So — with that in mind — our gang at Mediaite led a charge to collect donations for a company-wide drive to support one worthy organization, which our boss and founder Dan Abrams said he would match. Our charity of choice was Robin Hood’s “Food For Good” campaign (a favorite here, and for which I was one of the co-chairs) and together a group of Mediaite staffers and contributors, as well as Abrams Research staffers with whom we share an office, chocolate and a happy camaraderie, stepped up and donated to make this holiday season a little bit better for hungry New Yorkers in need.

Our little office raised $500 — which Dan has matched. So! Robin Hood! You are now $1000 closer to your goal of feeding 120,000 people this holiday season.. There’s still a week to close the gap before the end of the year — anyone out there feeling competitive? If everyone on the Mediaite 50 donates $50, that’ll make a nice dent…Denton?

Other charitable news from HQ: Before Mediaite launched, I coordinated three surveys for Abrams Research which each had a bonus question for which the winner would “win” a donation to charity. Here they are:

• For our Financial Media Survey, we asked our respondents to predict what the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be on June 30, 2009. The winner was CNN’s Myron Kandel (the Dow closed at 8447 that day and his guess was 8411). Kandel won $500 to his charity of choice: Project Sunshine, organization that provides free educational, recreational, and social programs to children and their families affected by life-threatening illnesses or other serious medical challenges, in 100 major cities across the U.S. and internationally in Canada, China, Israel, Kenya and Puerto Rico. It has an army of more than 10,000 volunteers worldwide making a difference for over 60,000 children. Pretty wonderful. Thank you, Myron Kandel, for supporting them!
• For our Social Media Survey during the 2009 Social Media Week, we asked our respondents to suggest an old media-new media “shotgun wedding” moving into the brave new future. The winner was MIT business school student Amanda Peyton, who suggested Reader’s Digest + Digg + AARP, to provide a content-ranking system for an older demographic that is quickly getting up the technological curve but has been under-served by targeted social media thus far. Brilliant. In her name, Abrams Research donated $500 to Charity:Water, the beneficiary of Social Media Week’s “Twestival.”
• For our Luxury Industry Survey, we asked our respondents to suggest the next big innovation for luxury brands, for a prize of $250 to their charity of choice. The winner was BuzzFeed’s (and formerly Theory’s) Amanda Dobbins, whose innovative suggestion was for Marc Jacobs to host after-hours “pseudo-underground dance parties” in his West Village store (“they could replace The Beatrice”). If he took her up on it he’s too exclusive for us, because we’ve heard nothing, but that kind of creative thinking in creating a PR opportunity using existing resources (and adding to the social good!) is what keeps brands buzzy. Amanda’s charity of choice was Harlem Children’s Zone, which provides education, social-service and community-building programs to children and families in Harlem, and provides continued educational support to children from early education through to graduation, and even college. The goal is to end the cycle of generational poverty — and to give kids a fighting chance to do it by giving them essential skills and nurturing from the very start, and right on through as they grow and develop. It’s a great charity so thank you, Amanda, for supporting it!

So — there you have it. 2009 hasn’t exactly been an easy year financially — for donors or the charities that rely on them. It feels good to do our part to help, however we can. So — happy holidays to Robin Hood, Project Sunshine, Charity:Water and Harlem Children’s Zone, and to all of you. Here’s to a 2010 where everyone can afford to give a little more and need a little less.

Happy holidays!

But not everyone is so lucky. This Thanksgiving, the economy sucks (not to put too fine a point on it. But how else do you describe 10.2% unemployment nationwide?). In New York, where Mediaite is based and where Mayor Bloomberg rules the city with a shaky mandate, there will be a lot of people going hungry on Thanksgiving.

Here is the part where you help!

Enter Robin Hood’s Food for Good campaign (an initiative I’ve been part of). Robin Hood, New York’s leading poverty-fighting organization, has teamed with FreshDirect to deliver holiday meals to feed 120,000 New Yorkers in need. $50 covers the cost and delivery of a complete holiday meal for eight (including turkey, stuffing, sides – the works), with 100 percent of all proceeds going to the cause.

(What’s that? You want to donate right now? Why, go ahead!)

Two things make this year different for philanthropy: The recession and social media. Both were around and obviously influential last year, but this is one year later, after the explosion of Twitter and the implosion of the economy. The bad news is, the economy sucks (see above); the good news is, there are so very many more ways in which to reach people one year later. That’s where iFed comes in.

iFed is actually shorthand for how Robin Hood’s Food For Good (aka “The Charitable Campaign Name With The Most “OO”s Ever”) is using social media. Basically, we are going after you WHEREVER YOU ARE. So if today you’ve noticed a whole bunch of tweets along the lines of

@jimmyfallon Help us feed thousands of needy families in NYC this Thanksgiving: http://bit.ly/SsBRd Please RT? #feednyc

…well then you’ve seen the OO’s in action. We’re not only tweeting for donations, we’re tweeting for awareness, hence the mass-messaging. (Also, note the “Please RT” — Brian Solis, we are listening! Now please RT.)

There’s also a “favorite holiday memory” tweet-meme plus feeds in from Flickr, Facebook and Twitter, plus a running donation count of hungry New Yorkers fed by the campaign (currently at 28,992). It all runs through the iFed page, which serves as your personal iFed hub for all giving and OO-related activities. This, incidentally, includes attendance at oh, just the biggest blow-out iFeeding-double-OO-ing NYC bash ever: One $50 donation gets you a ticket to the November 12 Food for Good par-tay at M2, hosted by Tiki Barber (I know! I think he’s hot, too!) plus a bunch of other boldface types. But really it will just be fun, made more fun because it will result in doing something good for people who need it.

With more than 1.3 million people now relying on emergency food in this city, New York is experiencing a true crisis. Things are tough right now for everyone but if you can donate, this will make a very real difference. Even if you can’t — we know, we know, it sucks — it doesn’t cost anything to tweet. Join me in harassing Jimmy Fallon and Rainn Wilson, won’t you? And if you donate and send me proof of donation here, I will make up a funny Thanksgiving memory that I wish we’d shared, and tweet about it. And then our crack team of social media mavens including Soraya Darabi, Rachel Sterne, Brooke Mooreland and Julia Kaginsky will blow you Twitter kisses and then when you meet them at the party it will be awkward, like it always is when you meet people you make friends with online in real life.

But that’s the Internet! It’s a magical, magical place this holiday season — so won’t you donate? Or tweet? Or Facebook? Or come to the event? Seriously, it’s not like we’re not giving you options. But they all lead to the same place: This Thanksgiving, we just want you to say one thing: “I FED!”

Thanks from your OO’s,

Robin Hood Food For Good