Facebook Application Expands Public Awareness to Digestive Disease Patients

Posted by mike on February 24, 2009 under Uncategorized |

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.