amazing work. As importantly, people in other communities don’t learn from one another’s successes often enough.”
Last month, Craig Newmark launched craigconnects, a web platform that attempts to connect people through information and resources in certain “social good” areas like volunteering and community building.