Facebook Application Expands Public Awareness to Digestive Disease Patients
Posted by mike on February 24, 2009 under Uncategorized | 
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NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT:
Ariella Levine
Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation
646-943-7430
Michael Jaconi
FreeCause, Inc.
617-292-0200
The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America Introduces Social Media
Application to Advance Its Mission
Leading foundation for Crohn’s & Colitis Research Leverages Facebook to
Expand Public Awareness
New York, NY—February 24, 2009—The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of
America (CCFA) today announced the launch of a new web application on
Facebook. The new online property, developed by FreeCause, Inc., has
been designed to help patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative
colitis make connections within the Crohn’s and colitis community and to
facilitate creation of support networks for fund raising initiatives.
The application may be visited at http://apps.facebook.com/supportccfa/.
“We believe that social networking in the Web 2.0 environment has
emerged as one of the most efficient ways to grow and empower our
membership base,” says Marie Granieri, Senior Director of Marketing at
the Foundation. “The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s membership has a
tremendous track record in grass-roots fund-raising and advocacy for
government support to our research mission. This new tool should
amplify our member voices as they raise awareness and funds going
forward.”
Casey Adkisson, Co-Founder of FreeCause, Inc., says, “Social Network
Applications are the most efficient way for organizations to identify
new constituents and grow their membership bases online. CCFA is now at
the forefront of the movement to leverage Social Media in order to
expand public awareness.”
The challenges of living with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, two
painful and unpredictable diseases, collectively known as inflammatory
bowel diseases (IBD) can make it difficult to find time for outreach.
According to Sarah Levin Weiss, 29, a social worker living near
Cleveland, Ohio, and a Crohn’s disease patient, the new easy-to-navigate
Facebook application has already opened new doors for her. She
commented, “When I learned of the CCFA’s latest online property linking
the IBD community, I added the application to my Facebook profile. I
found a new kind of support online that instantly allowed me to connect
with other patients. I also invited friends and colleagues to add the
application to their profiles as a way of spreading awareness and
inviting participation in signature fund raising marathons and walks.”
She added, “Although IBD affects over 1.4 million people in this
country, most of them early in life, I find that there is a lot of
ignorance to overcome. This new web tool helps overcome the hurdles in
being vocal about the disease.”
The new Facebook application enables viral communication, contains
background on CCFA, a platform to share patient stories, and an
introduction to CCFA’s “Take Steps” and “Team Challenge” signature fund
raising events. This application serves as an extension of the
Foundation’s other online properties, and a vehicle by which the CCFA
can leverage the robust 170 million-person Facebook community in order
to build awareness and connect communication.
About FreeCause, Inc.
Headquartered in Boston, MA, FreeCause, Inc. (www.freecause.com
<http://www.freecause.com/> ) is a private company founded in 2006 by a
group of innovative Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers. As
an industry leader, FreeCause provides cutting-edge solutions to unlock
the value of constituent relationships for the benefit of non-profits
and other affinity-based organizations. The FreeCause custom browser
toolbars and social network applications are both dynamic and innovative
communication platforms that help to reach and engage supporters, fans,
or members in fundamentally new ways. With an affinity network of over
5 million active members on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace,
Bebo and Friendster, FreeCause is committed to providing the online
communications solutions organizations need to extend their online reach
and maximize the potential of their constituent relationships.
