Do you know who your friends are?

Lucy Bernholz at Philanthropy 2173 questions Newsweek's recent assertion that Facebook is on the cutting edge of changing philanthropy.

To prove her point, she points to some great research over at Care2's frogloop. Unfortunately, the frogloop piece is almost nine months old. Some things have changed since then.

While I agree it is a big challenge for nonprofits to identify themselves as THE OFFICIAL Facebook site, I think most marketers are excited with Facebook because it kicks MySpace butt when it comes to researching who your cause supporters are.

That simple advantage will make it much easier for nonprofits to turn supporters of the cause into a valuable prospect list.

I once had a charity web manager tell me his group had 4,000 friends on MySpace.. which sounded pretty cool at first, but when he admitted he has no way to figure out WHO those people were or how to contact them directly.