Follow the Leader is the second of three interactive service challenges sponsored by the Points of Light Institute to inspire people to become involved in community service. FTL integrates social media and game dynamics to move people to make commitments to service. In this interview with Michael Nealis, Interactive Strategy Coordinator for HandsOn Network, he outlines the goals, social media elements, and potential learnings from this unique social media activism campaign.

November 14 is World Diabetes Day. In honor of World Diabetes Day, I'm spotlighting the Diabetes Hands Foundation, one of the most nimble, experimental organizations around. They've just launched Big Blue Test and the video challenge. In this post, I discuss what makes DHF so experimental, its successes and learnings, and how the Big Blue Test was conceived and executed.

Estrella Rosenberg, founder of Big Love Little Hearts, came up with the idea for the #100x100 Foursquare campaign nine days before the launch. This is the story of how she promoted awareness of CHD through Foursquare, leveraged $25,000 in the meantime, and laid the groundwork for lasting legislative change.

Beth Kanter's Blog, Beth's Blog, is the starting point for social media and technology. It's an investigation into what works, and what doesn't. In this blog post, I talk about five reasons everyone should read Beth's Blog.

How important are bloggers to online social media campaigns? What is the value bloggers bring, and how should campaigns best use bloggers before and during their social media campaigns? In this blog post, I consider how four social media campaigns used blogger influence during the campaign, and the degrees of effectiveness: a micro finance campaign for Opportunity International, Visible Government's Beers for Canada, and Tweetsgiving 2008 and 2009.

Want to know how a Flickr campaign originates, evolves and grows? In this interview with Georgina Goodlander, of the Luce Foundation Center for American Art, she explains the history of the innovative "Fill the Gap" campaign, its progress, and how it will evolve.

How do you raise funds for a project with an eBook? In this interview with Jasmin Tragas, who created the eBook Worldshapers, Extraordinary Women Making a Difference to raise funds for a microloan program in the Philippines. In this post, I interview Jasmin about her experience raising funds through the eBook, putting the project together, and lessons learned.

The ONE Sermon Campaign has all the elements of a successful social media campaign: easy to participate, continued offline and online engagement, potentially viral. This post explores why the ONE Sermon Campaign is a great model for nonprofit social media campaigns.