Are you one of the 1.7 million people who joined the group on Facebook to show how much you miss the planet formerly known as Pluto? Or are you active in a network like Brazen Careerist or Seattle 2.0 because that’s the professional circle you hang with?

People are passionate about joining other like-minded individuals. This is one of the main reasons why I love the work I do at Jolkona managing our various communities and working with our passionate team of volunteers. And this idea of “community” is something that is engrained in our vision of making giving fun and a part of every day life.

In going with this vision, I’m excited to announce the Jolkona Giving Communities feature we’re rolling out on Jolkona.org today. This feature was created as an easy way for you to organize your friends, colleagues, and extended network and view the overall impact you’re making together.

Giving Communities

We have a few active communities right now for passionate philanthropists like the Seattle Social Media Club Changemakers, Jolkona Team, and San Francisco Bay Area Hotties (one of my favorites).

These giving communities can be whatever you want them to be and are a fun way to see the change your network is making in the world.

How do you join a giving community?

Community membership is open to every single Jolkona donor. To join a community, follow these steps:

1. Go to the community page – either through the communities homepage or through the specific community’s page
2. Click the orange “Join community” in the upper right hand corner
3. Log into your Jolkona account
4. Congratulations, you’ve just joined one of Jolkona’s first giving communities!

You can always leave a community if it’s no longer applicable to you. (But why would you want to do that?)

Want to create your own community?

It’s easy!

1. Go to this page and fill out the form to start a giving community.
2. Upload a picture, include your hashtag to make your community more social, etc.
3. Invite your friends to join your community and start tracking your impact.

Community owners can always edit the content on community pages.

What do you think about this feature?

Play with it, try it out, and let me know what you think in the comments. Also, are there any features that you’d like to see us add in the future?

We’re excited to hear what you think!

Finally, after 6 months of Beta testing and incorporating 100s of feedback we are excited to remove the Beta tag from Jolkona Foundation’s website. Please check out our newly updated website available at www.jolkona.org. As our closest friends and supporters, you are invited to try out the new site today.

We will start a concerted outreach program next week. But, we wanted to give you the ability to try out the new site before anyone else.

Here are some highlights from this release:

1. New branding and logo. One of the major feedbacks we received was that our logo does not clearly communicate our mission. We spent significant amount of time revamping our logo and the tagline. One of our co-founders, Adnan Mahmud, explains the new logo in more detail in an earlier post.
2. Anyone can create an account. We have removed the invitation code and now anyone can sign up for a Jolkona website account and give.
3. Deep integration with Facebook. We understand that you might not want to create another web account. If you are a Facebook user, you can sign into Jolkona website using your Facebook account.
4. Invite your contacts easily. You can easily import your contacts from your web email accounts (e.g. MSN, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) and invite them to also join the Jolkona Family.
5. Share your Jolkona Experience with others. You can now find us on various social websites. We encourage you to become a Facebook fan, follow us on Twitter, and join our LinkedIn group.

We still have a long way to go, but we are now officially open for business.