Blog Action Day (BAD08) is an annual nonprofit event focused on uniting the world’s bloggers, podcasters, and videocasters to post about the same issue on the same day. The goal is to raise awareness and generate a global discussion on one issue. The theme this year was poverty and the event took place on October 15^th. Beginning this year the organizers will be compiling a selection of the best posts from the day into a short report for distribution to NGOs and the public, to showcase some of the innovative ideas and actions that came out of the dialogue. The event generates a huge influx of web searches on the theme and organizers estimate that 13 million individuals visited over 12 thousand participating blogs.

Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch.com, a Washington Post technology blog, highlighted the online giving marketplace Kiva in his BAD08 blog. He created a 37 member lending team that has already generated $1,700 through 53 loans. While Kiva has already enjoyed tremendous growth as an online lending portal that distributes loaned money to microfinance organizations, to have a Washington Post feature encouraging more lending is never a bad thing. To put that number into context, in this week alone Kiva has generated over 12 thousand new loans worth close to $900,000.

Despite the focused attention that BAD08 pushes for, the global financial crisis has overshadowed it and other poverty causes recently. October 16^th was “World Food Day” which is similar to BAD08 in that it aims to focus attention on an issue, in this case, hunger. Jacques Diouf, head of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said “The media have highlighted the financial crisis at the expense of the food crisis.” Vore Gana Seck, President of Dakar-based CONGAD (Council of NGOs Supporting Development) told Reuters in the Senegalese capital. “If they are able to raise funds for the banking system, they can also find ways to reduce poverty in the world. I think it’s a problem of priority.”

By Scott Everett, Research Assistant

Resources:

COMMON DREAMS: Home, “Hunger Eclipsed by Financial Crisis on World Food Day”, October 16, 2008

TECH CRUNCH: Home, “Help Eliminate Poverty, Make a Microloan to An Entrepreneur”, October 15, 2008

BETA NEWS: Home, “Blog Action Day comes and goes again…Did you notice?”, October 16, 2008