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With local Twestival (Twitter +Festival) coming up in a couple of weeks, 10-13 September,  it’s time to have some fun, dig deep and raise some money for your local area. If Twestival Global’s success is anything to go by then Twestival local will be one big fat party and one big fat wad of cash raised, this time for causes in your local area.

Before Twestival (or global Global Twestival as the organizers are now calling it) the notion of charity was, to me, dull, annoying and far removed from where I was. It was what other people did.

My excuse? Where was my money actually going? If I donated to a big, established charity there was no way of following where my cash would end up. Was it paying office rent, staff pay, administration fees or was it actually going to a child in Africa?

When the Tsunami stuck in 2005 I was living/traveling in Australia and calls for charity donation popped up here, there and everywhere and I did not donate to any of them.

Instead, enamored by this feeling of needing to know where my money was going, on my next round the world stop in New Zealand, I bought a bucket and walked around the streets of Queenstown for a month raising money which I then took myself to the Tsunami affected parts of Sumatra in Indonesia and Phuket in Thailand. I met and befriended local families whose houses had been destroyed and some suffered family bereavement. After hearing their stories and knowing that my funds could directly make a difference and help recuperate their lives, I distributed the $3000 raised between them.

Fast forward to London and I had slipped back into fast lane life; the notion of charity was once again distant and the reality of annoying street fundraisers shoving a clip board in my face, hassling me to donate, had returned.

Then Twestival came along and made it cool to be part of charity fund raising, why? Partly because It happened through social media and partly because of the charity Twestival chose to donate its funds to- charity:water.

charity:water is a young charity (three years old). They document how the charity is growing and also, through social media (Twitter and video), document exactly what they are doing with your funds. I have been following their Twitter and subsequent progress with funds from Twestival for months.

And charity:water are not the only ones broadcasting through social media. Learn As One, a charity founded by the UK’s Steve Heyes, are also using social media to create transparency in the giving process.

Learn As One builds schools in Africa and was started after Heyes, working as a fundraiser himself, wanted an answer to  that reoccurring question, ‘‘Where exactly does my money go?”.

“Thanks to the ever increasing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube there was a cheap and effective way demonstrate the answer to thousands of people,” said Heyes on his site.

“Take a video camera and an SLR to Africa, find a community who need a school and give people in the communities a way to share their story with the world. Raw, honest and transparent so donors can see exactly who and how they can help,” he added.

Through a combination of blogging, Twitter and video, Learn As One donors can keep exactly up date with progress made and interact with communities in Africa by asking questions on Twitter.

Of course I understand any organization incurs running costs, but it’s this kind of interaction and transparency that makes the notion of charity less dubious to me – More charity transparency, now please!

In case you don’t know:  Twestival: launched with a tweet on 8 January 2009 and barely a month later on 12 February, there were 202 cities around the world hosting events to benefit charity: water.  Over 1,000 volunteers, crowdsourced through Twitter, contributed their skills, over 10,000 people participated globally and countless others donated or used their creativity to ensure 100% of all proceeds went direct to charity: water projects.  The total raised in one day was over $250k through these events and online donations; resulting in 55 wells with more than 17,000 people served in Uganda, Ethiopia, and India.

And here is the story of Charity:Water vid…

And Learn As One founder Steve Heyes from Africa

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