By Alexandra Berzon

A new social networking Web site is organized around a single, simple question: “What do you want to change in the world?” The answer, it seems—at least in the week or so since the site’s been up—

ranges from ending the crises in Darfur to letting women drive in Saudi Arabia.

In the spectrum of social networking between mega-sites like MySpace and Facebook, and a proliferation of recently launched niche venues like USVetSpace.com (for veterans) and MyBarackObama.com (for supporters of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama), Change.org sits somewhere in the middle. In its brief life, it has sought to become a clearinghouse for causes environmental, social and religious. And with its focus on tying networking with fundraising, online nonprofit marketing experts say it could become an interesting experiment to test whether online network participation leads to giving.

A recent graduate of Stanford and the London School of Economics, Change.org founder Ben Rattray spent time studying theories behind community engagement. “There are so many worthwhile causes, but how do you foster a sense of connectiveness?” said Mr. Rattray. “As human beings we can either be incredibly generous or incredibly selfish and callous, and how do you create a context where you can elicit that generosity?”

Nonprofit professionals have been asking those questions for a long time. Socially-oriented sites like Gather.com and Care2.com contain strong nonprofit presences. Meanwhile, nonprofits also manage active presences on mass networks like MySpace and YouTube.

So far, social networking has been used primarily for spurring advocacy, and for fundraising around disaster relief. There are online fundraising clearinghouses and social networking sites organized around issues—but Change.org is trying to carve out a space for itself by bringing those two concepts together. “There’s a theory in fundraising that it’s not celebrity influence but friends and family that make a difference,” said consultant Nancy Schwartz. “If you create an online fundraising community of friends and family that’s issue-oriented, that’s an interesting feature.”

The networks on Change.org are organized around causes and organizations. Any member can enter a cause, or desired “change”. That creates a place for users to write comments, list actions to take and suggest places to donate money. Using nonprofit database Guidestar and online donation collector JustGive, Change.org allows users to form “giving networks” and wire money directly to nonprofits.

The company, which is not a nonprofit itself, keeps 1 percent of each donation. Mr. Rattray also plans to generate revenue by selling space for nonprofits to conduct online campaigns.

Family and friends have funded the five-employee company so far. Mr. Rattray said he is interested in a socially conscious angel investor or fund hopping on board. “My position is, given how small the team is, and given the potential size of the network, this is easy to monetize,” said Mr. Rattray. “We will probably need to take funding, but it will only be from somebody who cares passionately about the idea and knows the money is incidental.”

But Ms. Schwartz said that with a presumably young demographic, Change.org could find it easy to build up its Web site with users, but harder to translate that into donations—key to the company’s business model. “It’s much more likely to generate online advocacy involvement. That’s less of a commitment than giving money,” said Ms. Schwartz.

Beka Economopoulos, an online organizer for Greenpeace, met with Mr. Rattray and set up a profile on Change.org. She said the organization is open to all types of online social networking experiments. “Greenpeace is interested in going to those places where people are hanging out,” said Ms. Economopoulos. “We feel like it’s important to keep our finger on the pulse and offer as many opportunities or channels for people to get involved as possible.”

But some in the field have become concerned that the proliferation of sites is spreading potential activists thin across too many separate networks. “One of the really great things about social networking tools is that any individual can grab them and put them into action, and actually make a difference in terms of influencing how things happen,” said Alan Rosenblatt of InternetAdvocacyCenter. “There are a lot of really great Web sites out there. I hope we can figure out a way to have them talk to each other.